Opps! Sorry, Did I Do That!?

Think about what you do for work and then make a mental list of all the dangers and possible ways you could die doing your job. Is it a long list or fairly short? A bunch of jobs I have worked in my career have come with JHSAs (Job Hazard Safety Analysis) sheets which I was required to read and sign before the first day of work. Regardless of how great you are at predicting the worst case scenario there are those things you never see coming or can predict would happen in a million years. The summer of 2003 I took a job working as a laboratory/field technician for the Center for Biodiversity Research. I would be working as part of a larger team doing a biological inventory of the Fort Indian Town Gap National Guard Training Base and I would be specifically focusing on bugs.  Now for those of you who do not know anything about the training base the biggest thing that you need to know is THEY USE LIVE BOMBS and AMMUNITION! It is one of only three places in the United States where you can fire/drop/launch live ordinances (bombs). Before starting our research we were required to attend a range safety lecture where they would go through all the hazards we could potentially face such as: getting run over by a tank (the range officer kept telling us not to take naps on the tank roads), stepping on a UXO (unexploded ordinance) causing it to explode, getting shot, having something heavy dropped on you as they trained on how to use a helicopters to move a tank, picking up a magnesium flare that had not fully exploded, the list goes on but I will not bore you with the whole list. Thankfully, we made it through the research season with no injuries except for my boss developing a minor case of heat stroke.

Things were going well with the research we were finding interesting insects in our collected specimens.

Family: Enicocephalidae

Things were going great until one day I walked into the lab and turned off the fume hood. The rule of thumb in the lab is if you put something into the fume hood you are supposed to tape a note to the door with with your name and why it is on and if/when it can be turned off. After listening to its jet engine like noise for five hours straight I got up and turned it off not seeing any reason that it needed to be left on after all there were only four mason jars in it. Fast forward two hours later my coworker walks into the lab and starts talking to me and in just a few minutes realized we (mainly me) need to go outside QUICKLY.  We sat outside talking for a while, I really have no idea how long, and then at some point I looked at him and said "why are we sitting outside?" "Welcome back" was his first response followed by a looooong silent pause. He sifted nervously on the grass trying not to make eye contact. I stood and brushed the grass off my pants and started to head back into the lab before he stopped me and said it would probably be a good idea to wait a little longer.  By this time I was beginning to get annoyed because it was clear something was going on and my coworker was not going to talk easily.  Over dinner, he insisted on paying, he spilled the beans by first asking me if I noticed a funny smell in the lab which I had not noticed anything different. "I made killing jars and put them in the hood to dry and forgot about them." he explained.  "I'm gonna, need more information here." I replied staring at him. So, long awkward story short killing jars are made with a killing agent, layer of sawdust over that, and then a cap of plaster of paris. In the case of the jars my coworker made cyanide crystals are the killing agent.   

Now there are two types of people in this world; those who posses the gene which allows you to smell cyanide (my coworker) and those of us who lack this particular gene (me).  If I had possessed said gene I would have noticed shortly after turning off the fume hood the somewhat odd smell of either bitter almonds or industrial bleach depending on your perspective. According to my coworker when he arrived in the lab I was having some difficulty stringing words together, admitted to having a headache, and being slightly dizzy. Those are just some of the signs of cyanide poisoning. Good news in this story is because it was not a small confined space and there was a cross draft through the lab there was not going to be any permanent damage to me. Large dose of fresh air and I was my normal self again. I am fairly confident that to this day my coworker clearly labels fume hoods from now on.   



 More Info. 

 https://emergency.cdc.gov/agent/cyanide/basics/facts.asp

  

Dragging out my soapbox!

Recently I was looking online to get more information on why hedgehogs are illegal as a pet here in Maine and found out that in 2017 the state of Maine removed restrictions from owning a hedgehog as a pet. Prior to 2017 you could own a hedgehog but there were two permits you needed to have.

Now while I was reading through various news articles about the recent change I stumbled across one in a local paper which really (pardon my language here) pissed me off. The author of said article basically made it seam like you would have to be insane to want to own one of these animals which could potentially kill you and all your neighbors just by owning one because of all the potential viruses they carry!

Taking a deep breath here, first let me say that I worked with and cared for a hedgehog at a science center I worked in for three years. This hedgehog was given to us after the owner realized that the much more specialized care then they had time for. Second thing you need to know is said hedgehog's home was the preschool room where his cage was right next to the pet rabbit and at no time did any of the children in the preschool or any of the other school children, who met the hedgehog, get sick or die from touching it. 

