Ask any marine biology student to list some interesting factoids about barnacles, and one of them should be “Barnacles are benthic and sessile” by which they mean that barnacles live their entire lives glued to a single spot. This definitely describes what it means to be benthic. Barnacles are indeed stuck, for better or worse,…
Tag: crustaceans
Shell dwellers
Intact shells are a limited resource in the rocky intertidal. Snails, of course, build and live in their shells for the duration of their lives. A snail’s body is attached to its shell, so until it dies it is the sole proprietor of the shell. Once the snail dies, though, its shell goes on the…
Unusual numbers of the usual suspects
Today was the first time I’ve gone out on a low tide since before the whole COVID19 shelter-in-place mandates began. Looking back at my records, which I hadn’t done until today because it was much too depressing, I saw that my last time out was 22 February, when the low tides were in the afternoon….
Tidepooling with visitors
It has been a while since I’ve spent any time in the intertidal. There isn’t really any reason for this, other than a reluctance to venture out in the afternoon wind and have to fight encroaching darkness. There’s also the fact that I much prefer the morning low tides, which we’ll have in the spring….
Now you see me, now you don’t
The intertidal sculpins are delightful little fish with lots of personality. They’re really fun to watch, if you have the patience to sit still for a while and let them do their thing. A sculpin’s best defense is to not be seen, so their first instinct is to freeze where they are. Then, if a…
Creepy crawlies
There are certain creatures that, for whatever reason, give me the creeps. I imagine everyone has them. Some people have arachnophobia, I have caterpillarphobia. While fear of some animals makes a certain amount of evolutionary sense—spiders and snakes, for example, can have deadly bites—my own personal phobia can be traced back to a traumatic childhood…
The tiniest advantage
Although the world’s oceans cover approximately 70% of the Earth’s surface, most humans interact with only the narrow strip that runs up onto the land. This bit of real estate experiences terrestrial conditions on a once- or twice-daily basis. None of these abiotic factors, including drying air, the heat of the sun, and UV radiation,…
Feeding or sex (or both)?
About three weeks ago I collected some mussels from the intertidal, to use both in the lab and in the classroom. A mussel can itself be an entire habitat for many other organisms. Many of the mussels I brought into the lab this last time were heavily encrusted with barnacles and anemones. I wanted to…
Pugnacity, and the need to regrow limbs
My friend Peter Macht is the aquarium curator at the Seymour Marine Discovery Center. He is responsible for all of the live (i.e., wet) exhibits and has a team of student and volunteer aquarists who help him care for the animals in the hall and behind the scenes. Peter and I go way back together,…
Off with the old, Case B
ORGANISM OF THE MONTH: Pugettia producta, the kelp crab For a few months now, I’ve had a pet kelp crab running around in one of my seawater tables. I don’t remember where I collected it, or even whether or not I collected it at all; quite often crabs and other animals arrive as hitch-hikers on…