Saturday, February 15, 2014

Found heaps of Cryptoplax!

I was having trouble finding Cryptoplax on the north side of Heron Island. At Bernie's suggestion, I went for a reef walk at low tide on the southern side of the island and pretty easily found about 15 Cryptoplax on the underside of boulders. I brought the animals back to the lab and have since been trying to keep them from escaping from their aquarium.

Cryptoplax larvaeformis


Now I have both Cryptoplax and Acanthopleura and have been trying to convince them to spawn. They didn't cooperate on the full moon (even though it was Valentine's day!) and so far they haven't spawned tonight but I'm keeping a vigil. It's been suggested that thermal stress (both unusually cold and unusually warm) can induce spawning. If they don't spawn in the next couple of days, that'll be my next action.

Experimental aquaria for chiton spawning. If they start to
spawn, males will be isolated to avoid polyspermy and eggs
will be collected in 63 micron sieves, washed, and treated 
with appropriately diluted sperm.

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