Hedgehogs have the potential to carry a variety of diseases such as ringworm and salmonella to name just two. The most common hedgehog related illness is Salmonella Typhimurium. This form of Salmonella can be found in the poop of reptiles, rats, mice, hamsters, ducks, chickens, horses, goats, sheep, parrots, cats and dogs just to name a few.  

Looking at the CDC website there have been  at least two major outbreaks of Salmonella Typhimurium caused by pet hedgehogs, 2012 and 2019, sickening a total of 80 people and tragically leading to one death. No other diseases hedgehogs have been know to carry have caused outbreaks in the United States.  Another popular animal which also carries the same strain of Salmonella which has been on the raise as the trend of "backyard farming" has taken off is chickens. Scanning the CDC website there have been three major outbreaks (2013, 2017, 2019) of sickness from a variety of Salmonella strains which resulted from contact with backyard chickens. In total three people died and 2,610 were sickened. IT IS ALL ABOUT PROPER HANDLING!!!!!!!

When I was teaching I ALWAYS had two rules the children had to follow if they wanted to touch the hedgehog; 1) No hitting or hurting the hedgehog, 2) After touching the hedgehog you walk straight to the teacher without touching your face or anyone else to wash your hands. Sounds simple want to avoid getting sick do not; lick, snuggle next to your face, let it walk around where you are doing food preparations, do not let it sleep with you, simple things will keep you safe and germ free. 

As to the second point in the newspaper article as to why hedgehogs are a dangerous pet they pose a threat to other wildlife if released. That is a possibility in certain areas of the country where the temperature never gets much below 70 F. Hedgehogs in the United States are domesticated from African species and cannot really tolerate temperatures below 68 F anyway. Here in Maine at least survival in the wild would be rather slim. If they were such a huge threat to local wildlife the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife would not have decided to add them to their unrestricted list. 

Sliding my soapbox back into the closet........until next time. 

Read more:

https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/typhimurium-01-19/index.html

https://www.petpoisonhelpline.com/blog/hedgehogs-and-salmonella/

Are you a stander or runner?

As a park ranger you get asked a lot of questions some of which can be humorous some can be intriguing and some are down right invasive (hint never ask park rangers about their personal lives), but some of the questions make you think about the what ifs.

During my time at Glacier National Park and Yellowstone National Park I and my coworkers spent a lot of time educating people on how to act in and enjoy exploring habitats shared with grizzly and black bears.  One day before my ranger lead hike I was going through my standard safety talk about what we all needed to do to stay safe while hiking in bear country when a gentleman next to me nudged me and said "Are you a stander or a runner?" In way of an answer I winked and said avoider. The question asked to many of my coworkers and myself is simple if faced with a bear are you going to stand your ground or turn and run away? I always try my best to avoid coming in contact with bears all together.

I am no stranger to bears prior to my time at either Yellowstone or Glacier I had a close encounter of the bear kind at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve where a relocated black bear tried unsuccessfully to push in the front door to my house to get at the tasty salmon his nose told him I had cooked that evening for dinner. As a result of this adventure I was banned by my roommates from cooking anything fish related for the whole rest of the summer. I have also hiked on trails where I've seen plenty of evidence of recent bears in the area.

Bear poop full of berry seeds and worms in Yellowstone National Park

Follow the rules of bear country and most of the time nobody gets hurt. Here are my top four rules:
       1) Hike in a group of three or more.
       2) Carry bear spray on your hip and know how to use it.
       3) If there is a bend in the trail and you can not see around it stop make loud noises wait a few  minutes before walking around the corner.
       4) Know basic bear behavior and how to tell the difference between aggressive and curious bear behavior.
For more information on staying safe check out the Grizzly and Wolf Discovery center's website. 

