31. Lineata

Sometimes I see an animal in the ocean and the only thought to have is why? Why on earth does it look like that? The animal above is Bullina lineata, one of a group known informally as bubble-shells. I saw this one at Jervis Bay, in Australia, near our Octopolis site, last week. I’ve only seen the species once before in the sea, and both times I was quite baffled by them. As you can see from the photo above, their milieu is a silty and weedy sort of world, and they are very small (the ones I...