Chennai Photo Biennale’s weekend shorewalks helps city kids befriend coastal creatures

Creatures old and new were introduced to the curious young minds of Chennai at Chennai Photo Biennale’s weekend shorewalks

Over the past two Sundays, two different sets of children could be seen trailing behind naturalist, teacher and author Yuvan Aves along Chennai’s beaches — identifying crustaceans, solving puzzles, listening intently to his descriptions of creatures of the deep.

The children were enthralled, spellbound and at times visibly terrified after learning about some of the coastal fauna found there such as shell-binders/decorator worms, worms that literally dress up in the shells they find nearby; porcupine fish, a species that can expose spikes from its body after bloating up; and the most unique of them all, the ghost crab, which got its name because of being the only crab species to have eyes outside the body. Who knew that things most of us simply call shells and clams are actually molluscs, which are further divided into classifications such as bivalves (molluscs enclosed in a shell of two halves) and cones?