Every summer, one of my favorite hobbies is taking an afternoon stroll in the littoral zone, turning over stones just beneath the water's surface and meeting the strange creatures underneath...
...As I go along, I usually (and sadly,) find discarded plastic bottles, and use them to "bottle up" some of the more interesting creatures I encounter. I later take their photos in a makeshift studio, and release them back to the waters. Here then, are the results of the littoral photo-expedition I took in August, 2007, in the waters around Bitez beach, in Bodrum.
Here are two tiny juvenile sea urchins and the strange "red object" I found under a big rock.
The sea urchins seem to be the offspring of the
common variety found all over the place.
But this... the mysterious "red object" leaves me completely clueless! I first thought it could be a very young sea cucumber, due to the strange sucker-like things protruding from its side. But it also looks like a weird
polychaete worm, or a larva of one. Or maybe a
flatworm? My best guess at this point is that it is an Aphroditomorph
scale worm, but do those things even live in the Mediterranean? Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you are my only hope!
Next, we have a more familiar creature, one that occurs in plague-like densities around these parts.
Dancing around like five miniature serpents tied in a knot, these brittle stars are always an interesting sight.
These creatures appear to feed on seafloor detritus. Besides placing them in the
group ophiurida, I cannot say anything about their genus or species.
Here is a common sight from Turkish beaches. Behold the bearded fireworm,
Hermodice carunculata.(?)
Locally, these critters are known as "sea centipedes" and their scratching, sting is dreaded on every beach. They writhe around in pain and seem to suffer extremely when someone spits on them, thus explaining the local belief that "saliva is like acid to them." Don't worry, I didn't try it.
A close up of the fireworm's main weapons, the white tufts of stinging spikes.
I found a large variety of immature sea cucumbers under some larger stones. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you might remember
my previous adventures with sea cucumbers. If you haven't, suffice it say that sea cucumbers are related to sea stars and brittle stars (see above,) and are awesome.
This was the first variety I encountered on the beaches of Bitez. I don't know exactly what any of these things might be, or if they are separate species. They sure looked different enough, so I gave them arbitrary nicknames.
I call this one "the mottled variety." Here is its underside, showing the multitudes of tube-feet.
This one, the "meatball variety," was almost certainly a member of the genus
Holothuria.
Here is its top view...
...and bottom view.
Finally, the third kind of sea cucumber I encountered was the "spiny variety". Quite obviously, I named it so after its fleshy spikes, and dazzling spots.
Here is its underside, showing the tubular suction feet again, and also the bizarre green tentacles that surround its mouth. Although all sea cucumbers have these tentacles, only the spiny ones had them this big and this prominent.
Another trick these ones have up their sleeves is their ability to eject their intestines as sticky, string-like gooey filaments.
Here is what it did to my hand! No, that's not what it looks like.
I also found some crabs, again unidentifiable to my armchair scientific knowledge.
These thin, dark ones had long, heavy pincers on proportionally long-ish arms.
UPDATE! My friends Jonas and Emile tell me that these are Anomuran porcelain crabs, relatives of hermit crabs and lobsters that are not true crabs, but just crab-shaped. Notice their six legs, as opposed to eight in true crabs.
While these larger, heavyset kinds had a peculiar kind of "fuzz" lining up their bodies.
Here it is on macro, showing the cowboy-style tassels closer-up. I don't know if this integument comes from the crab's body itself, or is a sort of symbiotic algae.
As the sun began to set, I found it difficult to go walking over slippery rocks, or photograph what I found under them. I thus returned my invertebrate friends to the sea, and their plastic holding bottles to the trash. I ended my day with an immense sense of satisfaction.
I know many natural history enthusiasts and specialists are reading my blog. If you can identify what exactly these creatures were, I'll be forever in your debt. (or something like that.)
After my last post about Bodrum, here is a a follow-up on certain aspects of the nightlife of the ever-popular holiday location.
A detailed discussion of Bodrum's thousands of bars and clubs, of course, will be patently impossible and pretty boring. Instead I want to tell you about the places that mattered to me, my close friends and the 1000-2000 other young people that frequent them.
We were struck down with grief when the old BBC closed down to become one of the omnipresent "holiday discos" found throughout Bodrum. In 2007, however, it reopened as a rock bar, with the original trashy decoration meticulously "restored" to evoke the old days. However, people had moved on...
...to other places, Bodrum's labyrinthine streets among them. Here is my brother and his friends during last year.
They were busy preparing and drinking vast amounts of a notorious concoction called "Karışım," which was made out of beer, wine, vodka and tequila, among other things. Naturally disgusted by alcohol, I could only fathom one sip - which tasted like stale oil.
If the streets are not to your liking, you can always try the real bars that lie around Bodrum's landmark castle.
The first, and the most popular of these is called Körfez, which is always crowded to the brink and has not updated its playlist of songs since 1999.
These factors, however, do not deter people from having a good time, as this couple I shamelessly spied on can attest.
Other good places to go apart from Körfez include the newly-opened Tower,
...and the ever popular Adamik. If you spend your holidays in Bodrum, chances are your nights will be spent tracing infinite triangles between these three bars, and... nowhere else!
All of these pictures were taken last year. I wonder what this summer will bring? By the way, this is not my first post on Bodrum's nightlife. Check this out for the last report!
