Category: General natural history

Fair is foul, and foul(ing) is fair

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

Next week classes for the Fall semester begin, and this will be my fourth term teaching a marine invertebrate zoology class at this particular institution. I have built this class on a foundation of comparative anatomy and functional morphology; lab activities include dissections (to observe how bodies are put together) and diversity labs (to examine the morphological diversity within major taxa). This year I wanted to include a lab with a broader ecological context. So back in April I hung a box of glass slides from one of the boat slips at the harbor. The idea is that the students in the invert zoo class will examine the slides after they’d been marinating in the ocean for several months and have to figure out what’s growing on them.

The organisms that have and will continue to colonize the slides are members of what is rather disparagingly referred to as a “fouling community.” To be fair, they can be nuisances, fouling docks and pilings, boat hulls, water intake and outflow pipes, and pretty much anything that is left in the water for any significant amount of time. In fact, my friend Adam has a job scraping fouling organisms off the bottoms of boats at the harbor; boat owners either pay to have this done or do it themselves every so often. But to me, these animals and algae form a fascinating ecological community that illustrates many of the principles I teach to my students.

Harbors are some of the places where exotic (i.e., non-native) species are first detected. It is not uncommon for many of the species in a fouling community to have evolved elsewhere and been transported (usually, but not always, unintentionally) to a new location, where they grow swiftly and often out-compete the native species. Obviously, not all species introductions “take” and it’s anybody’s guess how many species were dumped in a new site and failed to stick around. The ones that do take, though, tend to become very prominent.

So, back to my slide box. It was still there, hanging from a string about 2.5 meters below the bottom of the dock. As I pulled it up, I was relieved to see different colors and textures:

Slide box hanging from a floating dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Slide box hanging from a floating dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

Up close, it looked even more promising:

Slide box hanging from a dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Slide box hanging from a dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

Even without knowing what all the differently colored blotches are, you can tell that there’s a lot of stuff growing. I’m not going to dismantle the box until we use it in lab in early November, but I thought it might be worth a closer look. It just so happened that I had both a clean bucket in my car and the foresight to bring it with me onto the dock. This photo shows that the slides themselves are covered with growth:

Slide box hanging from a floating dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Slide box hanging from a floating dock at the harbor. 20 August 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

The red encrusting sheet is the bryozoan Watersipora, probable species subtorquata, an invasive species that is found in harbors all along the California coast. The pale orange blobs are colonies of sea squirts; it is difficult to identify them to species without examination under a microscope. There is also quite a bit of a brown upright branching bryozoan that I think belongs to the genus Bugula.

As an unabashed aficionado of all things hydroid, I’m always very pleased to see certain species of ‘droids at the harbor. They are simply so beautiful that I love looking at them. This is the hydroid Ectopleura crocea. It is common but sporadic and patchy at the harbor, and usually isn’t one of the first species to colonize an area. Its congener, E. marina, occurs in the intertidal; I can find it fairly reliably in a particular pool at Davenport Landing and have occasionally seen it elsewhere.

Ectopleura crocea growing out of a colony of Watersipora subtorquata. 20 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
The hydroid Ectopleura crocea growing out of a colony of Watersipora subtorquata. 20 August 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

Having reassured myself that my slide box was doing well I took some time to check out other bits of real estate in that area of the dock. I played around with the super-macro setting on my camera, with mixed results. I do now know, though, that it works underwater:

Tentacular array of a serpulid polychaete worm. 20 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Tentacular array of a serpulid polychaete worm, with bryozoans in the background. 20 August 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

I found a cooperative barnacle and took some video footage of feeding behavior. Barnacles are strange crustaceans that lie on their backs and kick their modified thoracic appendages through the water to capture small particles. What a weird way to make a living. But the animal is always right, and barnacles can be quite efficient at clearing water.

And, finally, does anybody know the source for the title of this post? Answer in the comments section, please!

A marine biologist goes to the mountains

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

This past weekend I attended a family reunion at South Lake Tahoe. It had been several years since the previous reunion for this side of the family, and it was wonderful seeing almost all of my cousins and their various offspring, plus aunts and uncles, in a glorious setting. All good things must come to an end, though, and finally we all left Tahoe to return to our regular lives.

