Category Archives: molluscs

Dog Whelks at Kynance Cove

Posted on by under crustaceans, molluscs, mzuiko60mm

A trip to one of our favourite places today: Kynance Cove on the Lizard Peninsula. The weather was such that snorkeling was a big no, but after some wind and rain, luckily the sun came out for a bit (which it should, it is July!). I took some macro shots of the rocks at low tide using my new Cygnustech diffuser. This contraption makes the flash light much less harsh, and is pretty much essential when taking (non-natural light) macro shots. This is one of the best diffusers out there and I can highly recommended it (are plenty of reviews are available online). Some of the shots were taken with the Raynox DCR-250 macro attachment in front of the macro lens for a little bit of extra magnification.

Anyway, there is not a lot of animal diversity on this battered coast of green and red serpentine rock: barnacles, dog whelks, mussels and limpets mainly. Above a selection of photos highlighting some small Dog Whelks (Nucella lapillus). This predatory species can come in many more colour varieties than we found today (see here for example). The limpets are either the Common Limpet (Patella vulgata) or the Blackfooted Limpet (P. depressa); you need to be able to see the animal to be sure. The barnacles are Montagu’s Stellate Barnacles (Chthamalus montagui) (I might have this wrong; I must confess I never really gave barnacles the attention they deserve). Not too spectacular but you gotta try something when you cannot take photos underwater!

New Nudibranch Book

Posted on by under molluscs, nudibranchs

Last week I had a very special delivery in the post: the second edition of Nudibranchs of Britain, Ireland and Northwest Europe by Picton and Morrow (available HERE amongst other (web)shops). I received a free copy because I contributed photos for two not so commonly encountered egg-eating seaslugs: Calma glaucoides and Calma gobioophaga. I was really chuffed with this, as apart from the authors, many real experts contributed photos (including Cornwall’s very own David ‘aphotomarine‘ Fenwick). Although sea slugs might seem ‘niche’ to some, they are among the prettiest and most diverse marine creatures and I am sure many divers, snorkelers and rockpoolers (and readers of this blog) will really enjoy this book (see also this review)!

The funny thing is that I have actually not taken many photos of nudibranchs at all…. I have only been serious about macro (and in the possession of strobes that actually work…) for a few years but moreover, I am not very good at finding them! This publication has really spurred me on to go look for nudibranchs and learn more about them though. What is also exciting is that I bought (secondhand) scuba kit a few weeks ago, so i will be able to go back to diving and see a wider range of things. Now if only the wind dies down!

Tiny critters under rocks

Posted on by under anemones, bryozoans, chitons, cnidarians, crustaceans, echinoderms, fish, Macro, molluscs, mzuiko60mm, rock pooling, snorkeling

When the viz is bad, I take my macrolens (sometimes with the Nauticam CMC-1 wetlens for a bit of extra magnification) out to the pools. Sometimes I stick to the surface of rocks and seaweeds (to look for stalked jellyfish for instance), but other times I turn over rocks under water to see what hides beneath. Quite a lot! There are larger animals, such as Topknots and different types of crabs (and Worm pipefish as pictured here) but mainly they are quite small (around a centimetre or even less). See the selection below (Tricolia, Bittium and Limacia were not from under rocks but I had to make the grid fit!).

Mimachlamys varia
Janira maculosa
Hiatella rugosa
Tricolia pullus
Bittium reticulatum
Porcellana platycheles
Trivia monacha
Limacia clavigera
Nerophis lumbriciformis
Calliostoma zizyphinum
Candelabrum cocksii
Diodora graeca
Ophiotrix fragilis
Amphipholis squamata
Leptoplana tremellaris
Asterina gibbosa
Watersipora subtorquata
Mimachlamys varia
Lepidochitona cinerea
Callochiton septemvalvis
Tritia incrassata
Trivia monacha
Callochiton septemvalvis
Aulactinia verrucosa + Acantochitona crinitia + Lepidochitona cinerea

Two Portraits

Posted on by under fish, molluscs

Just a really quick post featuring two characters I encountered last week. Above a Topknot (Zeugopterus punctatus), a little (<10 cm) flatfish. Below a Seahare (Aplysia punctata), an ophistobranch mollusc which is enjoying a bit of a population boom at the moment. Been in a bit more lately with so-so results but hope to post more soon.

Muddy Foreshore

Posted on by under fish, fisheye, Flushing, invasive species, molluscs, mud flats, photography, sponges

We have had some sunny spells but generally the weather has been disappointing lately, especially with regards to wind and waves. I did some snorkels with the fisheye lens to try to capture the seaweeds but the viz was such that I did not even bother to copy the images from my camera to my laptop….A crying shame as it means I have to wait a whole other year to capture the seaweeds in their full glory! (although even when most seaweed species are in decline, with good viz and some sun the pools can still look fantastic later in the season, see for example HERE or HERE). Anyhow, instead of taking my fisheye lens underwater, I tried it out on land instead, specifically on the muddy foreshore of my village Flushing. (A wide angle lens would have been better for this – no warped horizons etc – but I don’t have one.) I had a go at this a while back, before I really knew about softboxes to disperse flash light….what can I say, I am a slow learner… I recently bought a flash and a trigger so I can hold my flash in a softbox near subjects which is the way forward for these types of shots. Although not home to the most spectacular animals or backgrounds, it was fun playing around a bit. Top left: Montagu’s Breadcrumb Sponge (Hymeniacidon perlevis), top right: something that looks superficially like Elephant Hide Sponge (Pachymatisma johnstonia), although the colour and texture are off. (This specimen will be sampled by David Fenwick for a close look at the spicules (if it is a sponge and not a seasquirt!)

