This morning in the intertidal I was reminded of how often I encounter animals I wasn’t looking for and almost missed seeing at all. That got me thinking about color and pattern in the intertidal, and how they can be used either to be seen or to avoid being seen. Some critters–the nudibranchs immediately come…
Tag: natural history
When big is small, and small is big
As far as animal sizes go, we Homo sapiens are rather on the large side of things. While it’s true that many animals are larger than us (we can conveniently lump these animals in the category of ‘charismatic megafuauna’), the truth of the matter is that most animals are much smaller than us. We tend…
Blitzin’ the intertidal, part 2
The intertidal portion of my participation in Snapshot Cal Coast 2017 is complete. I organized four Bioblitzes, two of which consisted of myself and Brenna and the other two for docents of the Seymour Marine Discovery Center (Tuesday) and the docents of Año Nuevo and Pigeon Point State Parks (Wednesday). The four consecutive days of…
Blitzin’ the intertidal, part 1
This is the second year that the California Academy of Sciences has sponsored Snapshot Cal Coast, a major effort to document and characterize the biodiversity of the California coast. To this end the Academy has organized several Bioblitzes at various sites in northern California, and solicited volunteers to lead their own Blitzes, either as individuals…
Emblem of the Golden State
Did you know that California has a state lichen? I didn’t either, and it turns out that we’ve had one for over a year! In January of 2016, California became the first state to adopt an official state lichen, and Ramalina menziesii joined the ranks of the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), the California quail (Callipepla californica), the…
Peanut worms!
If I ask my invertebrate zoology students to name three characteristics of the Phylum Annelida, they would dutifully include segmentation and chaetae (bristles) in the list. And they would be correct. Annelids, for the most part, are segmented and many of them have chaetae. But in biology there are many exceptions for every rule we teach,…
Eight is enough
One of the defining characteristics of the Phylum Mollusca is the possession of a shell, which serves both as a protective covering and an exoskeleton. We’ve all seen snails, and some people may have noticed that snails often withdraw entirely into their shells and even have a little door that they can use to seal up the…
Gastropods x3
This past Monday I did something rare for me: I returned to the same intertidal site I had visited the previous day. I enjoyed myself so much the first time that I wasn’t able to refuse an invitation to go out there again. The site, Pigeon Point, is one of my favorites, especially in all of its spring…
They deserve a prettier name than “rockweed”
As spring arrives in full force, the algae are starting to come back in the intertidal. The past two mornings I went out on the low tides to look for something very specific (which I did find–more on that later) and noticed the resurrection of the more common red algae. So early in the season the…
The hunt concludes
Day 3 (Saturday 25 March 2017): Highway 25 We spent our second night on the coast in Morro Bay and came home via Highway 25. I would have enjoyed a drive up the coast, but given the road closures in Big Sur that wasn’t a possibility. Highway 25, however, proved to be a very pretty…