On our way back I stopped at the Taylor Creek Visitor Center and did a short hike. The Rainbow Trail is a 1/2-mile loop that winds through forest, meadow, and riparian habitats and includes the stream profile chamber, which shows a bit of the natural creek where kokanee salmon migrate in the fall. It’s a beautiful spot to walk around a bit and get a last nature fix before dealing with traffic and the drive home. Some day I’ll time a visit to coincide with the salmon run. “Salmon run? What salmon run?” you may wonder. Well, read on.

Taylor Creek flows northward about 3.5 km from Fallen Leaf Lake into Lake Tahoe. It forms part of the wetland that protects Tahoe from runoff and silt, helping to maintain the clarity of the lake. As with most of the land in the Tahoe basin, Taylor Creek has been modified by human activity:  the streambed itself has been altered by road development, and the introduction of non-native species such as bullfrogs threatens populations of native species. Still, it is a remarkably beautiful place.

Meadow at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe. 9 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Meadow at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe
9 August 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe. 9 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe
9 August 2015
© Allison J. Gong

Beavers are also continually changing the course of the creek. They fell trees and construct dams that redirect water flow and create still ponds upstream of the dam. In the summer it is not uncommon to see dams and other evidence of beaver activity. Of course, the dams impede the movement of most fish up and down the creek.

Beaver dam on Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe. 9 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Beaver dam on Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe
9 August 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Tree almost felled by beavers at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe. 9 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Beaver-gnawed tree at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe
9 August 2015
© Allison J. Gong

One of the more noteworthy fish living in Taylor Creek is the kokanee salmon, a landlocked version of the sockeye (Oncorhynchus nerka) that is one of five species of salmon in the northeastern Pacific Ocean. Whereas most eastern Pacific salmon are anadromous, living their adult lives at sea but returning to freshwater rivers to reproduce, the kokanee spend their entire lives in freshwater. Kokanee were introduced into Lake Tahoe in the 1940s and have since become a popular game fish. In the fall, they migrate from Lake Tahoe into Taylor Creek to spawn. Beaver dams would block the kokanee’s return to their spawning grounds, so every year the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service demolishes the dams to allow the salmon access to the creek; this action also increases runoff into Lake Tahoe and decreases the total area of wetlands in the region, both of which have a detrimental effect on the lake’s clarity. The net result is spawning habitat for a non-native species, the kokanee, at the cost of decreased lake clarity and (arguably) damage to a native species, the beaver. We humans seem to be unrelentingly amenable to making such trade-offs. I wonder where that will get us in the long run.

For most visitors, the highlight of the Rainbow Trail is the stream profile chamber. This little chamber has displays about the life cycle of the kokanee salmon, the seasons of Taylor Creek, and a window into the stream itself. At this time of year the only fish inhabitants were Lahontan redsides (Richardsonius egregius), minnow-like fishes about the length of my hand or a bit shorter. The kokanee, wearing their brilliant mating costumes, will pass through the stream in October.

I did take some video footage of the redsides swimming in the chamber, bathed in the sunlight that filters through the upper layers of water. The bird and other animal sounds you hear are recordings that are played in the chamber.

Returning to the outdoors, I hiked through more meadows and forest, stopping frequently to look and listen for birds. This summer, despite drought conditions throughout California, the Tahoe region has gotten enough rain for wildflowers (and mosquitos) to persist; I walked through fields of goldenrod, blooming skunk cabbage, lupine, and Queen Anne’s lace. The aspen trees (Populus tremuloides) haven’t started changing color yet, but walking through them I could hear the rustle of their leaves, which is one of the characteristic sounds of northern California high-altitude Sierra Nevada forests.

Aspen grove at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe. 9 August 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Aspen grove at Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe
9 August 2015
© Allison J. Gong

In the autumn the aspens will change color and blanket the high Sierra in golds and oranges–yet another reason to return to the Tahoe area in the fall!

Farewell, Franklin Point!

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

Today I made what is likely my last trip to Franklin Point for several months. Tonight’s blue moon brings us the last of the good low tide series until the end of October. For me, a “good” tide series is one in which the low lows occur during daylight hours and are below the zero mean low low water (MLLW) height. Now that we’re more than a month beyond the summer solstice we are losing daylight at an almost-noticeable rate; and for reasons I’ve never been able to understand, at this time of year the spring tides (when we have the highest highs and lowest lows) get dampened out so the magnitude of the tidal exchange is less.

