Pomatoceros

Those of you who read my blip yesterday will be asking what the devil these have to do with childhood memories.

I was a weird child. Nothing changed much as I grew into adulthood either. I can't blame the company I kept as St. Columba's in Kilmacolm was strictly girls only at that time and my parents have never gone far beyond identifying the odd garden bird. My father did, however, insist we learned the latin names of all the plants in the garden. Whilst my friends began to swap their dolls for dabbling with make up and crushes on the local boys and Davy Jones, I dabbled in ponds and was digging my first vegetable patch. Ok, I did have a crush on Davy Jones!

Our year was the first ever to have 'Sex Education' introduced to the national curriculum. As you can imagine this caused much amusement amongst us, and dread for at least one teacher. Mr Campbell taught chemistry, was easily embarrassed, and forcibly signed up to the course, we delighted in ensuring his face remained almost permanently scarlet. We knew nothing of sex other than it was rude and made us laugh. We were terribly innocent compared to the 12 and 13 year olds of today. There was no internet, books were bought for us and I honestly wouldn't be surprised if my parents had censored Blue Peter and Jackanory.

One of the first lessons was an introduction to living things which involved an experiment with the inhabitants of these calcareous tubes and microscopes. It was a lesson I will never forget, or the name Pomatoceros.

Pomatoceros triqueter, are little worms that build these structures and never leave them. When forcibly enticed to leave their homes they can be easily identified. The males have yellow abdomens and the female's are violet. Kept separately until a crowd of school kids gathered around, they were mixed together under a microscope at x60. Instantly the females released their eggs and the males did what they have to do to fertilise them. I found this incredibly fascinating. Even more exciting, the magnification was augmented to x240 or there about, enabling us to witness the first division of the cells of an egg. It was the lesson that changed my life.
Although my preferred subjects were already the sciences, from then, and to this very day, I am compelled to investigate anything that moves, however small.

Now you know who to blame for all my macros and insect blips. :)

Oh, and remember to scrape them off when your cleaning mussels!! I'm sure they're edible, but now you know. :)