Hold on tight... I got an ID correct first go!Yesterday, I was snorkelling in the local rockpool with my niece and nephew who are visiting. We were checking out some awesome things, including this 'underwater cockroach', and I said I thought it was a chiton.
Anyway, you know how bad my ID is, so I just wasn't sure.I worried about how on earth I'd dreamed up such a name, and why I'd just blurted it out to kids when I should have been teaching them the correct thing and not making something up.
But ahoy! I was correct! Blow me over with a feather.
So there's some information here on the Queensland Museum site if you're interested in more about chitons.
They're a mollusc (so an animal in a shell) and they like crevices and dark spots. You can see it here tucked in tight next to a rock, in a little crevice with a snail and some barnacles/top hat snails.
Their shell has 8 plates, held together by a girdle around the outside.
They eat algae and small invertebrates from rock platforms.
And I'll bask in this for a while now... :)
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