Surfing Snails, Bubble Crabs, and Evil Thimbles
I just watched an episode of The Blue Planet about some fascinating creatures.
Let's start with this GIANT FREAKING SNAIL HOLY CRAP.
Actually it's called the Florida Horse Conch, but it's not a real conch. Whatever it is this thing is definitely HUGE. Its shell can be up to TWO FEET in length. WTF. It lives between the Gulf of Mexico and North Carolina on the Atlantic Coast.
Source and more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleuroploca_gigantea
Next is this adorable teeny tiny jellyfish! And it's not completely evil, but it will give you a horrible sounding condition known as "seabather's eruption"...gross. It's a rather graphic name for a not-so-serious condition of irritating red bumps caused when the thimble-sized jellies get trapped under a swimsuit.
Insert your own inappropriate joke about crabs here.
To make it even cuter, they congregate in huge masses of squee.
These bitty buggers were just too cute to leave out:
Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/linuche-unguiculata\
Next up is the Sand Bubbler Crab, which is also charmingly adorable because of its habit of making tiny balls of sand.
This crab spends all his time while the tide is out systematically sifting the moist sand through his mouth for invertebrates, collecting the sand on his head until it's a nice little ball that he then tosses aside. He also does all this in fast forward (about 12 balls a minute) because there's not much time before the tide comes back in. While hundreds of crabs do this at once, the coast rapidly turns into a work of art...thousands upon thousands of tiny, perfectly shaped spheres cover every inch of the sand. Also, after he eats, the silly crab is so worn out he becomes lethargic and passes out among his balls, leaving him vulnerable to predation for a while as he digests. Finally he retreats back to his burrow to wait for the next day.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_bubbler_crab and video: http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/29027-fooled-by-nature-sand-bubbler-crabs-video.htm
Finally, I realize that the surfing snail was posted back in 2008, but I thought it deserved another mention.
The plough or surfing snail sniffs out the chemical scents of rotting fish and uses its large foot to catch a wave up to its meal. It also uses this surfing ability to migrate offshore for breeding.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/factfiles/molluscs/surfing_snail_bg.shtml
Let's start with this GIANT FREAKING SNAIL HOLY CRAP.
Actually it's called the Florida Horse Conch, but it's not a real conch. Whatever it is this thing is definitely HUGE. Its shell can be up to TWO FEET in length. WTF. It lives between the Gulf of Mexico and North Carolina on the Atlantic Coast.
Source and more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleuroploca_gigantea
Next is this adorable teeny tiny jellyfish! And it's not completely evil, but it will give you a horrible sounding condition known as "seabather's eruption"...gross. It's a rather graphic name for a not-so-serious condition of irritating red bumps caused when the thimble-sized jellies get trapped under a swimsuit.
Insert your own inappropriate joke about crabs here.
To make it even cuter, they congregate in huge masses of squee.
These bitty buggers were just too cute to leave out:
Source: http://www.answers.com/topic/linuche-unguiculata\
Next up is the Sand Bubbler Crab, which is also charmingly adorable because of its habit of making tiny balls of sand.
This crab spends all his time while the tide is out systematically sifting the moist sand through his mouth for invertebrates, collecting the sand on his head until it's a nice little ball that he then tosses aside. He also does all this in fast forward (about 12 balls a minute) because there's not much time before the tide comes back in. While hundreds of crabs do this at once, the coast rapidly turns into a work of art...thousands upon thousands of tiny, perfectly shaped spheres cover every inch of the sand. Also, after he eats, the silly crab is so worn out he becomes lethargic and passes out among his balls, leaving him vulnerable to predation for a while as he digests. Finally he retreats back to his burrow to wait for the next day.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_bubbler_crab and video: http://videos.howstuffworks.com/animal-planet/29027-fooled-by-nature-sand-bubbler-crabs-video.htm
Finally, I realize that the surfing snail was posted back in 2008, but I thought it deserved another mention.
The plough or surfing snail sniffs out the chemical scents of rotting fish and uses its large foot to catch a wave up to its meal. It also uses this surfing ability to migrate offshore for breeding.
Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/factfiles/molluscs/surfing_snail_bg.shtml