Showing posts with label clingfish eggs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label clingfish eggs. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Also present ...

And ... the rest of the animals I found on that one trip to Stories Beach, in no particular order:

A Black prickleback, Xiphister artopurpureus. Look for the thin white lines radiating back from the eye; his pal, the rock prickleback has wide pale lines in a black field instead.

Red rock crab, running for cover.

Bright yellow or greenish yellow eggs, possibly belonging to a clingfish.

A couple of tiny hermits, dwarfed by the dogwinkles and isopods around them.

Rockweed isopods come in a variety of colours, from green to warm browns, to purplish blacks. I hadn't seen one before with that distinctive dark and light green pattern. Could it be a different species? 

Unidentified sculpin.

"Coloration is often virtually useless as a tool for identification. Extreme variation is the norm." (Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest, VB62)

Purple sea star. I saw several dozen, all healthy. Good to see, after the onslaught of Sea Star Wasting Disease that wiped out so many.

Where the worms are.

According to Kozloff, these are probably the tubes of bamboo worms, hiding 6 inches or more below the surface of the sand. Some day I'll manage to dig one out, to be sure.


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