Math professor and Hero of Intellectual Freedom Abby Thompson of UC Davis has sent us some tidepool photos, along with a few birds. Her captions are indented, and you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them.
The first picture is of a pair of foolish birds from my back porch, followed by some Northern California tidepool pictures from late April and May. The tides the last week of May were among the lowest of the year, occurring at a very unfortunate time of day (near dawn) for those who prefer a leisurely morning, like me. As usual I got help from people on inaturalist for some of the IDs.
I don’t understand how mourning doves ever manage to reproduce. Here’s a pair pondering building a nest on the extremely wobbly fan hanging from the trellis over our porch. I’ve also seen them trying to nest on the peak of the roof and on a very narrow garden railing. They give new meaning to the word birdbrain. I strung up a nice, spacious, secure basket for them right near the fan, which they totally ignored. They eventually gave up on the fan; they’ve probably found a nice spot smack in the middle of a parking lot somewhere.
On to the tidepools:
Thorlaksonius subcarinatus: This is a species of amphipod, which (I feel like I keep saying this) is tiny, just a bright orange speck. Amphipods are like isopods (the roly-polys in your garden) except they’re flattened vertically instead of horizontally. The Thorlaksonius part is for sure, the species seems likely correct:
Liparis florae (tidepool snailfish). About 2” long. The second picture is a close-up of its weird eye:
Rostanga pulchra (nudibranch). This species eats a bright orange sponge, on which it becomes practically invisible:
(Family) Sabellidae (feather duster worm) It’s not possible even to determine genus from this photo:
Phidiana hiltoni (nudibranch):
I took a picture of the brown-and-white-striped worm (Tubulanus sexlineatus) and only noticed afterward that the photo includes both a nudibranch (Coryphella trilineata) to the right of the worm and a sea spider (Pycnogonum stearnsi) to the left. Tidepools are crowded places:
A little jellyfish, Polyorchis haplus (I think). This one was stranded on the sand, but when plopped into a small pool it started zipping around. The red spots are eyespots:
Acanthodoris nanaimoensis (nudibranch). I don’t see this species very often, and it’s a knock-out:
Camera info: Mostly Olympus TG-7 in microscope mode, pictures taken from above the water.
Wow – that eye!!
Speaking of mourning doves, I recently wrote a short eulogy for one: https://medium.com/@lyonsnyc/an-elegy-for-little-guy-f6254815a2ca
Great Pictures, I quite enjoy underwater photos. Nice Job!
Good stuff!
Thanks Abby. Great life as always in your Pacific tidepools. When we lived on the James River (Atlantic estuary), the view of river bottom stretching out so far from shore was amazing each year, though I do not recall any visible lifeforms in the few puddles that dotted the mudscape. I would love to see a full view of the tidal expanse where you took these.
The doves made me laugh. Their nesting habits are pretty notorious. There’s even a subreddit for them! https://www.reddit.com/r/stupiddovenests/
Here’s one comment:
And the other photographs were wonderful.
Thank you for sharing! The Pycnogonid got me pretty excited.
Very nice! Whenever I go to a tide pool I get down onto the ground and look closely. It’s amazing what you can see in a cup of seawater.
Beautiful photos, thank you!
Fantastic! Anisodoris really is a stunner.