Cephalopodcast - The Ocean Podcast

Mangrove periwinkle (Littoraria angulifera)

I try to take a walk during lunch whenever possible. Sometimes it is just too dang hot, but today it was pleasant enough to make it down to the boardwalk. I came through at high tide and could not help but notice all the snails bunched up around the prop roots of the red mangroves. These were the coffee bean snails (Melampus sp.), and just as you might expect from the name, they are small, brown gastropods about the size of a bean. I watched what looked like a stone crab scuttle up one of the roots and dislodge a number of the snails. Then he dropped back down, presumably to be feast on the jetsam.

Higher up on one of the branches, almost at eye-level, was a mangrove periwinkle (Littoraria angulifera). I brought my iPhone with me and managed to get this marginal picture of it. I have a technique for getting macro shots with the crummy 2 megapixel camera which I will share with you in the near future.

I also learned today about the Life Photo meme via the Other 95% blog. Every Thursday the folks at Life Photo ask that one “post a photo of something that either lives, or is a product of life.” Eric Heupel contributed a post on the hard little crustaceans called ostracods (seed shrimp). I thought I would try this meme too and share my periwinkle picture from this afternoon.