Five new specimens arrived this week.
But first an update on the Asian shore crab. It went a bit wrong after my last post. Now it's all OK I can own up but at the time it was a bit of a disaster. Remember the beautiful pinned out crab all ready to embed in my
last post? Well I poured it and the resin set fast as it was very warm weather and I stupidly got a bit carried away and put another layer on after half and hour, then another after another half hour or so. It all looked great. Till I went back a few hours later. It had got hot. Really hot and not only had cracks popped up everywhere but I'd cooked it!
And it had come all the way from France and was the only specimen I had.
Big mess up.
But things always have a way of working out. A few weeks later someone happened to be in France and found another specimen.
Very carefully and very slowly I pinned my second specimen out to dry then set it in resin.
Very carefully...
... and thankfully it came out just about perfect this time.
I think the orange is quite a beautiful colour and this is the sort of happy accident I embrace when I am doing my own work. But it is no good for a biologist. Lessons learnt.
The Natur Cymru, Nature of Wales blog reports finding this crab earlier this year.
The new specimens I got this week are manila clam Ruditapes philippinarum and a razor shell Ensis directus.
Then Urosalpinx cinerea, Ocenebra inornata and Zebra mussel Dreissena polymorpha, which I have started setting today.
I think that is the last of them other than the wire weed which will have a wooden frame like the wakame. Be good to see the whole collection finished. It's going off to France in September. More about that when I know.
So lots of sanding and polishing to do now.
For more information on non-native species go to ERCCIS. There is also NNSSLabels: Asian shore crab, Dreissena polymorpha, embedding in resin, Ensis directus, ERCCIS, Hemigrapsus sanguineus, marine non-native species, Ocenebra inornata, resin, Ruditapes philippinarum, Urosalpinx cinerea
