Making babies

Every year, in June, my big whelk lays eggs. I have a mated pair of Kellettia kellettii living in a big tub at the marine lab. I inherited them from a lab mate many years ago now, and they’ve been nice pets. They’ve lived together forever, and make babies reliably. As June rolls around I start looking for eggs. This year I want to document the entire process, from egg-laying to larval development. Fortunately, I had the foresight to photograph the parents in May, as I didn’t want to disturb the female once she began laying.

The female is significantly larger than the male. I know the big one is the female because that’s the one that lays the eggs. I’ve never managed to catch the whelks copulating, but given the female’s track record they either copulate regularly or she is able to store sperm for a long period of time.

In any case, she started laying eggs today. I went in to check on them and there she was!

I know from previous years that it can take over a week for the female to lay her entire clutch of eggs. Each of those pumpkin seed-shaped objects is an egg capsule, containing a few dozen embryos. The newly lain capsules are white, as you see above, and will gradually get darker as the embryos develop into larvae. The mother will lay the eggs and then depart. When the larvae are ready to leave the capsule, a small hole will wear through in the top of the capsule and the larvae will swim out. More on that later, hopefully.

I took some time-lapse video of the female, and was able to record her moving over the egg capsules and then leaving. I’d also put some food in the tub, and I think she got distracted.

I think it’s really cool to see how well the snail can swivel around on her foot. Snails are attached to their shell at only a single point called the columella, the central axis around which the shell coils. Some snails can extend quite far outside the shell, and they can all pull inside for safety. The dark disc on the back of the foot is the operculum that closes up the shell when the snail withdraws into it.

Tomorrow when I check on things at the lab I’ll see if she has resumed laying.