New Jersey Scuba Diving

Oyster Drill

Urosalpinx cinera

Size: to 1"

Habitat: subtidal down to 50 ft

Notes: This little snail uses acid and its rasp-like tongue to drill a neat hole in a bivalve or barnacle victim, then sucks out the contents.

Snails

These creatures are all of the order Gastropoda - having a single, often coiled, shell, as opposed to the bivalves, which have two matching shells. Most snails are hermaphroditic. Also, most snails have a right-hand twist to the shell, although there are exceptions.

Right:
X-ray image of a Channeled Whelk, showing internal structure.

Nudibranchs are a form of snail that has lost its shell, while Corollas and Sea Butterflies are snails that have abandoned not just their shells, but the snail-like existence entirely, swimming up into the water column as plankton.

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Klondike Rocks

These low outcroppings appear in small to large patches over a two-mile area called the Klondike, and elsewhere, at depths ranging from 60 to 90 feet. The overhangs, crags, and holes afforded by the piles of rocks and boulders provide excellent homes for fish and lobsters. Visibility can be great here at times, but it is usually 10-20 ft, with a silty bottom in most places. The larger areas extend for many hundreds of feet, and an incautious diver can easily get lost. The stone itself is a type of sandstone known as Greensand, which occurs along the northern part of the New Jersey coast, and parts of Long Island, most famously as the Shrewsbury Rocks.

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