Exploring the Extraordinary: An Excerpt from Superpowers on the Shore

Superpowers On The Shore (2022), written by Sejal Mehta and published by Penguin India, explores the sprawling, mysterious ecosystems that have evolved on Indian coasts. The intertidal zone is filled with fascinating creatures, both strange and wonderful, that seem part monster, part myth.

Sejal’s fascination with coastal life began with a nature walk exploring the marine life of Mumbai. Having grown up visiting these beaches, Sejal was a sceptic until she actually experienced the rich and varied inhabitants of these rocky shorelines—an entire world that she had, until now, overlooked.

Over the next few years, she would discover a multitude of creatures: slugs powered by the sun’s rays; canny octopuses; venomous jellyfish, and more. Delving into this world, she realised that these intertidal creatures had superpowers far outstripping any Marvel hero. From bioluminescence to super sonic abilities to changing shapes—there’s so much we can learn from these organisms.

In Superpowers On The Shore, Sejal playfully and gently introduces us to the extraordinary. She approaches this undertaking with humour and whimsy, with chapters like “Assassins of the Intertidal”, “Who Fired the Bat Signal” and “Defence Against the Dark Arts.” The following excerpt is from chapter four of the book, titled “Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby.”

Chapter 4

Let’s Talk About Sex, Baby

The sun is setting on the beaches of Goa.
In a few hours, the shacks and restaurants will switch their psychedelic lights on, put on a thumping beat and Goa will ready itself for a night out on the town.
Even on the shore, the party is well under way.
Hermit Crab is busy tending to her tide pool, the usual venue for weekend shenanigans.
Her friends, the sea snails were passing around algae for appetizers.
A flatworm walks in, ignores the others, checks his reflection in the tide pool.
Satisfied, he looks around. He wonders what his partner has worn.
He sees another flatworm coming towards him. His body is thin, rippling and supple.
He wonders how this will go.
He feels a thrill. The uncertainty is probably everything.
They take position, the two flatworms, and whip out their penises—which are pointy and sharp. Then they start to . . . duel.
They attempt to impregnate the other in what can only be described as an extreme sport.
They stab each other with their penises, hoping to be the first one to get their sperm in the other.
Hermaphrodites, they have both male and female organs, but they both want to avoid carrying the babies due to the energy and time commitment.
So, they fight with each other to ensure they are the impregnator not the impregnated.
Hermit Crab rolls her eyes. So typical.

If you think this bit is bizarre, the reproductive devices in the intertidal zones will really capture your imagination. The eggs that you read about in the last chapter, where did they all come from?

While humans share the concept of perpetuation and survival of our species, we have fewer means to do this. Over the years, I have seen loads of shore species getting it on, and now that I’ve said this, I would not be surprised if I were among a watch list of perverts made by the shore sheriff. While the human race might gloat about inventing the Kama Sutra, I have to tell you, we can’t hold a candle to shore life.

Myths around the beginning of the human race are abundant and some of it includes coastal life. In Spirals in Time, Dr Scales notes:

In the Pacific Northwest of North America, the Haida people believe their creator, the trickster Raven, dug up a cockleshell after a flood and opened it to release the men inside. Raven then persuaded the men to have sex with another mollusc, the chiton and the resulting offspring were women.

What an astounding visual, this. The chiton is an oval-shaped mollusc and looks like it’s wearing eight-plated armour through the length of its body. Maybe it was the uniform, do you think?

The overachievers that they are, they have different ways of making an art form out of romance: sexual and asexual. Okay, that’s simple.

Sexual reproduction involves the obvious existence of an egg and a sperm. This is, of course, through good old-fashioned sexual intercourse, or external reproduction also known as spawning. Basically, the animals will release eggs and sperm into the water and they fertilize outside the body, and voila, become larvae. Humans have some versions of both of these, as you know.

Asexual reproduction is the other rather enviable route available for these creatures:

There’s budding—it’s like a bump that grows on the surface of the animal and slowly becomes a separate creature. Then there’s fission, where the animal clones itself into two. Finally, there’s fragmentation, where if it happens to break away from the main creature, the broken segment grows into a new animal. Although, relying on just asexual reproduction could limit genetic variation, and there would also be limited dispersal of the animal.

The path to these two reproductive possibilities is lined with some strange sex stories. So, get your cuppa, and let’s go.

Meet the flatworm. Never has a name sat so well for a creature. Thin as a flattened ribbon and fluid as lava, it slides over rocky patches with liquid grace. It seems to pour rather than move over things, due to the constantly beating ‘cilia’ (minute hair-like structures that help in movement) that carry its flat body over surfaces. Many also swim by rolling the sides of their bodies like waves.

