Introducing Sleipner

[DHyslop]

I'll tip my hand tonight, even if I haven't gotten hold of any poo by then.

 

[Animal Mother]

You don't think he's eating his arms do you?

 

[Nancy]

Now I'm getting worried....what do you think is going on?

Nancy

 

[DHyslop]

I don't think its autophagy because I usually have a good view of him and I haven't noticed any stumps.

He stopped making the ceph-typical red poops about two weeks ago, after he stopped eating. His poops since then have been small (3-4 mm), translucent/flesh colored and a little bit stringy at the end(s). He'll spit up to a few a day into the water column directly out of his mantle cavity.

My hypothesis is these aren't poops at all: Sleipner is a she-ipner and for some reason has holed up in a den, stopped eating and started producing infertile, somewhat malformed eggs a few months ahead of schedule. From what I can tell she's not depositing them in festoons in her den, but just spitting them out into the water.

I don't have any evidence to back up this idea--its simply a hypothesis that happens to fit the facts. Nor do I have any reason why it might be happening. The only thing I can try to shed some light on the subject is try to catch some of this mystery poo. I put some chaeto downstream of the den to try to trap some.

Thoughts?

Dan

 

[Brock Fluharty]

Maybe there are fertile ones, but she is picking the bad ones out and throwing them out? Just a thought...