#tidepooling worm

Some wide angle shots I took back in the start of May. It was the transition of seasons and introduction of new palettes.

I took some sequence shots of this little snapping shrimp shoving coral rubble at me. Little man wants to show me all the collection.

These are the symbal bubble snails in the family Haminoeidae. Despite their affinity in appearance to Aplustridae bubble snails(e.g. Hydatina physis.) they're actually under the order Cephalaspidea, making them closer in relation to headshield slugs. May to June happens to be their reproductive bloom and I got to see them occurring in huge numbers during my trip down to Hengchun.

Chelidonura hirundinina is a common headshield slug in the subtidal reefs of Hengchun. Their shells are completely reduced, and have those iconic swallow tail shaped mantle that's shared in this genus. Just like the hammerhead sharks, the margins of their "headshields" are lined with small sensory cilia that help them find their prey, and in the case of C. hirundinina, the menu mostly consists of acoel flatworms.

Worm neighbors, they exchange gossip and share planktonic tea.

Return of the doritos crab. This is the last M. monoceros post I promise cus now I've completed the set of all the morphotypes. At least ones that I belive there are out there.

This guy kept looking at me while I was trying to take macro shots of a coral crab from across his house.

A really pokemon-coded crab. Psaumis cavipes may look unassuming from above, with it having a pretty common body plan shared by many of its Xanthidae kins, a broad and widened carapace and coloration suited for blending into gravels. However looking front on and it turns into a piece of coral rubble! The strange indentations dotting across its body and especially on the carpus of the chalae(the part that's analogous to our elbows) separate it from other Xanthid crabs or even any other crabs. This is perhaps the strangest structure I've seen on a crab.