The Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary has two very rare lobsters in their tanks right now. The Orange Lobster is a rare variety of northern lobsters and grows to 44 lbs., making it the heaviest growing Crustacean in the world. Orange Lobsters occur only 1 in every 10 million lobsters.
The Calico Lobster is ever more rare with only 1 in 300 million lobsters.
The variations in their color are due to genetic mutations.
If you’re on Cape Cod, make sure you go to the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary and see these very cool lobsters!
The baby Terrapin turtles are hatching along the beaches and trails at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary. You can see the nests which have been marked in the photograph below with a cage to keep predators out. The blue tape lets the staff know that the incubation period is right around that time.
Staff at the sanctuary make 2 trips a day out to all of the nests to see if there are any hatchlings. The baby Terrapins cannot survive by themselves in the first hours of their life due to many factors which include ants, maggots and dehydration from the sun.
After they have absorbed their yolk and regained their energy back at the sanctuary, they are then set free out by their nest. They do not need to eat for quite a while. They never seen their mothers again and will spend most of their life in the water.
The story of the Terrapin turtle is quite fascinating and so interesting to learn about!
This little Chipmunk was so funny as he kept climbing the trees in our backyard. He’d go running up the tree to about 15 feet high, look around and then run down. He did this over and over again.
I have seen so many baby bunnies in the past couple of weeks… on my bike rides and on the trails. It seems like they all have come out of their hutches and are hitting the trails. They are so small and so cute!
I saw this little guy as I was walking from Doane Rock to Coast Guard Beach. He was right on the trail and wasn’t phased by me at all. He just plodded along the path, eating as he went, as I walked by.
This little Horseshoe Crab shell that we saw on Coast Guard Beach the other day was no bigger than a quarter. It was tiny!
“For the horseshoe to grow larger, it must molt and shed its shell. These “molts” can sometimes be found near tidal flats, left by the juvenile crabs who live there for their first year or two.”
Fascinating, don’t you think?
Cape Cod daily articles on the wonderful Cape Cod places to hike, experience and photograph. A Cape Cod Outdoor Adventure Series.
