July 1960 School Magazine

Brisbone' Girls' Grcrmmcrr School Mcrgozine

Iuly, 1960t

Srisbcrneo Girls' Grcrmmcrr School Mcrgazine

Iuly, 1960

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As I turn over stones, I find a fascinating variety of animals and plants; tusked and fierce black elephant snails, Scutus antipodes, pla.ig, striped and elaboratgly patterned chitons, which are very sensitive to light and seek immediately a darker home, tiny crabs, Plagusa glabra, a glossy fawn with reddish flecks. sneak fearfully away into cracks, and tubes constructed of brcken shells cemented together to form the home of a tube worm, Dioptra dentata. At the base of the wall, under an overhanging ledge, I find an attractive white egg ribbon of a sea hare. Rewarded for my search for its owner, I see nearby a large sea slug, Oscanius hilli, slowly crossing the wall. It has a prominent white plumed gill, and its back is a deep red, flecked with yellow" Swimming slowly along the rock wall, I am conscious of the rapid reflex movement of some creature of the wall, yet I see nothing that is capable of such a movement, until I notice some feathery white bunches ahead of ffie, where the water I have disturbed has made no currents. My hand approaches, The "bunches," white or brown fringes one a fine red stem, whip back into a leathery tube. As I watch fascinated, the heads of this tube worm, so different from our conception of land worms, Sabellastarte indica, gingerly emerge tightly furled, and then: blossom into a dainty flower. Here in the narrow region where land meets sea the two kingdoms of animals and plants, which on land are completely separate, approach each other. Some animals, termed zoophytes, plant-animals, assume plant-like appearance while retaining animal functions. A colony of tall, delicately branched zoophytes dwell near the top of the wall, having dark red stems with numerous lateral branches. Surprised to find on a stone on the floor a new animal, I touch the dark red ball-it opens out and takes on a plant-like appearance. It is the same zoophyte. Stranqely deceptive with its plant-like form, but animal body, is the cunjevoi that cleaves to rock faces from a level above low- water to a little below it. Hence these distinctive, rugged brown lumps give their name to a zone, the Pyrura zone. At the end of a c"lindrical column are two apertures, one for inhaline sea water, and other for exhalinq water after it has been sieved to remove plankton and other tiny free ereatures. When the creature is dist'rrbed, the water is exhaled as a sudden and powerful jet. Cloqed when exposed to the air, these apertures are open under- water, to reveal the oranqe-red lininq of the internal cavity. When cunievoi live on rocks exposed to the forces of the sea, instead of desertinry their battered home, they fiqht back with a kind of jorrf"l resistance . Thus for a short interval of time I have been absorbed in the "rnall world of the rockpool-a world of individuals-diverse, colo'''r'ful, immen*elv vital and self-contained. -ITNNTFER NEILSEN

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