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NEYEDC improve and inform environmental decision making, conservation, land management and sustainable development in North and East Yorkshire through the collation, management, analysis and dissemination of biodiversity information.

The Natural History of Yorkshire in 100 Species

Explore the rich and diverse natural history of our region through the stories of 100 species, told by the people who know them best.

#63 Limpet by Ana Cowie

Meet Ana, Marine Pollution Officer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust!

Ana is the Marine Pollution Officer at Yorkshire Wildlife Trust which includes running events like beach cleans, managing a team of brilliant volunteers who do various roles on the Trusts behalf and collecting a suite of datasets that shape the marine programme moving forward. Ana has always been interested in marine wildlife, ever since her father, who was an animal behaviour lecturer at Cardiff University, used to bring her along to fieldtrips both locally and abroad! Ana remembers her dad organising an epic 9-hour whale watching trip in the Irish Sea when she was 10 and waking her up at 2am because he was so excited he couldn’t sleep! So they drove to the meeting point in the middle of the night and slept in the car instead. In her free time you will find Ana bird ringing on behalf of Flamborough Bird Observatory, but Ana’s true passion is introducing people to the weird and wonderful wildlife we find in Yorkshire’s rockpools!

Email: ana.cowie@ywt.org.uk

Website: www.ywt.org.uk

LinkedIn profile: linkedin.com/in/ana-cowie-439393ab

Twitter handle: @ana_cowie

Limpet (c) Cate Holborn

The species Ana has chosen to shine a spotlight on is the often overlooked and undervalued Common Limpet (Patella vulgata). Most of us probably have memories of going to the coast when we were younger and trying our best to dislodge these marine snails from the rocks (which is not encouraged), but usually coming up short. Have you ever wondered why that is? One of Ana’s favourite rockpooling facts is that engineers discovered that the teeth/tongue of a limpet are made up of the strongest natural material ever tested – beating spider silk and most man-made materials! This enables them to avoid any predators but also retain water which prevents them from drying out while exposed. No wonder people struggle to pry them off rocks.

Another fascinating fact is that when the tide is in, limpets move around feeding by scraping algae off rocks using their rasping tongue (called a radula). When the tide goes back out, they follow a trail of mucus left behind and manage to return to the exact same spot on the exact same rock! Over time, the edges of the limpet’s shell wears a shallow hollow in the rock which is known as a ‘homescar’. Keep an eye out for these when you are next visiting the Yorkshire coast!

Although limpets are among the most abundant and familiar features of Yorkshire’s coastline, their significance to human civilisation going back tens of thousands of years is not well known. Studies have highlighted that the earliest known evidence of humans consuming limpets’ date back 164,000 years to a cave in South Africa. Since then, various civilizations including the ancient Greeks, Romans and Vikings incorporated them into their diets.

Throughout history, limpets have been associated with poverty and starvation and were often referred to as ‘famine food’, particularly during dire times like the Irish potato famine. Not only are they a source of food, but they have also contributed to global culture and medicine. Limpet shells were used as tools for prehistoric cave paintings and for religious ceremonies across the globe. In medicine, limpet proteins are being used in treatments for bladder cancer, asthma, and lupus.

Limpet home scar (L) (c) Ana Cowie and a limpet radula marks on chalk (c) Becky Hitchin

They also play a significant ecological role on our rocky shores as many intertidal species have free-swimming larvae that need bare rock on which to settle and mature. Less limpets would lead to an increase in the amount of algae on rocks which would in turn affect the number of species which can settle and grow and reduce overall biodiversity.

So next time you head to a rocky shore, take a moment to appreciate the overlooked limpet and remember the adaptations they have developed to enable them to survive in this harsh and changeable environment!

Recording and monitoring

Unfortunately, standardised monitoring of the wildlife along Yorkshire’s rocky shores has been patchy over the years. To address this, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have re-launched Shoresearch. This is The Wildlife Trusts’ national citizen science survey of the intertidal shore, the exciting world of extremes where the sea meets the land. Volunteers are trained to identify and record the wildlife on shores across the UK. Data collected helps experts to monitor our seas long term health, including shifts in distributions, population sizes and biodiversity. This enables them to better understand the effects of pollution, climate change and invasive species. This project has also been key to designating many Marine Conservation Zones which are essentially nature reserves at sea where damaging activities are banned or restricted.

If you would like to get involved and join Yorkshire Wildlife Trust on a Shoresearch Survey, email Ana via ana.cowie@ywt.org.uk.

Intertidal surveying (c) Cate Holborn

Further information and acknowledgements

NEYEDC would like to thank Ana for her time and expertise in helping to create this blog.

NEYEDC