Thank you to all of those who have already shared their insightful pictures from the land. We are very much enjoying following your entries via our hashtag #OfTheLand.
Young Mee Rim, student in Natural History Conservation at The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts has collaborated with TOAST, inviting our instagram / twitter followers to share their findings from the land. Today, Young shares her insight on her favourite finds for week 2
BLUE SAIL -Entry from Trina Medina @trinawinabina
I'd never seen a blue sail before, so I had to look it up and I'm glad I did. These little jellyfish, Velella velella, use their sail to travel by wind in the ocean surface, which means they live both over and under water at the same time. The fact that they are left to the winds as a means of moving around the ocean is also why they tend to strand in very large numbers. You wouldn't necessarily think it, but what looks like one individual is actually an entire colony of either all male or all female polyps! While the Velella, like all cnidarians, bears nematocysts with toxins to dismantle prey, the toxins are apparently relatively benign to humans as opposed to another Hydrozoan floating colony, the terrifying Portugese man o' war.
ECHINODERMS - Entry from @digginginhighheels
There is something about echinoderms (sea urchins, sea lilies, starfish etc) that's so fascinating. We saw the cute, hand-sized fossilised sea urchin last week, and this week the urchins return in their more current state in various colours but with the characteristic bilateral five-fold symmetry white bands and spike-dots intact and more clearly visible. Another cute factor - besides the general look of urchins - is their moving function. Like starfish, sea urchins have tube feet located in rows on the white bands. These small "feet" allow the animals to move across the ocean floor, and are also involved in the feeding and respiratory processes!
TEXTURED WOOD - Entry from Hillary Ellis @drawntothread
What an amazing piece of wood! The texture looks fantastic and the clearly visible growth rings, to me, makes it look almost like an oyster shell. It's almost like a piece of art. I'm always drawn to things that look touch worthy. I would love to run my fingers across the surface of this to feel the borders of the rings.
Follow our #OfTheLand campaign on instagram at @TOASTtravelsor click here for more details on how to enter.
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