My plan is to take full advantage of this last tide series. This morning I was up well before dawn to catch the low at 05:19. For the past day or so the swell has been coming from the southwest, which is unusual, with unpredictable waves and surges. Plus, the sand has been piling up on the beach for the last month, and only the tops of many of the rocks were visible. This is a typical pattern:  Sand accumulates on beaches during the calm summer/autumn months, then gets washed away during the winter storms. If the predicted El Niño that everyone is talking about brings the storms that California desperately needs, we could end up with a dramatically different coastline next summer.

But in the meantime, I wanted to continue testing my new camera. Today was the first day I’ve had it in the field and I was particularly interested in seeing how well the ‘microscope’ setting, which is a super-macro setting, would do underwater. The verdict:  Pretty dang well!

Case in point. This is a shot of a swarm(?) of the sand crab Emerita analoga, in a shallow pool. I saw many thousands of them when I was here two weeks ago, and this morning they were still there. Anyway, as expected the ‘microscope’ setting on the camera has a very narrow depth of field, but I still think this photo is cool. That long feathery object in the lower right hand corner is the second antenna of one of the crabs that’s not actually in the photo.

Sand crabs (Emerita analoga) in a small tidepool at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Sand crabs (Emerita analoga) in a small tidepool at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

To give you a sense of scale, these crabs are about 1 cm long. And that second antenna is about as long as the rest of the body. The crabs swivel their second antennae around and catch food particles on those fine side branches.

The camera did a great job with this close-up shot of the nudibranch Dirona picta. I saw four of these slugs in one area.

The nudibranch Dirona picta at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
The nudibranch Dirona picta at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

What makes this nudibranch unusual is the warts on the cerata (the inflated dorsal projections). This species feeds on bryozoans. I didn’t see any egg cases, but where there are slugs there are always eggs (and vice versa, I suppose) so I must have overlooked them.

Today was the second trip in a row out to Franklin Point that I’ve seen brittle stars. This morning I saw three, two of which were pretty mangled. This is the most intact one, and it is beautiful:

The brittle star Ophiothrix spiculata in a tidepool at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
The brittle star Ophiothrix spiculata in a tidepool at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

Armtip-to-armtip, this little guy measured about 1.5 cm. Although brittle stars share a star shape with their kin the sea stars, they locomote in an entirely different way. Whereas sea stars walk on hundreds or thousands of suckered tube feet, brittle stars use their arms to push and pull themselves along. They move much more quickly than sea stars. See here:

And, my favorite photographic model of the intertidal, the sea anemone Anthopleura sola. Here’s the entire animal:

The sea anemone Anthopleura sola at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
The sea anemone Anthopleura sola at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

And here’s a close-up of the mouth. I took this shot from a distance of about 8 cm. I suppose I could have just cropped and zoomed in on the above photo, but where’s the fun in that when you can do this?

Close-up of the oral disc of Anthopleura sola at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Close-up of the oral disc of Anthopleura sola at Franklin Point, 31 July 2015.
© Allison J. Gong

On the hike back over the dunes I stopped to listen and look around and was rewarded with this sighting of a doe in the grass. She may or may not have had fawns with her, but I didn’t see them. Of the several photos I took of her, this is my favorite because even though it’s a little washed out you can see the Pigeon Point lighthouse very faintly in the background.

© Allison J. Gong
© Allison J. Gong

So that’s it for now. The next time I visit Franklin Point the low tide will be in the afternoon and I will be fighting both darkness and wind. It will still be entirely worth it, though.

Tomorrow I’m going up the coast a bit more, to just north of Pigeon Point. It will probably be my last trip to this particular site, also. I hope to come back with some snails (for my upcoming class) and pictures (to share).

