Saturday, November 26, 2011

Sea Swallow

Another weird creature of the open ocean cast up on Fish Hoek Beach: a Sea Swallow (Glaucus atlanticus) - a gastropod mollusc that has lost its shell. It is about 20 cm long, and according to George Branch's book Two Oceans, it floats upside down on the surface of the open ocean, gulping air to keep it afloat and feeding on Bluebottles and their relatives. It can utilize the stinging cells of their prey for their own defence. So this is how it would look to us looking down on it from the air.
I wonder what these strong winds we are experiencing in Cape Town will blow in next?

9 comments:

  1. Wow, what an extraordinary creature. I've never seen anything like it!

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  2. Helen took the words right out of my mouth!
    Jane x

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  3. What a bizarre looking animal!

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  4. Now this is very unusual. Unusual but interesting.

    Not to sound like I'm repeating myself, but "wind wind go away, come again another day..." like at the end of January only. LOL!!!

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  5. wow - never seen one that colour before! Beautiful.

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  6. Hello there, simply become alert to your weblog thru Google, and fosbobetund that it’s really informative. I’m gonna watch out for brussels

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  7. I found one on Fish Hoek beach on Saturday and it is just beautiful and amazing ...

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