Two hungry stars

When I think of starfish, what comes to mind first are the purple or orange ones, Pisaster ochraceus, we find sheltering in the overhang under rocks at low tide. They're the first on the list in my Encyclopedia, too.  But then it goes on to describe another 46 species of stars, from the delicate brittle stars to the voracious sunflower star. Many of these are subtidal; a few show up at the bottom of the intertidal zone.

These two are spending the summer in the little local aquarium.

Brittle stars on a sponge-coated stone.

This photo shows the underside, with the star-shaped mouth of the brittle star, so called because when touched, they will shed parts of their arms. These are maybe about a hands-breadth across; that's if you could ever get a live one to lie flat with its arms outstretched; they're squirmy and fast-moving when alarmed. The orange things are orange cup corals, Balanophyllia elegans.

Sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides. Also the underside, showing off his tube feet and his hungry mouth

These sunflower stars can grow up to a metre across, and "may have up to 26 arms bearing a grand total of 15,000 tube feet!" (From Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest) I count 19 arms on this one. I didn't try to count tube feet.

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Cuando pienso en una estrella de mar, las primeras que vienen a la mente son las estrellas comunes anaranjadas o moradas, Pisaster ochraceus, las que encontramos cuando la marea está baja, escondidas bajo las rocas. En mi enciclopedia ilustrada, también son las primeras descritas. Pero luego siguen otras 46 especies de estrella, desde las estrellitas miniaturas y frágiles Ofiuroideos hasta las gigantes estrellas depredadores girasol.

Estas dos están pasando el verano en el acuario local.

Fotos:

1. Estrellas frágiles (así se llaman porque cuando se encuentran en peligro, se deshacen de los brazos.) Aquí se ve el lado inferior, con la boca en forma de estrella blanca. Estas estrellas miden tal vez el tamaño de una mano; eso es si alguna vez logras hacer que una estrella viva se quede quieta por un segundo y que estire los brazos. Los organismos anaranjados son corales marinos, Balanophyllia elegans.
2. Estrella girasol, Pycnopodia helianthoides, también vista desde abajo, mostrando los pies ambulacrales y la boca. Estas estrellas pueden crecer hasta medir un metro de diámetro y "¡pueden tener hasta 26 brazos llevando un total de 15.000 pies ambulacrales!" (Del enciclopedia Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest) En esta, conté 19 brazos. No se me ocurrió tratar de contar los pies ambulacrales. 

Dappled sun

Searching through my old photos, looking for intertidal communities, I found this, taken on the beach here in 2010. Not a community, just pretty, worth looking at again.

Sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides, under rippling water.

Starry shore

Critters, critters, and more critters. And acres of seaweeds, to boot. That's "our" beach. I've sorted out the photos from our one-hour visit; too many for one post.

I'll start with the easy ones, and even then, there are a couple of mystery beasties.

The upper intertidal zone, looking south towards Oyster Bay. Difficult walking, unless we stick to the slabs of sandstone.

Middle intertidal zone, looking north towards Stories Beach. The greenery is rockweed, sea lettuce, and a dark, stringy weed, all very slippery underfoot. The birds are Bonaparte's gulls.

The top of the subtidal zone, which we didn't reach this visit, is partly sand, part rocks, and difficult to wade in because of a steady current.

A tangle of bull kelp, tossed up by the tide.

A small piece of an unidentified seaweed.

More stars:

This one is redder than most purple/ochre sea stars.

Can you see the three starfish here? 

 There's a common purple star at the bottom, then the orange one above it, not the same species. The skin is smooth; it may be the leather star. And up at the top right, a small, fat, beige and grey one, well camouflaged. It doesn't match anything in my books.

A green, patterned star, also unidentified.

 Near the tip of the lower left arm, there is a shiny brown speckled animal. I hadn't seen it until I was examining the photos. I don't know what it is, but I suspect some sort of small nudibranch, possibly the barnacle-eating nudibranch.

A large brittle star. The central disc is about the size of a dime. Probably the long-armed brittle star. 

There were three or four together of these stars on the sand under a rock; it's hard to tell how many when they're a tangle of squirming arms. I fished this one out to a rock, to keep it from burrowing down before we got a photo. They're fast!

