Featured Creatures

Slipper snails live in the intertidal where they attach to a rock or often the shell of another snail. Are these snails male or female, or first one then the other? The answer is yes to all those questions. Slipper snails start life as males and change to female. This strategy is called sequential hermaphroditism. These snails change sex when they reach a certain size, depending on the sexes of the other slipper snails around.

The strawberry squid, Histeoteuthis heteropsis, aka “the green-eyed squid” is a member of a group called “the cock-eyed” squids, so named because one eye is larger than the other. Scientists think that the smaller eye has evolved to look down, watching for predators from the depths. The bigger eye looks up, trying to detect the shadows of potential prey against the very faint light from above.But, many animals in this midwater zone make their own light so they disappear in the faint light from above – called counterillumination. In the “survival game” of evolution, the strawberry squid’s much larger eye has evolved a lens with a fluorescent pigment that absorbs blue light. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Institute think...

Is that watermelon we smell?Nope. It’s the Melibe leonine who lives in kelp forests and eel grass beds along the Pacific coast.Look at a melibe and you might think: jellyfish. But it’s the melibe’s head, or oral hood, that’s fooling you. To feed, a melibe extends its hood and sweeps it back and forth to catch small plankton, which it then passes to its mouth. While melibe prefer to remain attached to a surface, they can dislodge when threatened and swim by contracting their bodies.

The giant Pacific octopus is the largest octopus, with arms up to 16 feet long and weighing as much as 100 pounds. Ranging from Japan to Alaska to Baja California, this octopus lives in shallow coastal waters to depths of 5,000 feet. Each of the octopus’ eight arms is covered with as many as 200 suckers that are sensitive to touch and taste. And it’s a smarty pants, too: octopuses are big-brained invertebrates.Watch an octopus catching a crab here: http://shapeoflife.org/video/behavior/molluscs-octopus-catching-crab