Best of Mike #93

Many things about scuba diving amaze me.... not the least of which, is the things that are pretty underwater and ugly on land.

This is one of those things, a Flamingo Tongue.... it is a snail.

You know what a snail looks like on land.... nothing good until maybe it ends up as escargot. Even then, we are talking taste and not visual.

The shell of a Flamingo Tongue is actually white... all the color is in the living soft tissue, a mantle, that is stretched over the shell.

A mantle is highly muscular and is common to all mollusks.

By contracting this powerful muscle, some use it to shoot water through a siphon and propel themselves through the water.

Others use it as foot to propel themselves along the bottom.

And still others, find a third use.... anchoring themselves to a host.