One afternoon as I hiked down from Avalanche lake, in Glacier National Park, I was answering questions and enjoying the beautiful summer afternoon when I was stopped by a four year old boy wondering what they should do if they saw a bear. I answered his question and asked him what he should do to avoid a bear? "Yell, HEY BEAR!" was his answer. This is my least favorite thing people can yell in bear country. Think about it if you are half a mile down the trail listening to the birds and the bees there is a good chance you are not going to hear the HEY part and just hear the BEAR part. If I hear crashing in the trees around me you better believe the finger is going to be on the trigger of the bear spray. They all agreed that HEY BEAR was a bad idea and thought my suggestion on what to yell was a lot more fun. I told that family and many others if you are going to yell something give the bear and others on the trail some information about you like; "MY NAME IS RANGER JEN!, I'M A VEGETARIAN AND I LOVE MEXICAN FOOD!" I had the family practice with me some things to shout before I continued down the trail. I rounded the bend in the trail 5 feet from where I had just been talking with the family and BAM! bear standing on it's back legs in the middle of the trail! My brain at that point got seriously conflicted and let out a string of obscenities that would make a sailor proud while stepping in a circle, before opting for the half stand your ground half turn and flee maneuver. Imagine if you can a person whose lower half is glued to the ground while the top half of the body does some odd circular aerobics move and you will have a vague idea what I looked like. I gave myself a quick mental slap across the face and told myself to get a grip  after all if I was going to get out of this I need to make some decisions fast. Started mentally yelling questions to myself while flipping through my mental file cabinet of information.
      Question 1: What kinda bear is it? Small rounded ears, tallish, brown fur, WOW!! LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THOSE CLAWS!!! Claw size HUGE. Answer: Grizzly!
      Question 2: What is it doing? Answer: Looking at the crazy person in front of it.
      Question 3: Acting aggressively? Answer: nope, no stamping feet, no flipping rocks towards me, no jaw popping, no huffing, no bluff charging.
      Question 4: Any other behaviors going on? Answer: Nose in the air breathing heavily. So, you have a curious bear standing in front of you trying to figure out if you are a threat. You may not begin talking to the bear in low tones, while making sure to not make any sudden movements.

So, here I stood feet glued to the ground talking Shakespeare, the weather, how it would be lovely if he or she would move out of the trail so that I could continue on my way.  By about half way through our conversation he/she got back down on all fours which is slightly more terrifying when you know just how fast they can close the gap between you and them. This situation got even more complicated a few minutes later when a couple appeared on the ridge opposite me heading straight for the bear's backside. Another sting of sailor obscenities. "PARK RANGER DO NOT MOVE!! WAVE IF YOU HAVE HEARD ME!" I screamed towards them alternating my attention between the bear and the couple. They waved towards me. And the bear and I started having a less friendly more ok bub time for you to move it along type conversation.  After a few more glances in my direction grizzly decided to wander back into the trees and on his merry way.  I greeted the couple on the other ridge as I neared them. "Why did you make us stop?" she asked as they waved. "You were about to walk into the back side of a grizzly bear." I laughed as I waved back. "It was standing about 50 feet in front of me and I did not want you two to suddenly scare it."  Her jaw fell open and he went a little pale before they both asked if I was ok? "Just another day in the park I told them." I asked them to alert people who passed them coming down the tail that there had been a bear in the area and I told those heading up the trail about the grizzly.

The grizzly bear and his twin brother appeared a few more times that summer along the trail and near the campground. They were one year old cubs which had recently been shooed away by their mother and they were in that awkward what should I do with my life stage. Eventually they would learn where the less peoplely areas were and stake out their own territories in the park.

Hidden Cool Rocks

It is very very  rare that I get excited about rocks which I blame on my horrible college geology professor who made the study of geology about as exciting as watching paint dry. However, there are a few rocks I can totally get behind and if you have a chance to see these rocks I would say they are going to be well worth the effort.

Rock #1- The Xenolyth

Back in 2008 I was tasked with teaching and "fun and engaging" program on geology to a group of local 4th grade students. Kill me now was my only thought, but with digital camera in hand I scoped the designated are this program would take place in hoping to find cool things to talk about.Hours later I came back to the office and with my coworker who has a degree in geology we flipped through the pictures to see if I had found anything good. After hearing 'nope" to just about every picture I showed her she grabbed the computer mouse from my hand and started zooming in. "This has potential, but I need to see it up close." After a short drive and a few minutes of walking we arrived at the rock. "Yep, that's what I thought ya found a xyenolyth." she said giving me a high five. She explained that as lava welled up from deep inside the earth pieces of rock that the lava came up through broke off and were carried to the surface in this river of lava. When the lava cooled down the rock chunk was forever sealed inside. The dark square rock being one type of rock while the lighter colored igneous rock is lava that surrounds it. A rock within a rock. For those wishing to view this rock it is along the trail in Rocky Mountain National Park, but sadly I cannot remember the name of the trail.

