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Coffee Bean Snail
Melampus bidentatus
Where it was photographed - the low marshes across from the Forked River
Interpretation Center in Island Beach State Park.
Note that this coffee bean snail is
living on a piece of salt hay, one of the many bay grasses that are
the building blocks of life in the Barnegat Bay. These snails
are most visible during flood tides, when they climb to the top
of the grasses.
Scientists believe that coffee bean snails
have an innate ability to know when the flood tides are coming before
they actually arrive. The most important food chain of the estuary
is the detrital* food chain of which the Coffee bean snail is a great conveyer. When the tide come up,
and the detritus or “marine soup” sticks to the
grasses, the snail will make its way down the grass and eat the
“marine soup” to gain the nutrients it needs to
survive.
*Detritus - the bay grasses (primarily cord grass) in the
estuary die and are decomposed by bacteria and fungi, this is
“detritus”, the building block of all life in the
estuary.
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