What is this?!

Aquatic Zoology's blog | Created 1 decade ago

Today we received this ID request from our Twitter follower, Sue Hill:

the white egg-cases of a marine snail, Syrinx aruanus

Corey, Courtney, Zoe and Lisa from our Aquatic Zoology team were on the case!

"It is the egg-case of Syrinx aruanus.

It is generally more a tropical species but we have had it down as far as Bunbury, 175km south of Perth. It doesn’t seem to be as common these days in the south-west as it once was.

The female cements the egg-case to a substrate (rock, dead coral etc) and little snails hatch out and crawl away. Storms, trawling, shell collectors have had a large effect on these guys around Perth. Trawling and storms will dislodges the egg-cases and they wash up on shore. The way they reproduce (hatch as small snails and not larvae) makes it hard for them to repopulate.

It is probable the egg-case found at Waikiki was a result of the strong winds and rain on Friday and Saturday."

Thanks AZ team, and Sue for the little pop quiz!