Caught in the Act

This week was very exciting because my first high school intern, Evan, came to help with and learn about my research! Once Nicole finishes finals and comes next week we will take a group photo for the blog.

Since Evan was able to help out this week, we cleaned and counted the snails I currently have in the seawater table. When he was cleaning one of the cups, he caught a whelk in the act of eating! It had its proboscis extended into the gape of a mussel and it looked pink at the end, as if it were sucking up pink mussel flesh. I was so excited to see this I took several pictures. It was not easy to get it in focus, but see below for the best photos I could get.

A Nucella sp. dogwhelk eating a large mussel by extending its proboscis into the mussel shell.