This morning Wednesday the 13th the nature study group outing was a walk along The Mount Maunganui beach.

The purpose of the outing was to collect interesting shells, we met next to the Cenotaph and proceeded on the walk, Mary Sanson staying behind to set out many examples of shells she had brought with her. After a good walk we returned to our starting point and were absorbed by a very interesting talk on shells of the sea given by Mary. We all learned so much, along with the talk we were handed notes. All in all it was a very worthwhile outing.

 

 

One part of the talk that really interested me was about the Violet sail. This being very topical for those of us who live in Papamoa and walk the beach; recently after a storm a great many of these beautiful little shells were washed up on the beach.

 

This is a most remarkable little shell fish, the most extraordinary thing about this little Gastropod ( a little bigger than a five cent piece) is that it that it tows behind itself a tiny raft of imprisoned air bubbles over the open ocean, these carry the its egg capsules under the surface of the sea. They eventually hatch and the young swim off.

 

There must be a very heavy rate of mortality, a specimen collected on Muriwai beach, blown ashore before the eggs were able to hatch, had a raft of seventy egg capsules, each one of which contained about 500 young, and this makes a total of 35,000 embryos.