Critter Club went to Taylor’s Mistake Beach to look at the rock pools and found several species of limpets.

Limpets are a type of Gastropod (which includes garden snails).

They have an incredible grip to rocks when they need to, but also move via a snail-like foot.

Their tongue (radula) rasps algae from rocks, similar to a snail.

The tongue has teeth, which are reinforced with iron hydroxide (goethite).

There is a really great article on wikipedia. It has a very high quality and detailed limpet anatomy diagram:

The ring of gills very interesting – this is how the limpet gets it’s oxygen from the water.

Here is a link to a page on Naturewatch about limpets: http://naturewatch.org.nz/taxa/47679-Patellogastropoda

As of now 11 species have been recorded in New Zealand on Naturewatch

Shh secretly, the most interesting part about a limpet is that it poops over it’s head :D