Tides and Trails

I have a new favorite tidepool creature: skeleton shrimp. I know, I know. You're thinking, "Wait, Steve, your favorite new tidepool creature isn't a nudibranch? How can this be?" Though the skeleton shrimp isn't nearly as photogenic as a sea slug, it is one of the most compelling tidepool creatures I've come across. Its looks aren't terribly memorable, but the skeleton shrimp's movements are utterly mesmerizing. Several stick-thin specimens of the genus Caprella were sighted

Amy and I headed out at dawn to Ecola Point with the goal of probing the low intertidal zone. We wanted to see some bizarre creatures. Mission accomplished. There may be weirder animals on the planet, but I have yet to see them. The low intertidal zone, a realm rich with life, is exposed for only a handful of hours each month. When the minus tides around each full moon and new moon peel back the watery blanket that covers the lowest reaches of the intertidal world, exposing i

Today I found my first gumboot chiton, Cryptochiton stelleri (aka the great Pacific chiton, the giant Pacific chiton, or the giant Pacific fiery chiton). I've seen plenty of chiton species, but this one blew my mind. The creature looked like a deflated football (and it was roughly the same size and shape as a NFL regulation football cut lengthwise). The gumboot chiton also looked suspiciously like a slab of liver. The cool thing about the gumboot is its girdle, which complete

Some of the most colorful creatures in the world's oceans are sea slugs. Slugs? "Slug" doesn't do justice to nudibranchs. "Nudibranch" (meaning "naked gills") sounds serious and scientific but does little to convey the striking forms and stunning colors of these soft-bodied marine gastropod mollusks. They've been dubbed "underwater jewels" and "butterflies of the sea." But bear in mind that all nudibranchs are carnivorous. Their pretty colors belie their predatory skills. "Yo

In many hours of searching the tidepools around Haystack Rock I've spotted a single leather star, Dermasterias imbricata, a lone survivor of sea star wasting syndrome. Leather sea stars were never as common as ochre sea stars, Pisaster ocracheus, in the intertidal zone, so their absence is less noticeable than the glaring disappearance of the oche star. Just a few years ago ochre stars were so common their brilliant bodies spread red, orange and purple color across almost eve

While explaining mole crabs to a man who worried he might be "stepping on baby sea turtles in the sand," I saw small shorebirds murmurating over the surf--one of my favorite sights in seven months at Cannon Beach. Murmuration is also one of my all-time favorite words. Murmuration usually refers to a flock of starlings, but sometimes it's used to describe the tight, twisting formations of other birds that stay so close together they seem to move as a single organism. The sande