Rock #2 Stromatolites

If you hike all the way to the end of the Grinell Glacier tail in Glacier National Park you can see the famous stromatolites.  What makes these rocks interesting is they are over 1.5 billion years old and were originally made when Glacier National Park sat under either an ocean or a large lake, but right now scientists are not sure which it was because noone has been able to find any fossils. these circular rock formations that I'm sitting on was made by cyanobacteria (blue green algae) which trapped sediments on their sticky coatings. These sediments then reacted to the calcium carbonate in the water to form limestone.  Stomatolytes grow very slowly a three foot tall one could be over 2,000 years old. While these stomatolytes were forming they were living in a time with no other life forms, no plants, no animals in fact there was not enough oxygen to support either life forms.  As the cyanobacteria multiplied and photosynthesized they produced more and more oxygen and over thousands of years were able to start creating the environment that the first primitive plants enjoyed. 

Rock #3- Lewis Overthrust

Also in Glacier National Park you will find the Lewis overthrust an area where you are staring at the oldest rocks laying on top of the younger rocks on the bottom. During the time that the Rocky Mountain Range was forming as two tectonic plates were pushing against each other. Now at the risk of botching up an explanation as to how this structure came to be I will leave that to the experts. See the explanation by clicking here.  

Rock #4-Sedimentary Rocks

On both the Canadian and American sides of Glacier National Park you will find some stunning red rocks and green rocks along with rocks are swirled red and green. These sedimentary rocks were formed with sediments rich in iron oxide. When the water level receded and the sediments were exposed to air the iron oxidized or rusted producing these amazing red sedimentary rocks.  Other sedimentary rocks also rich in iron oxide which spent a greater time under water tend to have a greenish color to them. The iron oxide in these rocks combined with silica and then through pressure and heating were transformed into chlorite the green coloring of the rocks.  In certain areas of the park you can find rock with both read and green stripes which tell shows the water level in that area was constantly fluctuating.

Keep your eyes peeled the next time your outside on a trail or even walking around your neighborhood to see if there are any cool rocks near you.


Want to know more:
https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/xenolith/
https://blogs.agu.org/georneys/2011/05/18/geology-word-of-the-week-x-is-for-xenolith/
http://www.indiana.edu/~geol105b/images/gaia_chapter_10/stromatolites.htm
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/glac/3/sec5.htm

Mola Mola! Woah baby!

Imagine for a moment you are boating out across the ocean  on a calm day with barely a ripple on the water, but from time to time you see this large black thing stick up above the surface and kinda pivoting around before disappearing under the water again  then surfacing a few minutes later. You dismiss this first sighting as just a log or other piece of debris floating in a vast ocean. Days later you see it again not once but twice in the same day near the same spot. Moving water rarely allows floating debris to stay in the same place for very long. You decide now is time to make a detour and slowly approach the "waving debris" only to find it attached to a very large floating pancake like looking creature!

Photo By Allen Hack taken in Alaska sourced from Flicker

A giant sunfish swims by just below the surface of the water. The picture that Allan Hack took up in Alaska is similar to the size and shape of those seen swimming recently in the Gulf of Maine in during the summer of 2018.

While these bizarre looking fish are common in temperate and tropical oceans they tend to spend much of their time hundreds of feet below the surface of the ocean. I knew there had been quite a few giant sunfish spotted by various tour boats such as mine in and around Frenchman's Bay. So, I did some Googling and came across OceanSunfish.org which has a really cool map where people can log their sightings. Too bad I hadn't known about this sooner or I would have logged all the ones I saw over the summer. Scouring the sunfish shapes I found only one logged sighting from last summer. Coolest sighting was back in the summer of 2007 when 15 swimming in and around a tour boat in  Frenchman's Bay.

If you search through the reports of "odd" fish sightings in local papers around Maine you come across years where so many are spotted they create a newsworthy buzz and other years few reported sightings are spotted. This year one local paper quoted a local captain as saying they spotted as many as twenty sunfish per trip around the Frenchmans Bay area. So why were so many spotted this summer? Scientist have no real concrete answer to this question however, there are a number of theories swirling around. While these fish prefer to spend their time swimming the deep depths from time to time they will surface and swim around gathering heat at the ocean's surface. To maximize the amount of collected heat they will float on their sides to not only expose the a large amount of surface area to the sun. The other benefit to this sun warming is the fish can attract sea birds to it to help remove parasites attached to it's skin.

