This will be the first of a series of posts about my trip to Australia last month. On March 15, 2008, under grey skies, I was at Cape Tribulation Beach in Queensland (in the Daintree Rainforest). The low tide made the vast expanse of the sandy beach even larger. The beach's southern area curiously was blanketed with small balls of sand and holes.
During low tide, the sand bubbler crab (scopimera inflata) tunnels up through the sand to emerge from a hole on the beach. The crab leaves the hole and gathers sand with its claws into its mouth where it extracts and consumes any organic material. The crab's mouth shapes the remaining sand into a round ball which the crab pushes out of its mouth towards its rear. Then, the crab repeats this process by moving forward and collecting fresh sand in its mouth. The crab's dining journey away from its hole is marked by a tell-tale row of sand balls. At some point, the crab returns to its hole and forays in the same manner in a new direction. Find out more here and here.
The end results are intriguing arrangements of sand balls and holes on the beach which look like abstract art or perhaps a sand ball Rorschach test. Look at the patterns and see what you think they resemble.
A moose?
A flower or a butterfly?
A turned-around palm tree?
1 comments:
Aren't they delightful! Your artistic eye pick up on them, thank you!
Below: I had never heard of Cow Clover. That purple coloring of different shades and tints is absolutely delicious the way you caught it. What a pretty print or poster it would make.
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