There are many oysters here too, mostly the invasive Pacific oyster (Magallana gigas) (pictured above), but also the native oyster (Ostrea edulis). I hoped to get a shot of an eel, but the ones we caught were small and a bit too active. We also found rocklings, shannies, rock gobies, a sea scorpion and interestingly a dragonet and a painted goby (I had not seen one of these before). Although there are quite a lot of interesting species to be found in the mud, I hope I’m able to go snorkeling in some clear blue water very soon!

Violet Sea Snail

Posted on by under beach combing, molluscs

An hour of beach combing today at Praa Sands, chosen because it is a reasonably long beach facing the prevailing wind that day. A fair amount of Goose Barnacles smattered among the rocks. On the strand line, bits of seaweed and lots of plastic rope fragments from fishing boats (which were duly picked up). Not expecting anything spectacular, my eye was caught by a tiny bit of violet, which proved to be a Violet Sea Snail! We had only found a Janthina janthina once before in our ten years in Cornwall but that was an empty shell whereas this still had its bubble raft. Janthina floats at the surface on the open ocean under this raft and therefore is part of the ‘neuston’ (or ‘pleuston’). It is a predator of other such purple ocean surface dwellers such as By-The-Wind Sailors Velella velella, and the Portuguese Man o’ War, Physalia physalis. It was tiny, the shell measuring only a centimeter or so. There were many By-The-Wind Sailors too, and these were just as small or smaller (usually they are 4-8 centimeters or so). I did not use a flash (looks to artificial), keeping ISO at 200 and f/7.1 I had to go down to 1/30s for shutter speed which was doable leaning on the beach. The protoconch is nice and sharp when you zoom in.

Macro Musings

Posted on by under Macro, molluscs

Foul weather in Cornwall at the moment (it is November, so no surprise there!). Not tempted to go in the water but still wanted to take photos, so I spent some time on the foreshore of my village Flushing looking at Flat Periwinkles (Littorina obtusata). This species is very common, and the only snail that actively crawls about above the waterline. The trouble with macro photography is that with a small aperture, the depth of field is large and everything is in focus, but this includes the usually cluttered background that takes away from the subject. With a large aperture, it is possible to get an aesthetically pleasing, soft focus bokeh background, but the depth of field is much smaller, and too much of the subject is blurry (see the pic on the right). I tried my hand at focus stacking, in which the camera takes a bunch of photos each with a different part of the subject in focus, and then merges them so the depth of field is greater (whilst still having the out-of-focus background). This proved too difficult with a handheld camera (especially on my knees in seaweed). I therefore reverted to ‘normal’ manual photography and it was fun to practice. However, I did not manage to improve on my best Flat Periwinkle photo I took when I first got my Olympus….

Miscellaneous Macro

Posted on by under bryozoans, echinoderms, Macro, molluscs, tunicates, worms

I have not posted a lot this year; in part just because I have not been out as much as I hoped I would, and in part because I had some technical difficulties (I had to sent back a malfunctioning strobe and am also having snoot troubles). As a result I have not gone scuba diving and did not see much of the rock pools either. I managed to take some macro shots over summer though that are worth a quick post. Above a Cushion Star Asterina gibbosa on a colony of the star ascidian Botryllus schlosseri. Below one of my favourite little molluscs, the beautifully patterned White tortoiseshell limpet Tectura virginea. Another tiny mollusc, is the Needle Whelk Bittium reticulatum. The Variegated Scallop Chlamys varia is also common (under rocks) and can be nicely patterned when they are small. Finally some other tiny critters: the Flatworm Leptoplana tremellaris (I like their beady little eyes) and the Bryozoan Disporella hispida.

new strobe

Posted on by under echinoderms, eggs, Macro, molluscs, nudibranchs

Long time no post! Due to a combination of not-so-good weather and work I have not been in the water much the last few months. I attempted some seaweed photography but most times the viz was bad; the one time the conditions were great, somehow all my photos turned out to be a bit meh and I could not be bothered to post them. (For some older shots on seaweed diversity see here, and many older posts as well.) Anyhow, my exciting news is that I finally bought a new strobe (an INON D-200 for those who are interested) because my old Sea&Sea strobes just proved to be too temperamental. Something I should have done a long time ago, but the thrifty Dutchman in me just never pulled the trigger. I have now taken it out twice this weekend and it works like a charm! Now I just need to practice, as it is actually still very hard to go from an OK photo to a truly good pic. Above a shot of a baby urchin Psammechinus miliaris. The true stars of the weekend however were nudibranchs.

A very special find (shown to me by fellow rockpool photography enthusiasts Martin and Greg) were two Goby egg-eating seaslugs Calma gobioophaga. This tiny species can only be found on the goby eggs it eats. With such a ‘niche niche’ and with very good camouflage it is no wonder that reports of this species are rare. A fun fact: its protein-rich diet means it does not have to poo and it therefore does not have an anus…The rock with the eggs and nudis was very shallow and so it was a challenge to get the port of the camera housing under water. Luckily Greg assisted with pointing out the nudi and holding my strobe in place. Freshly hatched goby fry could be seen hovering above the eggs (the fact that a predator was munching through their brothers and sisters might have triggered some of the hatching). The cerata (the fleshy lobes on the nudi’s back) seem to have two goby eyes in them to make them better blend in!

Finally, two other nudibranch species, neither very colourful. Both are predators of anemones: first the largish Grey sea slug Aeolidia papillosa and second the smaller species Aeolidiella alderi. Both adequate shots but I need to practice to make them truly good. I will probably buy a second INON strobe so I can practice wide angle shots as well when diving. I hope to go out a lot more during summer and will make sure to post here about my finds and progress!