FHL trails map
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we have started linking some useful R scripts for the class.
Meet Your Invertebrates!
Sadly not the most common seastar you will see out there. If you don't know your seastars you may get excited at first seeing the relatively-common Henricia (blood star). Almost all of the Pisaster will be bright purple or reddish. Very occasionally we might find an orange one, those are much more common on the outer coast.
Note that this one is drying out higher up, still waterlogged down low. The deep patterning of ossicles can make these guys hard to pick out at first unless brightly colored; they will typically be somewhere around MLLW
, above the Ulva and kelps, crammed into a crevice tightly to shelter from subaerial exposure.
OK, this is John - I don't know Tigs as well as Morgan does, for sure. But what I learned from her the other day: if you see an anemone in the tide pool, don't bother: copepods are not smart about avoiding the tentacles of an anemone! Look higher up, for the pools that are only occasionally inundated by the sea. They are tiny, and so looking closely for their movement is the key.
Another key to look at are the sutures in the operculum (4 plates, a tergum and sputum on both sides), Tom Mumford (teaching the marine botany class next door) provided this visual to help: