{"id":988,"date":"2008-10-18T13:01:11","date_gmt":"2008-10-18T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=988"},"modified":"2008-10-19T12:09:36","modified_gmt":"2008-10-19T16:09:36","slug":"european-invaders-periwinkles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=988","title":{"rendered":"European Invaders: Periwinkles"},"content":{"rendered":"

As we explore the intertidal zone, that area between low and high tide where land and sea are locked in eternal battle, where life must confront pounding surf\u00c2\u00a0one moment alternating with\u00c2\u00a0barren exposure to\u00c2\u00a0rasping winds the next, where creatures are attacked by water predators half the time and land predators the rest of the day, where\u00c2\u00a0everything\u00c2\u00a0is\u00c2\u00a0drowned in brine at high tide and then soaked in rain at low, a harsh clime of extreme contrasts that change as quickly as New England’s weather; as we\u00c2\u00a0search this region we find one of its more common residents, the languid and familiar periwinkle (Littorina littorea<\/em>).\u00c2\u00a0 Some scientist sure\u00c2\u00a0wanted us to remember where this critter came from with both genus and species derived from the Latin littoralis<\/em> (or litoralis<\/em>) meaning “of the shore.”<\/p>\n

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Periwinkles and Barnacles<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

My earliest memories of Cape Cod sealife are of periwinkles dotting the rocky sidewalls of the canal where my mom and dad brought me each\u00c2\u00a0Sunday to fish.\u00c2\u00a0 Back then fishing was less commercial,\u00c2\u00a0yet not purely recreational, either.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, it was a break from the intense six-day, back-straining\u00c2\u00a0work week, but no excurision was successful unless you brought home food that would supplement household resources, especially for meatless Fridays.\u00c2\u00a0 And while fish were plentiful and Sunday after Sunday yielded flounder or cod or tautog or bass for the family table, there were days when the fish just “weren’t biting” and we had to look elsewhere on the food chain to meet our needs.<\/p>\n

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Blue Mussels<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Next down our list were blue mussels that grew in large colonies on the old mud flats near the railroad bridge.\u00c2\u00a0 Back in those days\u00c2\u00a0few people\u00c2\u00a0ate mussels.\u00c2\u00a0 So, it’s amusing\u00c2\u00a0five decades later\u00c2\u00a0that you can’t read a seafood menu without mussels marinara or mussels something.\u00c2\u00a0 But if the tide was too high and our access to the flats was cut off, there was always one last food source to exploit: periwinkles.\u00c2\u00a0 They\u00c2\u00a0may have been\u00c2\u00a0small, but they were plentiful, very plentiful.\u00c2\u00a0 And no one, no one ate or even thought of eating periwinkles.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet, mom sauteed them in butter and garlic, then tossed them into her fresh\u00c2\u00a0spaghetti sauce for flavoring instead of pork or beef\u00c2\u00a0on meatless Fridays.\u00c2\u00a0 Many years later when I visited my parents and brought them out to dinner at a fancy Boston restaurant, I suggested to mom that she try the escargot, sauteed in garlic and butter, as an\u00c2\u00a0appetizer.\u00c2\u00a0 She looked at me as though she had raised\u00c2\u00a0a barbarian.\u00c2\u00a0 “Snails!\u00c2\u00a0 You want me to eat snails!”\u00c2\u00a0 I smiled, apologized and suggested the mussels marinara.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Periwinkle (Littorina littorea)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

While an extremely common critter along our rocky shores, jetties, dock pilings and tidal pools, periwinkles are not native to North America.\u00c2\u00a0 They are an invasive species introduced into the Northeast perhaps sometime in the 19th century.\u00c2\u00a0 First documented in Nova Scotia in the mid-1800s, periwinkles can now be found in plentiful numbers up and down the Eastern Seaboard.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether they were brought to our shores deliberately as a favorite food of European settlers or they hitchhiked across from Europe in ballast water or clinging to creases in ship\u00c2\u00a0plankings, the method of their arrival is clouded in history.\u00c2\u00a0 They are consumed extensively in Europe today and are increasingly being harvested from New England shorelines.<\/p>\n

The main body of this small, shell-covered snail is comprised of a large foot, head and mantle, covered with a protective operculum<\/strong>\u00c2\u00a0(see image above).\u00c2\u00a0 The operculum, a tough, horny\u00c2\u00a0“door”\u00c2\u00a0snaps\u00c2\u00a0the snail’s\u00c2\u00a0soft, vulnerable\u00c2\u00a0body into the shell during dry spells such as low tides.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Periwinkle Anatomy<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Two antennae<\/strong> (chemosensory organs)\u00c2\u00a0peek out from a fleshy foot.\u00c2\u00a0 In the image above you can see\u00c2\u00a0one eye<\/strong> near the stem of the higher antenna and the snout<\/strong> between the two antennae.\u00c2\u00a0 The sole of the foot<\/strong> is the curved white surface behind\u00c2\u00a0(below)\u00c2\u00a0the operculum. \u00c2\u00a0The muscular, mucus laden foot enables the periwinkle to move along rocky boulders and transverse rocky and sandy shores in search of food.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Periwinkles are herbivores.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0They graze copious amounts of algae such as the the macro algae sea lettuce (Ulva lactuca<\/em>) and much smaller diatoms (phytoplankton).<\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Periwinkle in Action<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Factoid:\u00c2\u00a0 Periwinkles have a serrated, rasping,\u00c2\u00a0knife-like tongue called the radula<\/strong>.\u00c2\u00a0 The radula scrapes algae from rocks.\u00c2\u00a0 (In other snail species, the radula bores through hard shells like quahogs, oysters, et cetera.)\u00c2\u00a0 For periwinkles, the algae is mixed with mucus and then passed into the digestive track.<\/p>\n

Predators include crabs, seastars, birds and now a voracious worldwide human population.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As we explore the intertidal zone, that area between low and high tide where land and sea are locked in eternal battle, where life must confront pounding surf\u00c2\u00a0one moment alternating with\u00c2\u00a0barren exposure to\u00c2\u00a0rasping winds the next, where creatures are attacked by water predators half the time and land predators the rest of the day, where\u00c2\u00a0everything\u00c2\u00a0is\u00c2\u00a0drowned […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[826],"tags":[635,167,639,612,620,605,831,621,627,614,613,618,616,31,648,631,637,628,600,615,645,638,602,634,630,604,611,610,603,646,622,625,608,633,636,640,652,609,641,601,649,27,651,650,623,617,644,629,624,653,642,643,626,606,619,632,647,607,655],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=988"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1009,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/988\/revisions\/1009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}