Nature’s air conditioning

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

While much of California’s interior swelters under abominable heat this week, here on the coast we are blessed by the presence of the marine layer, which often brings cooling fog. It was drizzling when I got up this morning, and although the sun did make brief appearances the air remained refreshingly cool. And right now, on the antepenultimate day of July, I’m wearing a jacket!

marine-layer-day-300

The marine layer is an inversion layer in the lower atmosphere that forms when a warm, moist air mass sits over a large body of water. The water cools the lower portion of the air mass, and since cool air holds less moisture than warm air, water condenses out as fog. The term “inversion layer” refers to the fact that temperature within the air mass increases with altitude, which is the opposite of the normal temperature-altitude relationship. In California the marine layer is blocked by mountains such as the Coast Range, but flows through gaps in the mountains to bring a bit of cooling relief to some lucky areas. When I was living in Davis, CA we used to pray for the arrival of what we called delta breezes to take edge off the heat in the evenings.

Where I live now, the marine layer is thickest from May-July. These are typically our foggiest months, with the daily weather following the pattern in the diagram above. This is my favorite weather of the year:  A cool foggy morning with the fog clearing to the coast by mid-day, a few hours of bright sunshine, and the fog returning in the late afternoon or early evening. A foggy morning pretty much guarantees that it won’t get too hot later in the day, but I’ll also get some sun.

Marine layer, visible as fog over Monterey Bay, 29 July 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Marine layer, visible as fog over Monterey Bay
29 July 2015
© Allison J. Gong

Of course, El Niño changes everything, and it appears that we’re heading into a strong one. El Niño causes, among other things, a warming of the water in the eastern Pacific. This means that the temperature difference between the ocean and the overlying air mass is decreased, resulting in a less robust marine layer. At ground level, this manifests as less fog and hotter days. It seems to me that we’ve had fewer foggy days this year compared to what I’m used to, corresponding to the lack of upwelling that is also a hallmark of El Niño.

Today, however, nature’s air conditioning was operating again and I, for one, am happy about that.

Early morning low tides are the best

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

This morning I went on a solo trip to one of my favorite intertidal sites up the coast a bit. I’ve been busy with stuff at the marine lab and my house is a construction zone this summer so it was really nice being alone in nature for a couple of hours before most people had gotten out of bed.

I didn’t find what I was looking for but did see some great stuff that I wasn’t looking for, which is just as rewarding.

The approach to the beach over the dunes is always spectacular even on a gloomy morning. I find this color palette very soothing.

The hike over the dunes, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
The hike over the dunes
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong

The site itself is rocky with a sandy bottom. Depending on the severity of recent storm action there can be more or less sand. Winter storms wash sand away, while in the summer the sand tends to accumulate and can bury the rocks to surprising depths.

Surfgrass bed (Phyllospadix sp.) and rocks at Franklin Point, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Surfgrass bed (Phyllospadix sp.) and rocks at Franklin Point
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong

It may be an optical illusion, but when I’m scrunched down in amongst the rocks it appears that the waves are breaking at heights quite a bit above my head. Most of the water’s force is dissipated as the waves wash over the rocks, and unless I’ve wandered out too far, by the time it gets to me all I need to worry about is whether the surge will overtop my boots. Which has indeed happened and makes for a cold squelchy morning.

And now for some happy snaps!

A small mid-intertidal pool at Franklin Point, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
An example of intertidal biodiversity at Franklin Point. The most conspicuous organisms are Ulva (sea lettuce), coralline algae (the pink stuff), small acorn barnacles, the tube-dwelling worm Phragmatopoma californica, and small anemones in the genus Anthopleura
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong
I love my hip boots! © Allison J. Gong
I love my hip boots!
© Allison J. Gong
Pagurus hirsutiusculus hermit crab in shell of the snail Olivella biplicata, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Pagurus hirsutiusculus hermit crab in shell of the snail Olivella biplicata
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong
A beautifully camouflaged kelp crab (Pugettia producta) hiding in plain sight, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
A beautifully camouflaged kelp crab (Pugettia producta) hiding in plain sight
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong

Because, really, doesn’t everybody have a favorite red alga? This is mine. It presses gorgeously and is so damn beautiful!

