I love puppies. I love snails (I have always liked there cute little eyes). But for some reasons combine the two ideas into one species called a dog whelk and somewhere along the line it loses its cuteness.
Dog whelks, are not like puppies, and yes they are like snails but very evil ones. Dog whelks (like most things on the rocky shore) do not mess around when it comes to getting food. They mostly eat mussels and barnacles. They manage to feast upon these well armoured shelled species by using their radula (scraping teeth) which is attached on the end of a proboscis (odd retractable snout?). It can use its radula to drill a hole in the shell of the species, then insert its proboscis, use nasty enzymes to make the mussel or barnacle flesh into soup and suck it all back out again! I told you… dog whelks are not like puppies (and thank god puppies are not like dog whelks).
Despite there viscousness I have to admire the way success of these species. On the shore they are usually found in plentiful numbers all huddled together. Often around this time of year they can also be seen with lots of eggs sacks attached to the rock after there mating season. You can usually tell this species apart from all the other huddled snails by the fact that they are slightly larger, lighter with no/little patterned colour and have a more conical pointed shape. They are still not as large as the common whelk which can pretty much dwarf this species at all size.
Despite there common appearance theses species over that last couple of decades have been hit pretty hard by a particular nasty antifouling paint (TBT) which has now been banned. TBT causes the ‘lovely’ reversal of sex called imposex. This means the poor whelks end up reproductive parts halfway between both sexes and can’t reproduce. Its a really is a nasty thing to happen!
So despite this species not being as cute as a puppy, it deserves a bit of a break since its been through a lot. A little word of encouragement to one on the shore (I’m the baby voice you often speak to puppies in) probably wouldn’t go a miss!
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