Tides and Trails

Today a Haystack Rock visitor pointed out a small octopus stranded in a shrinking pool. Worried that the octopus would get trampled or tortured by the hordes of visitors tromping through the tidepools, I put the color-changing, many-armed wonder in my Sea Monkey aquarium; then I transferred the octopus to a Haystack Rock Awareness Program (HRAP) aquarium. HRAP kept the creature in the aquarium till the tide came back in. Then I released the octopus in deep water with ample hi

Today at Haystack a startling abundance of nudibranchs in the genus Dendronotus appeared. The name Dendronotus is derived from dendrite, Greek for "treelike." In human anatomy, dendrites are the branching projections of brain cells that receive impulses, allowing us to perceive nudibranchs and feel wonder at their strangeness. Upon close examination, these sea slugs with branching bodies did indeed appear treelike. They reminded me of miniature versions of Ents, the towering

At least two cephalopods were sighted today at Haystack. One creature seemed alive though not very active; another was almost certainly dead. I picked up the dead one and left the live one alone. (I may have also spotted a third octopus, but when the tide surged, cephalopods swirled in pools and disappeared faster than I could photograph them.) I'm pretty sure these creatures are aliens from the film Mars Attacks. Maybe this is their ship: Or maybe they are juvenile East Paci