Hard to believe another year has gone by. Here are a few festive invertebrates from our tidepooling last week to help celebrate turning the corner into 2023. Enjoy!
Above, a beautiful tubeworm, Serpula columbiana.
Next, an unidentified sabellid worm:
A wonderful peanut worm, Themiste pyroides:
One of the most impressive features of many animals in the intertidal zone is the way their color patterns match their surroundings. It makes it challenging for visual predators to spot them. And it also requires an observer to slow down and let their eyes and mind adjust to the setting in the tidepool. (Maybe we need a new phrase ="slow tidepooling"?)
We thought it would be fun to show some examples. Above is a chiton (perhaps Lepidozona radians) — note there are eight plates, but the middle four plates are orange, the front two plates near (head end) are flecked with brown and green, and the back two plates (tail end) are mottled. These varied colors make it hard to identify this as a chiton at first.
Below is a small sculpin. Check out the way the pink stripe running across its body matches the coralline algae patches on the rock. And the other colors look like the surrounding rocks (grays and greens) and encrusting algae (deep maroon). It also helps that sculpins often stay very still — the lack of movement makes it less likely that they'll catch your eye:
The camouflage abilities of octopus are well known — they can settle on a new substrate and blend in within seconds by adjusting pigment cells (chromatophores) in their skin. Here's one looking a lot like a rock — but also note how well the arms/tentacles on either side of the body have a different color and pattern than the main portion of the body. It's hard to make them out! (If you look closely sometimes you can spot the suckers on the underside of the tentacles.)
And here's one more — an intriguing shrimp called a Deep-blade Shrimp (Spirontocaris prionota). (Hint: Look for the shrimp's eyes in the center of the photo.) Not only do the colors of the shrimp match the coralline algae, but the shrimp also has small hairs (setae) that accumulate bits of debris that help it look "messy", making it less clear that this is a shrimp.
ADDENDUM (31 December 2022) — P.S. To make it easier to find the octopus, here's an edited photo showing the outline and main features:
One year later (see the post from 28 December 2021) and we're continuing to document examples of color and pattern variations in the Ten-tentacled Anemone (Halcampa decemtentaculata). Here's a nice set of images take by Eric last week, especially highlighting the different patterns in the central disc area. [You can click on the image for a sharper version.]
While tidepooling last week I looked down to see a rippling movement below me and soon realized it was the undulating fin of a fish.
The fish was swimming towards a ledge, but before it disappeared I took two quick shots for the record.
Meet the Sailfin Sculpin (Nautichthys oculofasciatus)!
The scientific name is very descriptive — "Nautichthys" means sailor fish, and "oculofasciatus" means eye-banded. Below you can see both features — a very tall fin extending over the head (like a sail) and a dark stripe running vertically through the eye:
We had our Christmas dinner and celebration mid-day, so we couldn't resist a late afternoon trip to the coast including some tidepooling on the extreme low tide.
One of the most exciting finds during our exploring was a beautiful staurozoan, Manania gwilliami. This individual was ~2 cm tall.
Staurozoans are also known as stalked jellyfish because their body plan resembles the bell of a jellyfish attached to the rock with a stalk. The edge of the bell is armed with clusters of stinging tentacles used to capture prey including small crustaceans:
A few days ago Eric and I were walking along the beach during the Yuletide when we came across these sandy claws. :)
Happy holidays to all!
P.S. The claws belong to a Spiny Mole Crab (Blepharipoda occidentalis).
We were tidepooling on 22 December 2022 when I noticed this interesting orange fish among the rocks. When I looked more closely, I realized it didn't look like a fish I'd ever seen before.
It was "bumpy" everywhere — there were bumps covering the head and running down the tail:
How lucky! Eric found an octopus for my birthday!
Here's the entire animal from the other side. Always amazing to see how well they blend in with the surrounding rocks and algae:
Looking up at the full moon tonight at ~ 6 p.m., it was easy to see Mars very close by. Although much smaller and not as bright, can you see Mars in the lower left corner?
As we drove home, Mars moved closer and closer to the Moon (visually), and eventually disappeared behind it. (I've since learned this is called a lunar occultation — the Moon eclipses Mars.)
I wondered how long it would take for Mars to reappear on the other side of the Moon. Here it is, now in the upper right corner, at a little after 8 p.m.:
Cockerell's Dorid (Limacia cockerelli), a beautiful nudibranch photographed by Eric on 25 November 2022. I've shown this species on the blog before, but this is a much better photo! Thanks, Eric!
Some of the patterns and the amazing variation between individuals reminds us of snowflakes. And speaking of snow...it's in the forecast for Cotati on Saturday morning!
Two Bald Eagles perched in a cypress tree near the Bodega Bay post office today (29 November 2022).
The eagle on the left was often looking out at the harbor, and in this position its white head feathers were splayed out in the back:
Okay, so this is a story about some photos that didn't quite work out. And a follow-up when I was surprised when the same species showed up in a couple of other photos and I hadn't even realized they were there!
I was trying to photograph this small amphipod (Thorlaksonius sp., formerly Pleustes sp.) resting on algae. They have an unusual shape — rounded at one and and pointed at the other — which makes them look like snails. (Indeed, it's thought that this amphipod has evolved to mimic snails to avoid attention from visual predators like fish.)
I wasn't having much luck with the first one (above), but then I found another so tried again. Still not a great photo as I was only able to photograph it from above:
Here's one while I was trying to photograph a Ten-tentacled Sea Anemone (Halcampa decemtentaculata):
Later I was trying to photograph a sculpin. Can you find the amphipod in the photo below?
Yes, that's it, sitting on the back of the fish. It's small, with red, white, and pink stripes, and it's resting on the wide pale stripe in the middle of the fish.
Hmmpph! I'll have to keep my eye out for them the next time we're at this site. And I learned a lot about the variable color patterns of this amphipod species, even if I missed them in the field.
