Let the good times roll

[Gonodactylus]

While cleaning out some old files, I cam across this photo that I've had for several years. It shows a small Panamanian spearer, Nannosquilla decempinosa, backward somersaulting.

These animals live intertidally in burrows in sand beaches. Occasionally they are washed out a burrow and end up on bare, exposed sand. They are too long and skinny to walk, so they flip over on their back and somersault back to the water. They can even roll up hill.

The first time I saw this unusual mode of locomotion, I was trying to identify one under a microscope and when I looked into the eye pieces, it just plain had disappeared. I tried another and the same thing happened. The third one I watched carefully. I couldn't believe it when it started somersalting down the lab table at high speed.

Roy

 

[T-T-Trigger]

unique and ingenious invention, what is that old saying about necessity?

 

[ReefMagic]

:lol:haha, I can that happening. Watching the microscope and nothing being there, going again, dissapears, then actually watch it roll away. That's awesome.

BTW, is there any good information about the supposed Free swimming mantis shmp?