The Emerald Green Paddle Worm (or Green Leaf Worm) Eulalia clavigera ranges from a few to 10 centimetres and is common in rockpools in Britain (although most are probably more familiar with their egg masses, see here). During a recent scramble over the Trefusis Headland I noticed some out of the water on Codium adhaerens seaweed. Using my cygnustech diffuser and a bit of extra magnification courtesy of a Raynox clip-on macrolens I got to work! Taking photos of these worms is difficult as they are continuously on the move. It is also hard to get close to them with the diffuser bumping into the rocks and obscuring the light. However, they are very rewarding subjects; worms are usually overlooked but they are very beautiful! The Codium seaweed proved a perfect background, absorbing all light, a bit like black velvet. When you spend enough time on your knees peering down, you also always notice other things, some tiny springtails Anura maritima as well as some even tinier red mites (see also this old post). One of my new year’s resolutions is to photograph more worms – and the good thing is that there are many other species available, including paddle worm species, one of which is in the process of being described new to science by my friend David Fenwick).
There was little wind last Saturday and a superlow tide so time for some rockpool macro! Above, a Purple Topshell Calliostoma zizyphinum; common but and pretty. I liked the background which was achieved using a relatively shallow depth of field (f/8). I took my time exploring a small patch (core body temperature slowly decreasing) as this is the only way to find creatures that are smaller than topshells. I spotted a St. John’s Stalked Jellyfish Calvadosia cruxmelitensis and took the same shallow depth of field approach (f/5.6). Lastly a pretty little mollusc: the White Tortoiseshell Limpet Tectura virginea. (It is only about half a centimetre long, so I had to use my CMC-1 wetlens for extra magnification.) This species is found on calcified red seaweeds on which it grazes. Their colouration is amazing (I especially like that the growing edge of the shell looks very different). Similar-sized Blue-rayed Limpets (see this recent post) are much more often photographed than this species – what can I say, Tortoiseshell Limpets are the hipster’s choice!
Easterlies (bad viz) and low tides meant some macro photography in the rockpools this Saturday. The water is getting chillier but staying in for two hours is still possible. I returned to a subject I tried my hand at before: the tube feet of a Green Sea Urchin (Psammechinus miliaris). The 60mm macro + cmc-1 wetlens plus some cheeky cropping gets me close, although I always want to get even closer! I was happier with the results than the previous times, so I posted it on instagram (@an_bollenessor). Below a more zoomed out view of the underside of the urchin, yours truly in the water, a common brittlestar, a small brittlestar, a pheasant shell, a tiny nermertean worm which might be this (thanks David Fenwick!) and a detail of a redspeckled anemone.
It was a glorious day last Sunday so time to get outdoors. After a pitstop at Windmill Farm (see here), we sat down at Kennack Sands Beach. I brought my scuba kit as I wanted to have a little looksee under water. I could not find any (shore)diving reports on this location, but I had snorkeled here a few times before and it looked interesting, a serpentine reef parting the beach in two. The tide was high and there was a bit of a swell so it took some swimming out – even so I never got any deeper than seven meters. I was a bit disappointed at first: the sands were shifting and there was no chance of finding interesting flatfish or molluscs there, the rocks has furbelows kelp on them but otherwise nothing too special. I then found a slightly deeper gully and took a closer look at the rocks and found loads of interesting little things, even two tiny dead man’s fingers soft coral!
The inhalant (left pic, 8 lobes) and exhalant (right pic, 6 lobes) siphon of the Sea Vase seasquirt (Ciona intestinalis). The pigments are thought to function as photoreceptors. This is a common species, especially in habitats disturbed by humans, and not too pretty (the latin name means ‘pillar of intestines’…) but if you zoom in everything reveals beautiful features! Quite moody shots, to which I have gravitated this year. I like the black backgrounds, which is achieved by letting very little light into the camera, with the strobes only lighting up the subject in the foreground – unable to illuminate anything in the open water (‘negative space’) behind. (A similar effect can be achieved using a ‘snoot’, but I have never managed to get that to work…) I have also tried to get closer and closer up with my macro wetlens, ideally I’d have some sort of microscope underwater! If you are on instagram, check out @an_bollenessor for more pics as ‘posts’ and as ‘stories’.
The Pheasant Shell is one of my favourite little critters in the rockpools in Falmouth. It is a bit weird to refer to these organisms as ‘shells’ actually, as they are living things and the nonliving shell is ofcourse only a part of them. The confusion extends to its scientific name: this species was previously known as Tricolia pullus, but has recently been split into a Southern European T. pullus species and a Northern European T. picta species. Perhaps the dust needs to still settle on that one.
I have taken these photos, on different occasions, with the mzuiko 60mm macrolens and the nauticam cmc-1 wetlens. The extra magnification the latter lens (screwed onto the housing) offers is great; although somehow I always want to get even CLOSER! I have not nailed the Pheasant Shell shot either. Reflecting on these pics I think I need to use a shallower depth of field to get rid of cluttered backgrounds. Next time.
