Pulsellum salishorum
(Tusk Shell)
©
Ronald Shimek
(Photo ID #39419)
Photographer's Submitted Details
Photo Location
Photographed in East Sound, Orcas Island, Washington, USA
Photographer
Ronald Shimek
Habitat
Soft highly organic silty sand
Photo Date
July 28, 1982
Upload Date
May 21, 2013
Elevation (m)
-27
Latitude
48.6388888888889
Longitude
-122.879444444444
Photo ID #
39419
Comments
As with all scaphopods in our region, animals visible on the surface in their habitat are very rare. The textbook images of scaphopods partly exposed with their apex out of sediments are accurate for, maybe, 1 animal in a 1000. Any scaph exposed that way or crawling on the surface such as this one is almost quite literally dead meat. They are a major food of the local rat fish as well as any larger crabs and so our scaphopods tend to spend a lot of time under the sediment surface. In the area where this image was taken the density of this species was about 500 animal/ m2, one of the highest I ever measured, and yet over a dive spent expressedly looking for them, this was the only living Pulsellum seen on the surface.