Made by Serif
© 2010 Ocean & Coastal Care Initiatives
© 2007 Ocean & Coastal Care Initiatives
Welcome to the feature creature page. Here you will find short articles on different marine creatures. A new article will be featured each month.
Limpets
Many of the common snails found on our rock platforms are grazing snails. They roam
around the rocks, grazing on the micro-
Limpets have hard, oval shells but have no 'door' or 'bottom' to their shell. This makes them very vulnerable to drying out when the tide goes out. To combat this they use strong suction to hold themselves tightly to the rock surface. They are very hard to prise off the rocks!
Limpets also rotate their shells to make a groove around themselves that exactly
fits the shape of their shell. This also helps to make their suction air-
Most species of limpet change from males to females as they get older and larger. You will often find one large female surrounded by several smaller males. There is often a lot of competition for space for limpets, and you may find large numbers of them crowded into very small areas.
The main natural predators of limpets are birds -
Written by Jeannie Lawson
Photographs by Chris Roberts & Ivon Sebastian