A second possibility is even after they have warmed up they maybe staying near the surface to eat jellyfish.  Mola molas eat a wide variety of things from algae to small fish and appear to have a thing for eating jellyfish. This year in the Gulf of Maine we had an abundance of jellyfish swimming around. I can say for a fact that this year I saw a number of the lion's mane jellyfish floating around especially out near the lighthouse and a few dead ones washed up on the beach. Come for the heat and stay for the all you can eat jellyfish buffet. One researcher who studies jellyfish populations noted there appear to be more mola mola sightings in the Gulf of Maine during summers when there happen to be jellyfish population booms. Cool huh! While no one knows just how many mola molas there maybe swimming below the surface of Maine waters they are quite the sight to behold and by some accounts maybe just as interested in us as we are in them. Hope to get lucky enough to see one in the future.




Want to know more?
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/o/ocean-sunfish/
https://news.mongabay.com/2017/07/new-species-of-giant-sunfish-discovered/
https://mlcalliance.org/2014/09/13/strange-sunfish-seen-in-maine-waters/
https://bangordailynews.com/2018/09/03/environment/mainers-marvel-over-sightings-of-odd-looking-alien-fish/
http://oceansunfish.org/
https://www.newscentermaine.com/article/news/local/massive-lions-mane-jellyfish-gives-acadia-tourists-a-roaring-sight/97-575129403

Maggots are running all over the lab!!!!

Caveat: The names of others involved in this story to protect the innocent.

In every job that I have ever had there is this little line which always makes me cringe a bit "Other duties as assigned." When you work as an environmental education instructor that can mean a HUGE variety of things from getting up at the crack of dawn to drive to practically the other side of the state to man a booth at a local job fair to mucking out animal cages. Some of these "other duties" can get pretty interesting.


Background for this story.

In the summer of 2003 I took a job working as a research technician working as part of a multidisciplinary research project to look at the biodiversity and other factors at a local national guard training base. My boss was a well known entomologist and one of only a hand full of forensic entomologists at the time.

Let the hilarity begin.

One afternoon I got a call from my boss asking me to pick up a box from his office and take it over and put it in the fume hood in the lab. "People are complaining about the smell" he added before hanging up the phone.  I ran across the street hopped into the elevator and pushed 5 to take me up to his office.  Bing! Doors open and immediately I am hit with a smell I cannot quite describe and it seems to get worse the closer I get to his office. With a little bit of trepidation I knock on his office door. Bam! the full force of the unknown stench hits me in the nose as he ushers me into his very small office, at best this office was five feet by seven feet, trying not to breathe he points to the box. "Those are insect samples from an investigation. Just raise them to adults and then kill off the rest."  I nodded headed back to the elevator trying my best not to breathe. Now, I have smelled my fair share of garbage, roadkill, and large amounts of animal poop and never once could I be called squeamish, but the smell coming from this box was like the worst versions of all of those smells rolled into one mega stink. I nervously smiled as people got on the elevator trying to pretend that I was not the cause of the stomach turning stench in the elevator. Back at the lab I put the whole box in the fume hood and turned it on and waited a few minutes before opening the box. I opened the box and quickly slammed the lid back on. Great, crime scene photos....close up......large format.....too soon after lunch for that. I grabbed a legal sized folder stuffed all the photos and copies of the police report and dropped them off in my bosses research office.  I carefully transferred some egg cases, larva, "food", and sawdust from each evidence containers to specimen containers following the instructions given to me.  Now to wait for them to do their metamorphosis thing. Everything went fine for the first five days, but on the sixth day things started to go horribly wrong. I keyed open the door flipped on the light and saw maggots running allover the place. Maggots were racing across the countertop, falling out from under the fume hood and racing across the floor. I raced to the hood and stood there and watched the maggots squeezing their way out through the tiny holes in the lid of the specimen container. I replaced the lid to the container and disposed of the escapees. For the next three days I arrived to the same scenario. 

Day three I raced to one of the graduate student's office for help. Since he was assisting with the forensic conference happening on campus I figured he would be a good source of help.

Short version of what happened next
Me: "The maggots are running everywhere!"
Brian: Laughter.
Me: "They are escaping through the holes in the top of the  one container."
Brian: "Try making the air holes smaller."
Me: "Tried that three times. They just keep squeezing through."

After a few minutes of watch the Houdini maggots squeeze through the newly replaced lid again.

