“THE ADMIRABLE CHITON” (A DELPHI BEACH MYSTERY)

The beach at Delphi is good for combing. Most of Abaco’s beaches are too, for that matter. You can find Kasia’s beachcombing page HERE. Last month 2 guests, Linda and Jan, went exploring on the beach and returned with a handful of mystery items they had found under the clumps of seaweed. These were clearly neither complete nor broken shells, and even after some research in books and online I remained baffled. They were obviously parts of some water-based species… but what parts, anatomically speaking? And what species?

So I contacted Colin Redfern, Bahamian sea shell expert and author of a magisterial tome on the subject. His response was typically swift and definitive: 

Chitons (pron. kytens) are marine molluscs with a great many species worldwide, from very small to quite large. Their shell comprises 8 interlocking and overlapping curved plates known as ‘valves’ that provide a flexible protection, and articulate as the creature moves. Chitons – at least some species – can even curl up into a protective ball. The plates are held together by a ‘girdle’ surrounding the animal.

Fossil records show that these primitive-looking animals derive from the Devonian period – or even Ordovician. They remind me of trilobites, even older creatures from the Cambrian period that used to fascinate me at school when I was small and paying attention. The name chiton derives from Latin word for mollusc, which itself comes from an older Greek word meaning a tunic. Which they in no way resemble.

After a chiton dies, the valves which make up the eight-part shell come apart because the girdle no longer holds them together and these the plates may wash up in beach drift, to be found by Linda and Jan. The individual shell plates are sometimes known as “butterfly shells” due to their shape.

A DOZEN CHITON FACT TO AMAZE YOUR FRIENDS WITH

• Chitons are also known as ‘sea cradles’ or ‘coat-of-mail shells
• Their shell consists of 8 plates / valves so flexible that they can even curl into a ball
• They move with a muscular ‘foot’, and use it to cling onto rocks like a limpet
• They have no definable head, no tail and no eyes, only ‘photoreceptor cell clusters’
• The mouth on on the underside of the chiton
• It contains a sort of tongue – a radula – with rows of teeth, each with 17 (why 17?)
• They use the radula to scrape the rock substrate for algae and similar
• A chiton’s digestive system produces neat little fecal packages like white pills
• Its anus is next to its foot, a design mercifully not found in humans
• I learn that chitons “lack a cerebral ganglion”. I think this means, no brain as such
• However they do have a primitive ‘homing’ ability too complex to summarise…
• Chitons are eaten by people mainly in the West Indies and the Philippines

WHAT? YOU CAN EAT THEM?**

If you are asking that question, you perhaps read right through the 12 facts to the very last one. If so, you deserve an answer and indeed a recipe for Chitons aka ‘Sea Cockroaches’. And who better to provide it than the brilliantly-named PSYKDELIASMITH Click the link to find out more.

**CAUTION As a couple of people have rightly pointed out (thanks Liann and Julias) since I posted this, not all chitons are edible. Some are poisonous. So before you think of a culinary chiton caper, best check that you have got an edible one

A chiton on the move, very slowly, and apparently halted by an encounter with a nerite

Colin Redfern kindly sent me a pdf of the chiton section of his book. Of the fuzzy chiton he writes: “Occurrence: Very common intertidally on rocky shorelines. Known locally as a Curb, with the meaty foot used as an alternative to conch in salads. Gutted specimens or disarticulated valves consequently common along shorelines.” Which is just where this post began.

And if you want to know about the title and its link to Peter Pan, click THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON

• “Commonly know as a curb, they are edible (raw) you make a salad like you do with conch , delicious !!!” (Rosalie Pyfrom)
• “True some are poisonous, but your have to know which ones!! I was showed as a child which were good from bad!!” (Janice Carey Hall) 
•  “Very delicious” (Cantrell Walker)
• “Lets not forget the poisonous ones!” (Julias Sawyer)
•  “Don’t mess wit my curbs, nom nom”  + “Definitely do NOT eat the very large ones with the bumpy rim”.(Liann Key Kaighin)
• “Curb stew is a Bahamian food that has since the loyalist arrived” (Steve Roessler)

 

Then Gary Richardson Jr added a photo of what must be a pearl, found in a curb in Hope Town. 

 To which I replied “Well that’s a surprise! Interesting find. Did a bit of research. Apparently all shelled molluscs are capable of producing ‘pearls’ – though they have no value. So this must be a chiton pearl…”

Credits: Linda & Jan for their beachcombing finds; Colin Redfern for his ID & info enabling this post (and his continuing interest); Kasia Reid; Hans Hillewaert & James St John (wiki uploads)