CURIOUS SEA LIFE

Hokitika Guardian, 30 January 1932, Page 6

CURIOUS SEA LIFE

LONDON ZOO ADDITIONS. GIANT HERMIT CRABS. There have been some very beautiful and interesting additions to the tanks of the London Zoo Aquarium recently. Some of these have been ‘presented by the Oceanographical Museum of Monaco^ - which has the whole of the Mediterranean as its collecting ground. The most interesting is a collection of 20 scarlet sea squirts; little bladderlike creatures, two to three inches long, which attach themselves by a foot to the rocks, and are provided wiiih two orifices, through which they inhale and exhale the water containing the food particles on which they live.

In ’the normal state the whole creature 'is inflated like a bladder, but on occasions, if excited, it squirts out all the Water it- contains and collapses like a pricked balloon.

■ln the Aquarium sea squirts are fed on a juice prepared by squeezing raw fish through a strainer. This juice is ntroduerd into their tank ovi.might, but by morning it is absorbed by the siea squirts so that no cloudiness remains'

They do not pass the whole of their lives attached to rocks. When they are young they have a tail and swim about fre'.ly in the water until they find something to which they can attach themselves. When this occurs the tail gradually dwindles and finally disappears, and the adult creature remains . stationary for the rest of its life.

Another curi.ou s feature is that its '.l..art action is periodically reversed, so that sometimes the blood is driven in one direction ; then, after a pause, it is pumped in the opposite wav. BDADLET ANEMO NES. In the same consignment came a number of beadlet aiumones. In the Mediterranean these anemones never attain any great sif/.e, but, strangely enough,, in the Zoo Aquarium they grow much larger than they do in nature or in the Monaco tanks. Their food consists of sand-hoppers and shrimps, which commit suicide by swimming into their ever-open mouths.

Occasionally quite a large fish, which has iswum head first into the mouth, is caught and remains with its tail protruding from the anemone until it is slowly digested. fin an adjoining tank are some baby king crabs presented by the New York \quarium. These are not in the least like the ordinary crab, but ai 'e provided with a horsehair-shaped carapace, behind which is attached a long spike-like taiji. Under the carapace are the legs and the rest of the animal. It lives at the bottom of the sea, and its progress resembles a tank going into action.

The king crab njay be classed as a living fossil, for it is much more closely related :to the primitive scorpions of the carboniferous epoch than to any creature living to-day. From Madeira there have arrived number of giant hermit crabs. 1 host are coral red and in form resemble the small hermit crab in England, but they far exceed them in size, some of the vhelk shells they inhabit being nearly a foot in length. GROTESQUE CHAMELEONS. Three most grotesque and rare cluimeleon s have made their appearance in the Reptile House during the week. They come from the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro, and, apart from their size, are strikingly reminiscent of some of the extinct prehistoric monsters of the past, for on their heads they carry three long horns, one over each eye and one on the snout, added to which •hey have the faculty of moving each ye independently of the other, which adds to their .“nightmare” appearance. In the Tortoise House a Grecian tor'toise has been hatched out ol the egg. This is an extremely rare occurrence in captivity, and there is only one other case on record at the zoo.