Erythrophyllum delesserioides, 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Erythrophyllum delesserioides
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong

At one point I saw a worm-like thing thrashing around in a shallow pool. Turns out it was a polychaete worm, probably in the genus Nereis, doing epic battle with a predatory nemertean worm (Paranemertes peregrina). By the time I figured out what was going on and stuck my camera in the water the interaction had more of less come to an end. The polychaete did get away without apparent damage, but it was moving pretty slowly afterward. In this video Nereis is the segmented worm that’s doing all the wiggling, and Paranemertes is the purple and beige unsegmented worm that you can sort of make out in the top of the frame. I wish I had been swifter on the uptake with the camera.

And the pièce de résistance for this trip:  A little sea hare! This guy was so small (about 2.5 cm long) that at first I thought it was a clump of red algae. Then I saw the little rhinophores (those ear-like projections that give them their common name) and recognized it as a sea hare. Amazingly cute!

A little sea hare (Aplysia sp.), 5 June 2015. © Allison J. Gong
A little sea hare (Aplysia sp.)
5 June 2015
© Allison J. Gong

I was lucky enough to capture some video of this critter crawling around.

Aside from the rhinophores it doesn’t look hare-like at all, does it? I wonder about common names sometimes.

All in all, it was a great morning. An early morning low tide is the best reason I can think of to crawl out of bed at 04:30!

Crystals in the sky

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

Early this afternoon the clouds at the marine lab were very interesting, so I took some photos:

© 2015 Allison J. Gong
© 2015 Allison J. Gong

These thin wisps are a subset of cirrus cloud called cirrus uncini clouds, commonly referred to as mares’ tails and characterized by the hooked formation (‘uncinus’ is Latin for ‘hook’). They occur high in the atmosphere, at altitudes around 5500 meters (18000 feet) and above, and consist of ice crystals rather than liquid water or water vapor.

© 2015 Allison J. Gong
© 2015 Allison J. Gong

Alas, cirrus clouds do not produce precipitation at ground level. Nor does their presence necessarily indicate a change in prevailing weather conditions. However, a large gathering of cirrus clouds may be a sign of an approaching storm front. The cloud formations I saw today dissipated within a few hours to a vague high-altitude haze. Meanwhile, my old friend the low-altitude marine layer appears to be re-forming over Monterey Bay, which means we’ll probably have an overcast night and a drizzly morning tomorrow–typical summer weather for the central California coast. It shouldn’t be very windy, and if the pattern holds for the next several days I might not freeze or get swept away when I go out on the low tides towards the end of the week.

© 2015 Allison J. Gong
© 2015 Allison J. Gong

Sometimes clouds are just so pretty!

And we have fledged!

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

Yesterday afternoon when I got home I checked out the red-tailed hawk nest across the canyon and didn’t see anybody home. Then I started scanning the trees on both sides of the canyon to see if the parents were around. While I was looking the dad flew in with prey and perched on the top of one of the trees. But he didn’t start eating right away so I thought he might have been showing the prey to the kids. Sure enough, we found one of the juveniles perched just a short distance away.

Buteo jamaicensis (red-tailed hawk) father (left) and newly fledged offspring (right), 14 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Buteo jamaicensis (red-tailed hawk) adult male (left) and newly fledged offspring (right)
14 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

The adult male’s plumage is nice and sleek, and he perches quite easily on a branch that sways dramatically in the afternoon wind. The juvenile’s feathers are rumpled and its head looks small, probably because it hasn’t been feathered very long, and it had some problems with balance.

At some point the juvenile managed to hop over to its dad, who then shared some of his food.

So we knew for a fact that at least one of the juveniles had fledged; however, we didn’t find the other juvenile anywhere. We did see the adult female perched atop a tall snag on our side of the canyon; she was looking around but didn’t seem worried so we figured that the second juvenile at least wasn’t on the ground or in some other danger.

And lo and behold, as the sun was beginning to set and light the other side of the canyon, we found both juveniles and the adult female perched on trees across the way. So both of the kids had fledged successfully!

Buteo jamaicensis (red-tailed hawks), newly fledged juveniles (left and lower right) and adult female (upper right), 14 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Buteo jamaicensis (red-tailed hawks), newly fledged juveniles (left and lower right) and adult female (upper right)
14 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

I don’t know what the juvenile on the left is doing and why it appears not to have a head. We still haven’t actually seen either of the juveniles flying, but by the time it was getting dark both had returned to the nest for the night. I imagine they slept well after all the day’s exertions!

