Topic: Margaret, can you help?

[eileen]

Hi there,

I've just found the strangest thing in my pond and have no idea what it is.

I'll try my best to describe it for you - here goes: it's about 1 & 1/2 inches long and about 1 inch wide. It looks for all the world as though it's the albumen of some sort of egg but inside the whiteish/clear jelly are small creamy coloured worm-like things that are approx. 2-3 cms long. Inside the jelly there also eems to be a string of reddish dots similar to toad spawn but much, much narrower and smaller. Could be a digestive tract or a type waste disposal tube I suppose.

I don't even know if this 'thing' is a living organism or if it's an egg case as the worm-like things inside it could be something it's eaten and I'm seeing into its stomoch. It did, however, manage to appear back in the pond after I'd cleaned it out and left the 'thing' lying on the pondside. (Actually maybe not, it could be another one I've just fished out.) Oh dear I'm getting really confused and I feel I'm wittering on here too much, sorry!!

I'm totally stumped but don't want to get rid of it out of my pond just incase it's snail eggs or something.

Can you shed any light on this for me at all?

Any help you can give me will be much appreciated.

Thanks, Eileen.

[tubs]

Eileen,
It's a used Durex!

[Margaret]

Hello Eileen,how are you? i have been looking at my pond life book but this is a bit of a puzzle.!! When i find anything in my pond i am unsure about i put it in a large tupperware box with pond water in and observe it for a while.do the same and you will see if it is indeed a living organism.Snail eggs are generally opaque.Is anything moving inside the jelly?What do you have in your pond......just frogs tadploes and newts.None of these would produce waste like that and it sounds very big to be just an organism of sorts.Keep observing it and post back.i am curious.Just as I am curious about Chloes' post too!

[Mimi]

Eileen, just had a thought.  Could it be one of the lesser known British species.  I have heard a lot about but unfortunatley never seen.  It is very common here around our house......the Pisttaza Newt?????????

[eileen]

Hi Mimi,

I honestly don't know WHAT it is but it sure doesn't look like any newt I've ever seen. It doesn't have legs or a tail. It doesn't look like a newt taddie either. More like a blob of whiteish and clear jelly. Ian put it back in the pond yesterday and now I can't find it anywhere. Thanks for your message Mimi, just wish I could find out what it is as I don't have a clue.

Eileen.

P.S. can you let me know if there's a web page I can take a look at your newt on...not having much success in finding a photograph of it in different stages of its development. Thanks, E.

[Mimi]

Eileen,  I havent seen a web site either but the development is easy enough to follow.  The newt starts off with two legs but rapidly wobbles and usually ends up on all fours.  It then procedes to vomit copiously on my new carpet. ;D

[eileen]

Obviously got too much on my mind today Mimi - didn't get that one at all!!!!  :-[

Oh dear I think one of my two remaining brain cells must have died  :'( :'(

Eileen.

[gilgamesh]

Water snail eggs. The "reddish blobs" inside are the little snails developing, the "jelly" is a protective layer to keep other beasties from munching them.

[Margaret]

Gilgamesh,you beat me to that answer!I found some in my pond,put them in a tub and watchedthem hatching,and moving out .Fascinating! up till then i always thought snail eggs were opaque,maybe it depends on the snail.i have some very red snails as well as the conical brown ones,and some other very tiny flat ones.All part of natures great (or tiny!) world!

[Chloe]

Hi Margaret,

Are your red ones rams horn snails.  I have one of those, love watching him, or maybe her.  I think snails are quite fascinating, munching their way through everything and the way they can get round the pond.

[gilgamesh]

Snails are hermaphrodites, so your ramshorn is both him and her.

[Margaret]

Yes Chloe,they are.Just out of interest,did you realise there are 8 types of ramshorn snails,the largest three being the most red.Yes they are fascinating.As gilgamesh says(by the way what does your name mean?) you may be lucky and it will breed from itself!! i have plenty of snails,good job i have as the blackbirds wait for them to get within reach and pounce.

They are also partial to a newt,i discovered to my horror,but not a lot I can do about it.I suppose it keeps the numbers down!

[gilgamesh]

Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, in Sumeria (modern Warka, Biblical Erech) in Iraq, which country derives its name from Uruk. The oldest (generally agreed) epic in the world, from about 3,000 BC. I "inherited" the name because it was my "superuser" name on a network of Unix boxes (called after the Babylonian "astral guardian" gods Hinib, Nergal, Nebo and Marduk). No real significance, though some mornings I do feel 5000 years old.

[Chloe]

How interesting the meaning of your name gilgamesh. I keep wanting to put gil as I have to keeping checking I have spelt it right:)


No, Margaret, I didn't realise there were 8 different types. Lets hope it breeds, I did try to take a phot of it today but it was to hidden to get it properly. I don't know where mine came from but then I don't know where any of the stuff came from in my pond.  It's just everytime I see something new I am totally hooked.  I saw this funny little flat thing the other day, just whizz up from under the weed and swim really fast back down and didn't have a clue what it was but today when I was sitting pond watching, (and saw a baby newt)  I saw this little black/brown worm thing, then all of a sudden it flattened itself out ( didn't look like a worm at all then) and went whizzing down into the water, the same as the one I saw the other day.  So once finished my cup of tea I will get the books out and see what it is.  Well, hopefully I will find it.  It would be nice if there was a plain and simple pond book on the market so someone like me could flick through the pages and recognise what they have seen:)