Diving the Kona Coast: Triton's Trumpet

Showing posts with label Triton's Trumpet. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Beautiful Shell

I found this beautiful Triton's Trumpet shell (Charonia tritonis) while diving this Saturday at Honaunau. It was close to a foot long and still occupied by its builder. The Triton's Trumpet is a snail just like the ones you would find in your garden except it is specially adapted for its marine habitat.

The top of the shell has a coating of marine growth and sand as such things tend to settle on slow moving surfaces.

The underside is generally clean and glossy, particularly the aperature which is the "hole" the creature protrudes out of. The yellow and tan matter is the creature's muscular foot. The brownish oval is the operculum, a toenail-like structure that seals the aperature securely shut when the snail retracts into its shell. the operculum is the final wall that, along with the shell, completely protects the snail's soft body from would-be predators.

Life is full of beautiful things. Take time to enjoy them!

Friday, February 10, 2012

Fun With Photoshop

Aloha Everyone,

Between the winter surf and various minor ailments, I haven't gotten too many dives in recently. To amuse myself, I've been doing a bit of experimenting with my images on Photoshop. Here are a few of them for you to check out.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

Hairy Yellow Hermit Crab

Last week I was lucky enough to happen upon a true giant and kind of an uncommon find (for me at least!). This is a Hairy Yellow Hermit Crab (Aniculus maximus) which grows as large as a man's hand and is easily the largest hermit crab in Hawai'i. I found this one on the north side of Honaunau Bay not far from where I found that Triton's Trumpet earlier in the week. As you can see, this crab is big enough and strong enough to utilize a Triton's Trumpet shell as its mobile home.

This close-up gives you an idea of how hairy these crabs really are! Nothing I've read indicates if this extreme fuzziness serves any practical purpose.

This shot shows how beautiful the shell of this animal was. It looked like it could have come off the shelf of a seaside curio shop. I wonder what became of the shell's original occupant as the shell was totally undamaged and showed no obvious outward signs of violent predation.

One last photo showing the bristly behemoth surveying his domain. Hope you enjoyed these snaps of an unusual reef resident. Aloha!

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Triton's Trumpet

Aloha, everyone! I've decided to change the general format of my blogging as the "dive report" model was a little limiting and had to be posted somewhat quickly to be relevant. For now, I'm just going to pick a subject and show some photos of it with a little commentary.

Last week I was off work and did several dives. I managed to find the same Triton's Trumpet on two consecutive days and got lots of photo ops. The shot above is maybe one of my favorite underwater photos I've ever taken. I was just following the snail as it travelled over the bottom. When it crested this little coral "hill", I didn't expect it to stretch so far out of its shell. It resulted in a pretty unique perspective!

This was a medium-sized Triton's Trumpet and not one of the giants which are getting more and more scarce. It glided along the substrate smoothly and at a fairly good clip. Shortly after the above photo was taken, the snail tumbled off the coral and fell to the sand. It quickly righted itself and continued on its way.

The shell was beautiful and the newer portion was very clean and glossy. The large, muscular foot was mottled with brownish-red markings. The black and yellow striped projections are called tentacles and serve as sensory organs. At the base of each tentacle, on the lateral aspect, is a tiny black dot which is one of the creatures eyes.

The wonderful thing about a relatively slow-moving creature that is also aesthetically pleasing is that you can take tons of shots from all the angles you care to choose.

On the last day of my mini-vacation I found another Triton's Trumpet, this one in the process of devouring a Crown-of -Thorns sea star. The snail pins down the sea star and then drills into its skin and starts to dissolve the inner tissue so it can be ingested. There was some organic "fallout" from this process and the Saddle Wrasse in the background was enjoying a free meal.