Almost branchers

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

Our red-tailed hawk chicks are sooo close to fledging now! I’ve been told that the tree-nesting raptors usually first leave the nest to hop around on branches; hence they’re called “branchers.” This afternoon I watched the chicks and was able to catch some of the maneuvering, which included hopping around the edge of the nest.

One of the chicks seems more adventurous than the other. I know that female raptors are larger than males, so I think that males reach their fledging size sooner than their sisters. Which would mean that this earnest almost-brancher is a boy. He’ll be flying soon!

A naturalist goes in the field

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

This morning I took a small group of Seymour Center volunteers on a tidepooling trip to Point Piños (see red arrow in the photo below). Point Piños is a very interesting site. It marks the boundary between Monterey Bay to the right (east) of the point and the mighty Pacific Ocean to the left (west).

Map of Monterey Bay. Red arrow indicates Point Pinos.
Map of Monterey Bay. Red arrow indicates Point Piños.
Point Pinos, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Point Piños in Monterey County
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

As is my usual habit, we began our exploration on the Pacific side of the point. Almost immediately, Victoria found an octopus! And a couple of meters away, she found another one!

Octopus rubescens at Point Pinos, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Octopus rubescens at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

As we approach the summer solstice, the algae and seagrasses are at their most lush. Point Piños is a fantastic site for algal diversity; every time I come here I want to take some back with me so I can study it at the lab. Alas, collecting at Point Piños is not allowed even for someone (like me) who holds a valid scientific collecting permit.

Beds of Phyllospadix scouleri at Point Pinos, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Beds of Phyllospadix scouleri (surf grass) at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Macroalgae at Point Pinos, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Macroalgae at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

And yes, that log-like object towards the upper-left corner is a harbor seal (Phoca vitulina). A handful of seals were hauled out on the rocks.

However, I was much more interested in the invertebrates. I wasn’t looking for anything specific, but in the back of my mind I was keeping track of certain nudibranchs and looking for small stars.

We did see many Patiria miniata (bat stars) in the 1-2 cm size range. Most of them were a bright orange-red color, but some were beige, yellow, or blotchy. There was one large (bigger than my outstretched hand) Pisaster ochraceus that was intensely orange. And Point Piños is always a good spot to see many of the six-armed stars in the genus Leptasterias.

Patiria miniata (bat star), about 1.5 cm in diameter, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Patiria miniata (bat star), about 1.5 cm in diameter, at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Large healthy Pisaster ochraceus (ochre star), 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Large healthy Pisaster ochraceus (ochre star) at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Leptasterias sp., one of the six-armed stars, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Leptasterias sp., one of the six-armed stars, at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

In terms of nudibranchs there were many Doriopsilla albopunctata, a yellow dorid with tiny white spots. We saw quite a few of them crawling around on the emersed surf grass, as well as in pools. And of course Okenia rosacea (Hopkins’ rose) was there, although not in the huge numbers I was expecting.

Doriopsilla albopunctata at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Doriopsilla albopunctata at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Okenia rosasea (Hopkins' rose nudibranch) at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Okenia rosasea (Hopkins’ rose nudibranch) at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

In the low zone I saw a few thalli of the intertidal form of Macrocystis pyrifera, the giant kelp that forms the forests that the California coast is famous for. I’d seen this intertidal form named Macrocystis integrifolia, but it appears that now the two forms (intertidal and subtidal) are both considered to be M. pyrifera. To my eye, the intertidal form differs morphologically by having rounder pneumatocysts (floats) and a holdfast that is less dense than the subtidal form.

Macrocystis pyrifera (giant kelp) growing intertidally at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Macrocystis pyrifera (giant kelp) growing intertidally at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

Hermit crabs are diverse and abundant at Point Piños. Here’s an example of Pagurus samuelis, the blue-banded hermit crab; even when you can’t see the blue bands on the legs, the bright red antennae are a major clue to this crab’s identity.