Polyclad (meaning ‘many branches’) flatworms earn their name from their highly branched intestine that quickly carries nutrients to the furthest reaches of the body. This makes complete sense; I really don’t know where it’d put the food with such a strangely shaped body that lacks any blood. And because literally nothing else might probably fit in there, it needs to digest its food outside its body. The digestive juices that it injects help liquefy the prey outside the body, and then the flatworm sucks the pulp in.

Those are just a few things about these other-worldly creatures. Some species of flatworms have this strange way of making sure their legacy is forwarded to the future. They have both male and female organs as they are hermaphrodites, but they will fight with each other to be the impregnator; being impregnated means bearing the burden of carrying babies, which requires energy and the commitment of time and other resources.

They fence with their penises to decide this battle’s end. They will try and stab the other worm anywhere on the body with their penis to pass the sperms into the body. Marine researcher Sudhanshu Dixit has watched this phenomenon, called hypodermic impregnation, unfold in his lab.

In hermaphrodite creatures, sometimes there’s an understanding of sorts. Some species of flatworms do, in fact, exchange sperm and don’t go to town with the slasher stabbing. The sea hare’s mating congregation is an example of a mutually beneficial, well-planned orgy.

At first glance, the sea hare, from the superfamily Aplysioidea, is a perplexing creature.

Imagine a really rotund slug. Done? Now give it two tentacles on its head. Now give it two more antennae-type protrusions—rhinophores, which it uses to sense dissolved molecules in the water. Other sea slugs have these as well, but when married with this creature’s bulk, they make it look like a hare. Now add parapodia—fleshy flaps that unfurl from the sides of the body when they move across tide pools. Now, what you have is an animal that looks like a cross between a sea slug and a rabbit wearing a poncho, in the middle of a transfiguration spell from Harry Potter’s book of spells gone awry. And here comes the kicker: its penis is on the side of its head.

On a research trip, Vishal Bhave, a marine biologist based out of Ratnagiri, was documenting the presence of sea slugs at low tide and came across an oddly long line of sea hares. He was surprised to see the animals queued up, against each other. This is sometimes how these creatures mate.

Sea hares don’t always mate in aggregations, but it is seen to happen often enough. Researchers have seen any number between two to even thirty at a time. Various factors could induce this— the season, salinity, food plants, temperatures, and so on. While each hare has both male and female reproductive organs, they need a mate to reproduce—they cannot simply use both sets of organs on their own. Size does matter here, though. The sea hares playing the sperm givers look for mates which are larger in size, indicating a potential for larger clutches of eggs. They mate in a line, where the one inserts its penis (located at the front of the body) into the vagina (located at the rear) of the other sea hare. They’re not in any rush about this entire process. Mating aggregations have been known to last hours, days, or even weeks.

So they know the role playing script beforehand and everyone ends up satisfied (I don’t know what happens to the first and the last sea hares). I do feel that a circle might be more effective, but I am not the director of this orgy, so I am guessing they know best.

Marah J. Hardt’s laugh riot, Sex in the Sea, explores the various ways in which marine life reproduce in a deliciously irreverent style. The subjects do inspire irreverence of a kind. There are many forms of hermaphroditism: sequential and simultaneous are two main strategies. Simultaneous hermaphroditism is when the same individual has both male and female sex organs, whereas sequential hermaphroditism allows the creature to switch genders.

Clownfish have a pecking order where mating is concerned, and it’s naturally to do with size. The largest female (because she can carry more eggs) mates with the largest male, and they lord it over the rest of the clan. The female has all the power—she ensures that the male is big enough, but also that it doesn’t grow too big to then convert into the female and upset the sperm cart. The male, on the other hand, keeps all the other males in check, traumatizing them to a place of, as Hardt calls it, ‘pre-pubescent limbo’ so don’t steal the female. After the female dies, the male turns into a female queen, so to speak, and the next male steps up to mate with her. Are you seeing where I am going with this? In Finding Nemo, after his mum died, his dad would have ideally turned into a female clownfish and mated with Nemo! I can see your kids’ eyes tearing up, so I’m sorry, go take a water break.

There are many species of fish which have both male and female organs, and can (and do) change their gender based on the best way to make babies. Wrasses do the opposite. A male is the king of his harem, sure, but if he dies, or even leaves for a longish period of time, a dominant female will turn into the male and take over his harem to mate. The concept of a big female is the default in nature, because it has better egg-bearing capacity. In wrasses, it is reversed because there is ‘sexual selection’ based on machismo and colour, and the advantage of being big and macho has overtaken (evolutionarily) the advantage of a big, female body. Understandable—and here we think our dating pool is tough.