Intellectual hero and UC Davis math professor Abby Thompson again has a batch of lovely intertidal photos for us. Abby’s captions and IDs are indented, and you can enlarge her photos by clicking on them:
The first two pictures were taken on my cellphone at the Berkeley marina, where a friend was taking us sailing. Fortunately for me, the boat needed more than an hour of preparation, which I got to spend lying flat on the dock looking at the marine life growing underneath it. There’s an entire community on inaturalist devoted to observations of such “dock fouling”; it’s an incredibly rich environment. Because all I had was my phone, only a couple of the pictures I took were legible- next time I’ll bring a camera (and hope the boat needs even more work).
Clathria prolifera (red beard sponge). Most sponges can’t be identified from a photo, but apparently this brilliant one is an exception:
Genus Ciona (tunicate). Pretty much any blobby thing you see lying around the beach is some kind of tunicate, an animal with an inflow and an outflow, and usually not too much else to recommend them (unlike, say, clams, which are at least delicious). These at the marina were lovely, however, looking flower-like:
The rest of the pictures were taken in my usual spot on the coast, near or after sunset (that’s when the great winter low tides happen). At night it’s cold, wet, slippery and, of course, dark, which makes things a bit tricky.
Genus Crepidula; Slipper snail – this clings to the rock looking almost like a limpet:
Slipper snail top view:
Order Amphipoda; I liked this guy’s eyes:
Genus Polycirrus; Spaghetti worm- it’s one worm, with many tentacles. The main body of the worm is curled up and coated in sand:
Dirona picta: A nudibranch, munching on some matching bryozoans:
Cebidichthys violaceus (Monkeyface eel, or monkeyface prickleback) Despite its common name and looks, this is a fish, not an eel (all eels are fish, but not vice versa). Supposedly delicious, it’s one of the creatures for which I regularly see people foraging. They’re caught by “poke-poling”; a baited wire hook is just stuck into the end of a long pole, and the fishing method is to poke the hook into crevices under the rocks. One of the advantages of nighttime tide-pooling is that there are a few creatures- this was one- that seem to get stunned by a flashlight, and they stay completely still. In the daylight you seldom see one of these, and they’re gone in a flash, too quick to photograph:
Anthopleura xanthogrammica (tentative) (giant green anemone) Several species of anemone fluoresce like this under UV light:
For the second group of pictures [after number 4] the camera was my Olympus TG-7, in microscope mode, with a lot of extra lights.
Lovely. There’s so much weird-assed stuff down there….
D.A.
NYC
Fascinating, such variety.
Really cool stuff down there!
Amazing worlds that I would never see otherwise!
“Olympus TG-7, in microscope mode”
A ha, I’ll look for that – always love the rich details of these!
Beautiful variety!
Thank you for the great tour underwater. Strange creatures!
Very nice set. Whenever I wait for the Washington State ferry—usually a long wait—I go down to the dock and look at the animals and plants and whatever else that crowd the pilings holding up the dock. There the multitudes vie for space, light, and nutrients brought by the moving waters. There’s an amazing amount to see there.
BTW regarding AI, here’s what came up when I asked Microsoft’s Co-Pilot about “vying for space” to be certain of the spelling—as in animals “vying for space:”
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The phrase “vying for space” encapsulates the intense competition among companies and nations in the space industry, particularly in areas like space tourism, exploration, and technology development.
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Not so good. Wrong kind of “space.”
An octopuses garden right there on my screen. Thanks for that.
Just fantastic, as always!
I love your pictures; they make me feel like I’m visiting another planet!