A Rare Sight
Our guides went over to investigate when they saw lots of seabirds feeding on a drift line between two outer-coast islands. They found the water teeming with small, dark swimming snails. The little pencil-point sized snails looked like they had wings! We looked at some collected specimens under a microscope and the body was the approximate size of a pencil tip! We believe them to be newly hatched turban snails. Adult Black Turban Snails are common on intertidal rocks on the west coast, but the species does have a 4-5 day pelagic stage after hatching during which they drift and "swim" with their little water wings, until they are ready to attach to a rock and establish a home feeding area.

Turban Snail newly-hatched, swimming (pelagic stage) collected March 28th north of Tofino.
Courtesy of T.Cross, Remote Passages Marine Excursions

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