Marine chemical ecology research technician Raphael Ritson-Williams of Ft. Pierce, Florida:

"We're going to take this (the slit-shell snail "milk") back to our lab and do chemical analysis on it to look for different types of compounds that are in it, do extractions, and then hopefully isolate some compounds.   We hope to get a chance to come back and test them (the isolated compounds) against crabs and other things to see if they don't taste good so crabs wouldn't eat them.   Or they might be pheromones to find other snails with, so you set a little trap out and see if other snails aggregate around it and test it like that.   But right now we're just going to look at the chemistry (of the "milk")." Video courtesy of Joe Bruncsak/Brooke et al., NOAA-OE, HBOI.

 


Related Links

Florida Coast Deep Corals 2005

Florida Coast Deep Corals - Nov 19 Log

NOAA Ocean Explorer Gallery