How Bubble-Rafting Snails Evolved
Image 1: A female violet snail, Janthina exigua, hangs from a float of homemade mucus.
Image 2: A large female snail in the Recluzia cf. jehennei species preys upon aPortuguese man-of-war while perched on a raft of mucus bubbles. A tiny snail of the same species clings to the underside of the female’s float.
Image 3: A bubble-rafting violet snail feeds on a Portuguese man-of-war in Hawaii.
Image 4: A female violet snail, Janthina janthina, is the most common species of bubble rafter. J. janthina is also the only bubble-rafting species in which females brood their young inside their bodies instead of laying egg capsules on their floats, Churchill noted.
Photograph Courtesy: 1, 2 and 4 Denis Riek, 3 David Fleetham
reblogging as I loved reading about these in my marine Biology class, also for those who find these interesting, should look up the marine Organism Glaucus Atlanticus, who hangs from the surface membrane of water :D
(via 14-billion-years-later)
