Arty Fish at Cairns

Posted on September 8, 2013 by winderjssc

The Cairns Inlet on the Queensland coast is obviously a habitat both rich and diverse. This wonderful natural environment is celebrated by the artist Jennie Scott (2003) in a fabulous and fun ceramic artwork that is embedded in the pavement at Skippers Cafe and Muddy’s Playground (the childrens’ water park) on the Cairns Esplanade. It features examples of all the creatures that live in and on the water just offshore, and that includes fish of all sorts – as you can see from the pictures here.

A Fish at Cairns

Posted on September 7, 2013 by winderjssc

Maybe this was the fish that got away from the net fisherman shown in the previous post. I guess that it wouldn’t have remained on the beach for long – too many small scavengers like crabs living on the mud flats would have thought it a food bonanza – if one of the local ‘salties’ (crocodiles) didn’t snap it up first as a snack. Visitors to the seashore in Cairns are told not to gut fish on the beach or leave food around after barbecues and picnics because the food attracts crocodiles – which of course is dangerous as they are as likely to eat the people as the discarded fish remains!

Fisherman at Cairns

Posted on September 6, 2013 by winderjssc

I was delighted to see this local fisherman casting his circular net into the shallow waters just off the beach at Cairns. I don’t know whether he was after any particular kind of fish but I know that many fish like to hide amongst the submerged mangrove roots around the shores. Unfortunately, despite repeated attempts, he went home empty-handed on that occasion. I spoke to him and he allowed me to take these pictures and the short video clip of his fishing technique.

TIP – View the following video clip with the sound off because of the noise made by the wind over the microphone.

Seashells at Cairns 5

Posted on September 5, 2013 by winderjssc

I seem to remember picking up this shell from the strand-line at Trinity Beach – which is just north along the coast from Cairns in Queensland. I photographed it against an improvised background of my black trousers – first showing the inside and then the outside of the shell. I think it is a shell of Anadara inaequivalvis (Bruguière) (see CIESM The Mediterranean Science Commission Atlas). This species is found along the coast from Northern Territory to central Queensland as well as being an accidentally introduced species in other parts of the world.

Apparently, when the mollusc is younger, the two hinged valves of the shell are different sizes (inequivalve) but as the mollusc matures the shells become equal in size (equivalve). The number of ribs is important for distinguishing between the different species of Anadara. A. inaequivalvis has between 31 and 34 radial ribs (I can count 31 in this particular specimen. A similar species, A. polii (Lamark) has only 26 – 28 radial ribs. The length of A. inaequivalvis ranges from 70 – 80 mm in mature specimens with a height of upto 61 mm. Unfortunately, I had no ruler to photograph with the shell to indicate scale but it was a fairly large shell.

Seashells at Cairns 4

Posted on September 5, 2013 by winderjssc

I’m puzzling over this shell at the moment. If I recall correctly, it is a live specimen that rolled up the beach with the tide a bit north of Cairns itself, at Yawarra Beach. It looked fairly ordinary and plain until I turned it round to view the edge and saw beautiful delicate growth rings and lovely purple tinged beaks or umbones. I think it is a Mactra. Possibly Mactra dissimilis Reeve.

This group of shells is fairly large with triangular shells; and the animals live in sand. M. dissimilis is the most common species of this family in northern Queensland. It has a sculpture of concentric growth rings but overall is generally smooth in appearance. It is white and tinged with purple and is about 50 mm long. It is found from the Northern Territory to northern New South Wales.

Reference

Jansen, P. (1996) Common Seashells of Coastal Northern Queensland, privately published in Townsville, Australia, ISBN 0 646 29824 0.

Seashells at Cairns 3

Posted on September 3, 2013 by winderjssc

The angularity of this bivalved shell made it immediately noticeable on the sandy beach at Cairns. It is called a Twisted Ark because of the strange configuration of the shell which is strongly twisted with a sharp ridge from the top to the margin. The Latin name is Trisidos tortuosa (Linnaeus), formerly Arca tortuosa. It varies from 60 – 100 mm in length and occurs on the Australian coast from the Northern Territory to Queensland.

Reference

Jansen, P. (1996) Common Seashells of Coastal Northern Queensland, privately published in Townsville, Australia, November 1996. ISBN 0 646 29824 0.

Seashells at Cairns 2

Posted on September 2, 2013 by winderjssc

I only found the one empty beach-worn shell of this Common Baler (Melo amphora Lightfoot) on the beach at Cairns. It is also known as the Giant Baler or Melon Shell. It has spines around the whorls at the anterior end. The pattern on the shell is now indistinct but a fresh shell would have characteristic variable orange-brown zig-zag marks. This species is apparently fairly common in the Indian Ocean, on the Queensland Coast of Western Australia, and off shore New Guinea. The largest recorded size is just under 500 mm in length but this one was only 145 mm. It is quite a heavy shell, and in life it has a thin brown periostracum layer which wears off eventually. The huge curved aperture or mouth of the shell can be used to bale out boats – but has broken on this shell.

Seashells at Cairns 1

Posted on September 1, 2013 by winderjssc

Cairns doesn’t have a beach as you would normally understand it. Most of the area offshore is a vast acreage of mudflats on which it is forbidden to walk. However, there is a narrow fringe of sand along the northern part, accessible from the Esplanade that runs along the whole of the seafront. It is here, randomly dispersed, that assorted small seashells lie in natural drifts on the beach at Cairns, Queensland, Australia.

The photographs in this post show how these marine gastropod and bivalve shells look in situ, just as they were found, on the shore. Identifying them all to species is more problematical – particularly as it is not permitted to collect shells and take them out of the country! I did take lots of pictures while I was there, some in close-up and against the plain background of sand, rock, clothing, or even a plastic dish, so that I could have a go at putting a name to them later. And that is what I am about to do over this series of postings on the seashells I saw in Cairns and other Queensland localities when I was on holiday in 2011.

Mud Creepers

Posted on February 12, 2013 by winderjssc

Mud Creepers are a common sight on the tidal mud flats at Cairns in Queensland, Australia. Also called Telescope Shells, Mudwhelks, Telescopic Creepers, or Mangrove Mud Whelk. The Latin name is Telescopium telescopium L. They are so emblematic of the place that they have been glorified by a fantastic piece of sculpture by Dominic Johns on the Esplanade.

The reality, however, is that this large gastropod marine mollusc – living on the glutinous muds exposed by the ebbing tide – is not the most attractive of seashore creatures, in fact, a bit creepy. It is dark in colour, about 6 inches long, and the shell is very thick and heavy, The protruding muscular foot and tubular siphon of the animal are hard to distinguish from the mud itself but I believe the flesh is edible.

This sea snail seems to struggle as it drags its weighty shell across the mud in strange irregular movements without the supporting medium of water. The furrows incidentally ploughed by the shells leave networks of trails on the mud. In life the shells are often caked with mud but empty shells washed up on the beach show there is actually a great striped pattern.