A poor photo of a scrunched up sunflower star. 

To get this, I had to balance on two wobbly, slippery stones separated by a deep stream of running water, and bend 'way over to look underneath another rock. But he was so vividly orange, I had to try!

Just more purple stars. Papa star, Mama star, Baby star.

And a great blue heron, fishing for gunnels at water's edge.

Tomorrow, little critters under the rocks.

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Once again, a reminder: Rock Flipping Day is Sunday, September 9th. Instructions, history, etc.

Cleanup crew under the dock. And a few stars.

At the Discovery Harbour Marina* in Campbell River, we divided our time between looking at boats and reflections and peering into the depths of the murky water, looking for life. In spite of the bright sunlight, or maybe because of it, since it highlighted all the dust and floaters on the surface, it was almost impossible to see more than a few metres down, so most of what we saw was in the narrow gap between the first dock and the shore.

I cleaned most of the bright surface interference off these photos, and adjusted the contrast to make things more visible.

The largest sea cucumber I have ever seen. I estimated it at about a foot and a half long. An inoffensive scavenger, busy vaccuming the rocks.

In the corner between two docks at right angles, the chains were draped with huge seaweeds colonized by many different animals. I think those red sprays are feather duster tubeworms. The yellow mass is a sponge. I don't know what the white blobs are.

Leather star. This starfish eats sponges, anemones, and sea cucumbers. To the left, barely visible, is a good-sized kelp crab.

Two small sunflower stars.

A medium-sized sunflower star. We saw a much larger one, but it was too deep for a decent photo. I counted over 20 arms on the visible part of the star, about 3/4 of the whole. This one would have about 15.

The sunflower stars are major predators. A man who passed us as we were looking at the largest one, angrily called them oyster pirates. They eat any invertebrate they can find, including other starfish, although their favourite foods are sea urchins and bivalves (clams, etc.). We didn't see any sea urchins this trip, but plenty of sunflower stars.

*K Dock, just past Moxie's.

Watery suns

It's too hot. Summer has come, finally, to the Lower Mainland, and it's making up for lost time. Out at the far end of the Fraser Valley in Chilliwack, the temperature reached a record 34.7 °C (almost 90 °F) almost 2 °C higher than the previous record, 90 years unmatched. They tell us it will be hotter later in the week. Oof!

Here in Delta, we're a bit cooler; 30 °C (86 °F).  It's still 'way too hot for me; I'm a product of the westcoast rain forest. I'm glad to have my shade garden, with its sheltering circle of tall evergreens. I cringe away from the naked sun of our summers.

But these cool suns from Vancouver Island, I have no trouble with:

Sunfish, otherwise known as the sunflower star. Cool and wet. Lovely!

Deep red sunflower star, under a couple of inches of water.

This one's a baby, barely a couple of inches tip to tip.

And I may as well add a few stars, too.

A pink brittle star, maybe the Daisy brittle star. It is less than the width of my thumbnail.

Long-armed brittle star, burrowing into the sand. Also very tiny.

Blood star, of some sort. Long, skinny arms.

A small leather star. I like the sunburst in the centre; two rows of brown dots connected by radiating lines.

And the ubiquitous purple star.

Four purple stars. One is pinkish orange, but it's still a purple star. Names can be confusing.

Aaahhh! I feel cooler, already.

Soggy sunflower

We caught the lowest tide I've seen yet this year, at -2 ft., in Semiahmoo Bay, and managed to walk almost all the way to the border marker in the channel there.

Down at the very edge, we found this sunflower sea star:

It's the first one I've seen for many, many years. They used to hang around under our dock up on Vancouver Island, and sometimes had over twenty arms and were close to a couple of feet across. We kids would tease them with ropes until they grabbed one, then we'd haul them to the surface. They always let go the instant they hit air, and sunk slowly to the bottom again. Even in the water, and not fighting us like the fish did, they were heavy.

This is a young one, with 15 arms, and about 8 inches across. (They start off with five arms and add more as they mature.)

It was still alive, but looked pretty miserable, all sagged into the eelgrass. Their bodies are so soft that they need the support of water. It wouldn't be out of the water for long, though; the tide was due to turn and the waves were a couple of steps away.