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Project Noah Nature School
Katharina tunicata
Dark girdle with a leathery look and texture surrounding eight protective plates. This one was about 8 cm long. Pic 2 shows a colony. These chitons can tolerate direct sunlight better than other chiton species.
Spotted in tide pools at Tongue Point Marine Sanctuary.
Like other chitons, it is a slow moving grazer that consumes several species of brown and red algae including kelps, sea lettuce, and encrusting diatoms. They're also known to eat sponges, tiny barnacles, spirobid polychaetes, and bryozoans. Their predators include sea urchins, leather stars, black oystercatchers, glaucous-winged gulls, and humans.(Wikipedia).
Spotted on Apr 20, 2019
Submitted on Apr 30, 2019
3 Comments
So cool!
Thank you much Neil.
This is also quite bizarre. Great spotting of yet another amazing creature.