Brian: "We need Rob."
We waited for a break in conference and approached Rob, noted forensic entomologist, for help.
After explaining the the problem he agreed to have a look and offer some suggestions. The three of use stood there watching them slither out of the container.
Rob: "They aren't happy."
Me: "Pardon?"
Rob: "There is something about their environment in that container they don't like so they are fleeing to find a better habitat."
Me: "All four containers of maggots have the same stuff and the others are not escaping."
Rob: "That's because their happy."
Me: I stood there silently staring at him. "So, how does one make a happy maggot? "
Rob: He shrugged before suggesting. "Change their food, give them different bedding, push the container further back in the hood. Just keep changing things and eventually their will stay put." 
Me: "What food would you suggest?"
Rob: "Raw hamburger or liver is what I use."
Rob returned to the conference leaving Brian and I to ponder things. After a few minutes of discussion we headed to a local mom and pop shop which sold everything you could ever need and more. We tackled getting a bucket of sawdust first from the lumber yard out back before looking for hamburger. We stood in front of the counter looking at an array of hamburger; lean, extra lean, fatty trying to decide what type of hamburger to buy. The cheerful counter clerk after watching us whisper back and forth for a few minutes decided to offer her assistance.
Clerk: "If you tell me what your making I can help you decide on which hamburger. " she said with a smile.
I looked at Brian who was shaking is head back and forth. I decided to go all in.
Me: "We have a problem with some maggots we are raising in the lab and it has been suggested that we buy them hamburger to feed them since they don't seem to like what we are feeding them right now."
The clerk stood there mouth slightly open stunned into silence for a few minutes.
Clerk: "What are they eating now?" asked with trepidation.
Me: "Chicken liver."
The three of us stood there looking back and forth shrugging before we all started to giggle. We eventually settled on getting some lean hamburger for our legless friends. Their habitat was rebuilt new sawdust, layer of newspaper at the bottom to absorb more moisture, larger container, and the lean hamburger. The good news was they stopped escaping got nice and fat, but NEVER pupated. All the other containers pupated and developed into adults, but not these little maggots. They stayed that way for months. My boss would come to the lab ever so often to see if any adults had emerged or if they began to pupate, but after two months of waiting the decision was made to save a few of the larva and kill everyone else off.

I still don't understand why exactly they didn't complete their life cycle. Never had that happen to any other maggots or any other insects we were raising in the museum. We tried at one point to see if there was a way we could keep the cockroaches from growing up and creating more cockroaches thinking if we could manage to pull that off we could become millionaires and sell our technique to the Orkin guy who came by every so often to train the new pest control people.  

What the great big ball of snot is this?

I try my best when creating new programs to try to anticipate questions I might get, problems I might run into while doing the program, but every now and then all my years of school and every ounce of research fails to help answer the question; "What's that?" Sometimes I just have to snap a quick picture with my cellphone and then research it later.

So quick snap number one:

What I knew at the time: it moved like a leach, lives in saltwater, and fell out of a lobsters mouth.

So what is it? Our slimy friend here is the termite of the ocean known as a shipworm. Now just which of the many species of shipworm this might be I have not the first clue. Unlike what their name implies they are not actually worms they are in fact clams. If you were to zoom in on the top of the shipworms head, towards the top of this photo, you would find some hard calcareous structures which act as rasps and allows it to bore its way into a piece of wood where those wood bits are digested by a symbiotic bacteria which live inside the shipworm. These little critters helped the British defeat the Spanish Armada because the shipworms had so riddled the wood of the ships they damaged more easily when struck by cannon fire. Since shipworms could cripple a naval fleet when ships such as the USS Constitution were commissioned they were required to be built with overlapping copper panels to keep the shipwoms from destroying the hull. Even in modern days shipworms are estimated to cause about a billion dollars in damage to wooden structured around the world! Oh, whatever you don't Google videos of Giant Shipworms!


Quick snap number two:   

What I knew at the time: it was covered in mucus, appeared to have a large hole in the "top" of the creature, had a large suction cup like foot similar to a snail, it was in a lobster trap with a bunch of crabs, about the size of a wiffle ball. 

So what is it? Well I still have no idea. I posted this picture along with the above description a number of different places looking for help sadly to no avail. What it might be is a moon snail which has been pulled out of its shell or there is also a possibility it was a sea slug. Now I have seen lots of moon snail shells on beaches from time to time especially after a large storm, but I have never seen a shell with a snail still in it. Some snail shells have other occupants in them like this one.

Hermit crab hides out in a moon snail shell.

After having looked at a number of photographs of moon snail meat I feel somewhat confident that the big ball of slimy brown stuff may in fact be a moon snail. If anyone out there reading this has a better idea of what this is please feel free to let me know!