Sand Mason Tube

[Ollokot]

Hi Folks,
Thought this might be of interest,
Best Wishes, Pat

[JohnRostron]

Excellent close-up. If you had not said what it was, then I would have identified it as a Caddis-fly larval case!

Having been told, then the brown objects are obviously pieces of Algae. Usually the Sandmason tube has filaments radiating from it, but I guess it has to begin somewhere. I would say that the purple fragment on the tube is part of a sea-urchin spine.

John

[Ollokot]

Hi John,
I was wondering what that purple fragment was, you could have hit the nail on the head there.
Here are two images from the same day,




Pat

[JohnRostron]

We are rather puzzled by the first of these. Is it a soft-bodied animal or not? If it is, then it is probably an anemone. If not then ??? There are also several worm-tubes visible.

The second picture is very clearly a pair of the common Beadlet Anemones, Actinia equina. My wife did her Ph.D on the sex-life of these animals! The snail sitting on top of the left-hand one looks like the Common Periwinkle, Littorina littorea. Hiding between the two anemones there is what looks like a topshell of some sort, Gibbula or Monodonta. The right-hand anemone is displaying its blue acrorhagi. These are defensive, being loaded with stinging cells.

These are nice pictures of what are very common animals, but rarely photographed!

[Ollokot]

Hi John,
Thank you for your very informative reply, the first image is indeed an anemone and the animals in the second are as you described.
Best Wishes,
Pat

[Texas Dave]

I had no idea what I was looking at until I read down a few post. Very interesting details captured.