plant/animal reference) to get a bigger pictureUpogebia | Possession Point Team Photo 2010 | Melibe leonina |
Three dedicated Beach Watchers took on Possesion Point on August 9th with Kathy Fritz heading up the team. Kathy reports that the beach had a lush growth of eelgrass and they made some interesting finds including Melibe, the lion nudibranch. This is a strange gelatenous looking organism that makes its home in kelp and eelgrass where it employs a hoodlike apparatus to capture amphipods and other small organisms, the hood functioning somewhat like a Venus flytrap. Another great find was that of a mud shrimp. Team members were rather startled when one of them was dive bombed by a sea gull that dropped a large butter clam on her!