Before the Escargot

Meet Norrissia Norrisi or Norris' topsnail. An herbivorous gastropod common in kelp forests, it lives and feeds primarily on the Giant Kelp, Macrocystis Pyrifora.

N.N. undergoes "diurnal migration," that is, during the day, it migrates to lower parts of the kelp, and at night moves back up toward the surface. And its shell is a vibrant orange.

The fairest angel will be collecting 30 of these little lovelies over the next couple of weeks; how cool is that? She'll snorkel through Macrocystis pyrifora to do so. And this absolutely fascinates me.

Everything about the underwater world fascinates me. When I was little, I pretended I was a mermaid. When I finally realized I couldn't walk around with shells on my boobs, I turned to documentaries to get my fix. I went through Junior High and High School wanting to live on Calypso. I learned to swim underwater before learning to swim on top. I still can't swim on top very well 'cuz I won't release my breath.

I must touch everything in tidepools - if not with my finger, then a stick or stone will do. I love scoping out pylons along the docks in Washington - watching the mussels and anemones feed. I love that you can go down to the water at night and, shining a light, watch thousands of shrimp feeding.

Jellyfish and octopi; sea pens and sea stars; and, one of my favorites, the sea cucumber (which provides a most excellent example of the two words "flacid" and "turgid"); all of it fascinates me.

Amy will be doing her research project on Norris' topsnail. And I will be visiting her on Catalina, poking the little buggers with sticks until she yells at me for disturbing their diurnal migration. I get to watch her grind up seaweed and send it off for analysis - she needs to measure the level of aquatic equivalents to tannins, which make certain kelp more bitter than others and thus less palatable to certain orange herbivores.

California here I come, right back where I started from...