ASK CLAUDIO - DISCOVER THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SCENES
Learn more about the wacky world of underwater marine sex with GREEN PORNO's marine biologist, Dr. Claudio Campagna!
CLICK ON AN ANIMAL TO LEARN MORE:
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ANYTHING BUT FOOTLOOSE
Limpets are like bumps on a rock. A trained observer will see a hard, cone-shaped shield clumped down strongly to a substrate - very strongly. Underneath the often-mimetic shell is the vulnerable flesh, organs and muscles that will dry out if the grip is lost. A muscle, "the foot," keeps it attached to rocks despite the force of waves. This superb sucker, aided by a mucus liquid, withstands very hard pulls.
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BIGGER ISN'T ALWAYS BETTER
Limpets, like squids, snails and mussels, are mollusks - quite primitive ones. They are "vegetarian," grazing algae in marine and freshwater environments; were it not for limpets, algae would take over rocky shores. Most are small but some may grow a shell as large as 20 cm (almost 8 inches)... bad luck in a world driven by human appetites.
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A CREEPING TRANSFORMATION
When the tide is low, they stay put in their "home scar," a place safe from desiccation under the sun. But when water covers the substrate, limpets "transform"... they "walk around," creep on the ventral foot, and, with waving movements of the body, search and scrape algae with their radula, a combination of tongue and teeth. Before tide recedes again, they can find their way back to the home scar. As limpets depend on algae close to their selected location, they both protect a territory and, in some species, "fertilize" the substrate with mucus.
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A TIDAL DISPERSAL
Starfish eat them, as do birds and humans. If exceedingly successful, they can live a decade or more. They grow vertically by the releasing of chemicals around the rim. As a rule and under the shell, limpets are either male or female, but the same individual is both sexes during its lifespan: male early in life, female later in life (sequential hermaphrodites). Winter spawning occurs when eggs and sperm are released to the strong waves that disperse the larvae until they find their own home scar.