Pagurus samuelis (blue-banded hermit crab) at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Pagurus samuelis (blue-banded hermit crab) at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

When we climbed over the point to the Monterey Bay side, I found two of these little gastropod molluscs, which I didn’t recognize. They are about 1 cm long, with a brown lumpy mantle that can covers the shell, which is pinkish in color. After putting it out on Facebook that I needed help with the ID, a bunch of friends and friends of friends chimed in (thanks John, Rebecca, Barry, and David!) and I was able to determine that these little guys are Hespererato vitellina:

Hespererato vitellina (appleseed Erato snail) crawling on Phyllospadix scouleri (surf grass) at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Hespererato vitellina (appleseed Erato snail) crawling on Phyllospadix scouleri (surf grass) at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

On our way back up the beach we noticed long windrows of Velella velella, the by-the-wind sailors, washed up. While most of them were faded and desiccated, there were enough freshly dead ones that were still blue, which may have washed up on the previous high tide.

Windrows of Velella velella (by-the-wind sailor) washed up on the beach at Point Piños, 9 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Windrows of Velella velella (by-the-wind sailor) washed up on the beach at Point Piños
9 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

All in all, a very satisfactory morning. I saw things I expected to see, some things I didn’t quite expect but wasn’t surprised to see, and some things I’d never seen before. That Hespererato vitellina was completely new to me, which is always exciting.

Next up:  What kinds of things live in white calcareous tubes?

Timing is everything

Posted on by Allison J. Gong

This morning I went here (see arrow):

Natural Bridges State Beach, viewed from Long Marine Lab, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Natural Bridges State Beach, viewed from Long Marine Lab
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

See how it’s covered in water? I took this picture at about 13:00, probably right at high tide. And of course when I was out there this morning at 06:00, it was low tide. It wasn’t the greatest of low tides but it allowed me to see what I needed to see and have a front-row seat watching the early morning surfers going up and down on the big swell that’s blowing in.

Obviously, visits to the intertidal need to be timed with the tide cycle. At this time of the year we get our lowest spring tides in the morning every two weeks or so, which is great for me because I am a creature of the morning. I can get up hours before the sun rises, but don’t ask me to do anything that requires any intense brain activity after about 21:30.

Low tide this morning was at 05:29, when it was still almost full dark. There was plenty of light to see by the time I got out to the rocks. The tide wasn’t very low and the swell was big, a combination that makes for some pretty spectacular wave watching. Here’s a view towards the marine lab from my intertidal bench; look at all that frothy water!

View of Terrace Point from Natural Bridges State Beach, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
View of Terrace Point from Natural Bridges State Beach
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

So the water was big and the tide was mediocre, but it was still a glorious morning. Where I was the bench looked like this:

Looking seaward, Natural Bridges State Beach, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Looking seaward, Natural Bridges State Beach
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

What a difference seven hours can make! See that tiny black dot in the ocean? That’s a surfer. While I was out there none of the three surfers I was watching did any actual surfing.

I can’t seem to stop taking pictures of anemones:

A baby Anthopleura sola, measuring about 1.5 cm in diameter, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
A small Anthopleura sola, measuring about 1.5 cm in diameter
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Anthopleura xanthogrammica, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Anthopleura xanthogrammica
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong
Anthopleura sola adult, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Anthopleura sola adult
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

My prize of the day appeared as I was walking back. I happened to look down at the right time and saw this little guy:

Little octopus in tide pool at Natural Bridges State Beach, 4 May 2015. © Allison J. Gong
Little octopus in tide pool at Natural Bridges State Beach
4 May 2015
© Allison J. Gong

I was able to watch the octopus for a couple of minutes. Its mantle was about 3 cm tall, and I’d guess that all spread out the animal was perhaps a bit larger than the palm of my hand. When I got up to move around to the other side of the pool for a different camera angle, the octopus oozed underneath the mussels and just disappeared.

Before it vanished I was able to catch it in the act of breathing.

Although it looks like a head, given the position of the animal’s eyes, the part of the animal that’s pulsating is the mantle. The visceral mass and gills are contained in the space enclosed by the mantle; not surprisingly, this space is called the mantle cavity. The octopus flushes water in and out of the mantle cavity to irrigate its gills. When it wants to swim it closes off the opening to the mantle and forces water out through a funnel which can be rotated 360° so it can jet off in any direction. But this time the octopus didn’t use jet propulsion. It just oozed away.