The calcified operculum (the little door to close the shell) is clearly visible in the first photo above, as are the tentacles. On the second photo above you can even see that the left ‘neck lobe’ is more deeply digitated (fingerlike) than the right one. For more detailed (studio)shots of this and other molluscs please see Morddyn’s flickr account. I will post more macroshots of other mollusc species soon!
Dear reader, it has been a while! With the weather taking a turn for the worse, I thought it would be high time to start updating the blog again. I have taken more photos this year than ever before, and actually have dived my local shore site “Silver Steps” in Falmouth ‘to death’, so now have plenty of material. I’d thought I start with a post on one of my favourite fish, the Black-faced Blenny (Tripterygion delaisi). This is a beautiful little fish (a triple-fin blenny, not a ‘true’ blenny) that lives under rock overhangs, usually perched upside down. Breeding males are bright yellow with a black head and an electric blue edged dorsal fin, while females and males outside of the breeding season have a mottled brown-white coloration (which is equally beautiful testified by the pic on the top right). These fish (especially the females) are skittish and also require a bit of contortion to photograph under the overhangs but it is more than worth it! Below a photo-dump of fish shots taken with my 60mm macro lens and a combination of that lens and a superduper macro-wide-angle wetlens (details of which I am bound to bore you with in coming posts!).
My son’s favourite place in Cornwall is the small nature reserve Windmill Farm on the Lizard peninsula (probably named after the Cornish “Lys Ardh”, meaning “high court” rather than being named after its lizards). The small pools in the heathland here are good for dragonflies in summer but the main attraction for us here are the reptiles and amphibians. The UK is not blessed with a very diverse herpetofauna but this is a pretty good place to go ‘herping’. Grass snakes are rare here and I do not know of people seeing them here, but adders can be found in the right places. The female pictured above was tiny, not longer than 20 cm but still very feisty, striking at me. The 60mm lens meant I had to come up close but it was more cute than threatening. Slow worms are quite common here. They usually creep away when discovered but some stay put and are easy to photograph. It is also possible to spot viviparous lizards here (‘proper’ lizards with legs) but a pic has to wait for another post.
This is a weird little hydroid and so only has a Latin name to go by: Candelabrum cocksii. It was first described by Cocks in his ‘Contributions to the fauna of Falmouth’ in the 1850s and it is quite common locally. I find them mostly as pictured here, but sometimes I see them with their foot extended, going from a centimetre to 8 centimetres or so in length. This allows them to rove over the rock surface in search of tiny (crustacean) prey. Their mouth is located at the end of the trunk which is covered in ‘capitate’ tentacles (see the pic below for anatomical labels). The white spheres are gonophores used for reproduction. It should be possible in summer when these hermaphrodites reproduce to see dedicated clasper tentacles holding the embryos, that would be cool (to me at least!). Btw, I remembered I posted about this species not even that long ago! See here and also see this link and this link from fellow enthusiasts across the pond who likewise have been fascinated by Candelabrum.
This seems like a familiar way to start a blog post but here I go again: ‘the weather has been terrible lately and I have not been in the water!’. March used to be my favourite time for snorkeling because the seaweeds look at their best, but the last three years it has been windy and wet, surely because of climate change…
To keep the blog going (a bit), I have dug out some images from a few dives last year featuring Inachus spider crabs. There are three species, I. phalangium, I. dorsettensis and I. leptochirus, which can be told apart by the arrangement of tubercules on their carapace, but these are often obscured by epiphyte growth, and so I am keeping it to Inachus sp. All species are associated with Snakelocks Anemone (Anemonia viridis) hosts. The photo above is taken using a weird ‘wide angle macro’ wetlens (INON UFL-M150 ZM80). This perspective always fascinated me but it is difficult to achieve. This lens does the job, although it is incredibly ‘soft’, especially around the edges. The close focusing also makes it difficult to direct the strobe light on the subject. So there is a tradeoff between getting the surroundings in view and sharpness. Below first some sharper shots using my 60mm macrolens, followed by some macro wide angle shots (they happen to be each of the different Anemonia colour morph):
I will leave you with the following interesting bit on the biology of these crabs by Diesel (Ethology, 1986):
I. phalangium females are site-constant, and live in the protection of one anemone or group. Males travel frequently between anemones harbouring females due to spawn; they copulate and guard the females until spawning, after which the male leaves again. A male operates in a patrol area containing 3-8 anemone groups and up to 8 females, visiting each female in turn repeatedly just before it is due to spawn. Patrol areas of different males may overlap, with resulting competition to fertilize a female’s next brood. Large males have higher reproductive success than small ones. Females live up to 8 months after the moult of puberty and hatch up to six broods, and males live up to 7 months as adults. A male could fertilize a calculated 26,000 eggs, whilst a female’s reproductive potential is ca. 4,200 eggs. Mortality risks are higher for males than for females, probably because of increased predation while leaving the protection of anemones in order to visit females. Males learn the positions of anemones harbouring females in their patrol areas, and when these are due to spawn. This allows a male to travel with a target and arrive punctually to fertilize the next brood due in his circuit. I. phalangium is the first marine invertebrate reported to use a “schedule” of localities and times for visiting prespawning females. In this way males minimize searching time and mortality risk, and maximize the number of broods fertilized.
An Bollenessor 