[Racer X 69]

But escargot, in spiced garlic butter, is a treat, although neither slugs nor snails have much to do with echinoderms.

Some folks here call them sea slugs (although there may be some other creature in the Sound that answers that description more aptly).

[WPRESTO]

Some folks here call them sea slugs (although there may be some other creature in the Sound that answers that description more aptly).

Oh yes. Sea slugs are gastropods like land slugs, and are really beautiful, fragile-looking creatures sometimes with wonderful colors. They look as if defenseless to predators, but they feed on corals, anemones and other Coelenterates (pardon use of the old term for these creatures) and transfer the stinging cells called nematocysts to the surface of their skin. Biting one is like biting the stinging tentacles of a jellyfish (= another type of coelenterate). If you've never seen a sea slug, it's worth GOOGLING images. Way back I looked at them at Moss Beach, CA, during a summer course in invertebrate zoology.

To envision a sea cucumber:
1) start with a starfish;
2) Imagine the central small area where the arms connect extended as a chunky, cylindrical column;
3) reduce the lengths of the five arms and make them feathery, instead of a single tapering arm;
4) remove essentially all of the hard carbonate plates so the entire column and feathery arms are soft and floppy rather than rigid and hard like a starfish;
5) now you have more-or-less converted a starfish into a sea cucumber.

[Crooski]

Birch fungus

[Racer X 69]

A small slug traveling through the moss on the side of an ancient evergreen tree by the river.

[Racer X 69]

And one of the little slug's big brothers slithering across the forest floor.

[WPRESTO]

Mountain laurel making one of the trails we use quite magical - - just woods - - and remnants of a stone wall that probably wasn't well-made at the outset (properly made stone walls hold up better)

[Racer X 69]

- - and remnants of a stone wall that probably wasn't well-made at the outset (properly made stone walls hold up better)

I'm out here in the meadow,
Part of an old stone wall,
Stand here because he said so,
Waiting around to fall . . . . . .

Joe Walsh
Meadows
From The Smoker You Drink, The Player You Get, 1973

You Tube

You Tube

[Racer X 69]

A slug, cruising the forest floor.

[paulh]

Careful walking thru this "forest"!
Stopping down a bit more would've yielded a better shot...oh well, next time...

[bobbotron]

Careful walking thru this "forest"!
Stopping down a bit more would've yielded a better shot...oh well, next time...

I like this shot, there's an air of mystery about it.

[WPRESTO]

Not sure why this path is worn so deeply, but I suspect it may have once been an old logging road which, because it goes pretty directly downhill here, has become a one-day stream channel during rapid Spring melt and heavy downpours.

[normhead]

I like this shot, there's an air of mystery about it.

If I was out in the woods behind my house, there would be an air of misery about it. This is the worst black fly and mosquito season ever. One of these days, I'm going to have to just put on the big suit and get back out/

[schnitzer79]

x-posted

[WPRESTO]

Mountain laurel has been wonderful along several trails we use. The wet Spring may have made for a more abundant bloom.

[normhead]

It's definitely wildflower time on the Hydro-cut.

K-1 and Sigma 70 macro.













Dogs on the Old School Road




The mosquitos are so bad it was hard to hold still for pictures. I lost many images to motion blur.