Cast ashore Saturday 25th March 207

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Wow what a day, after clear skies overnight, (no good for migrants), the morning soon warmed up and a walk along the last high water was fascinating.

With hundreds of Razor pod shells washed along with countless Tellins, and Venus spp shells it was great to also see, for my first time, thousands of By-the-wind Sailor, Velella velella, despite the appearance of the living animal this is not a Jellyfish, but rather a colony of individual polyps a pluestonic animal. All that was visible today were the papery skeletal remains but nevertheless an attractive looking creature.


By-the-wind Sailor
Another first for me for the beach was a tiny Common Starfish, Asterias rubens.  

Common Starfish
An unusual shaped Cuttlefish bone, oval shaped with a prominent spine and a tinge of pink, possibly the Elegant Cuttlefish, Sepia elegans.



ElegantCuttlefish (bone) ?
I also found a "sea bean", at first I thought it was a Sea Mouse, Aphrodita aculeate, but realised it was a seed pod, after opening it I extracted the bean, it awaits identification.

If anyone has an idea email me at:   paul.pembreylnr@outlook.com


Sea Bean ?


Comments

  1. Barry Stewart25 March 2017 at 20:17

    That seed looks very interesting - Richard will be very interested in it. We saw a few Elegant Cuttlefish at Rhossilil too

    ReplyDelete
  2. Barry Stewart25 March 2017 at 21:41

    Just checked and the cuttlefish I saw looked more like orbignyana

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Paul Aubrey25 March 2017 at 23:22

      Hi Barry, when I first identified the cuttlefish I thought it was orbignyana, and even put it in the blog as that, then I looked on a webpage and decided that the spine was too short, was the spine on your specimen longer?

      Delete

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