THE easterly gales of the last few weeks drove millions of marine creatures ashore. The shells of molluscs and crustaceans were strewn along the tide-line at Malahide. Gulls gathered to feed on the spoils. Whelks, razor-shells and cockles, their bright orange ‘feet’ protruding, were especially abundant. Tommy Collins, aged five, and his little brother, Liam, on a shell-collecting spree, encountered what seemed to be a giant millipede, alive among the debris. The creature, over a third of a metre long and as thick as a man’s thumb, had hundreds of little legs along its body. On being handled, it burrowed powerfully into the sand…
Irish Examiner, 22/04/13. Read the full article ‘The boys opened a can of worms‘.
