Shell short

There was time at Sekudu to peer down at the shore's stodgier residents, many of which were hardened ingrates who went about their business with little heed to my duck. Others, like this dove snail, seemed to take delight in confounding my attempts to freeze their movements, making subtle but sudden swerves to stay firmly out of focus.     

With its mantle almost fully extended over the shell, this Miliaris Cowrie resembles a hairy slug more than a polished snail.

Chay Hoon found this volvatellid on the shore's lush Caulerpa patches. This sap-sucking slug has a thin shell with a pointy end and a pair of rolled rhinophores on its head.

Two of these nudibranchs were mulling on a bed of algae, having ceased whatever risque activity they were carrying out before their discovery. The slugs' specific name recalls East African textiles with similarly bold and brilliant patterns. 

A prominent layer of organic encrustations cover the home of this hermit crab. The need for an upgrade looms but the prospect of affordable housing dims in a market of animal spirits.

This crab is a study in confusion, for at first glance, it looked like a bizarre arthropod with grasping forelegs and two long cerci. What appeared to be tails turned out to be the long filamentous antennae of a masked burrowing crab. The animals are usually buried in sand, using their antennae to form a breathing tube, but this individual had just moulted and was still having trouble telling up from down.   

A mother not to be messed with, this berried Stone Crab wields shell-cracking claws borne on sturdy meri that'd likely win a wrestle with my duck's pale and paltry arms. 

Like neighbours that fail to see to eye to eye, two snapping shrimp occupy burrows on opposite sides of a live fan shell. Brimming with housepride, they shovelled and shoved out debris that cluttered their chambers, refusing to accept their roles as mere prawns in the chain of life and death that binds each creature on this shore and lays bare their secrets in the dark hours between lucid dreams and daily insanity.

Comments

[Aydin]

interesting stuff...