Gumboot chiton
Gumboot chiton
Montery Bay Aquarium
Natural History
To most of our touch pool visitors, the gumboot chiton is an unfamiliar, mysterious creature. A mantle—thick, leathery, and brick-red—hides the chiton’s eight shell plates and its muscular foot, which anchors the gumboot to a rock. Unlike other chitons that can cling tightly, the gumboot is easily dislodged and may be washed ashore during storms.
To touch a gumboot is to feel the fuzzy texture of about 20 species of red algae that live on the mantle and give the gumboot its brick-red color. The gumboot also eats red algae, which probably adds to its color as well.
The gumboot uses its tonguelike radula to scrape algae from rocks. The radula has many tiny teeth capped with the element magnetite; the teeth contain so much magnetite, in fact, that a magnet can pick them up.
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