Oyster Blog

Sometimes you find moon snails hanging out on the surface of the beach. Sometimes they're half-buried in the sand, but still visible, as in the video below: But only the slow-moving snails get caught at low tide with their shells...

The tideflats are full of life... much of it too small to notice. This little guy had lots of personality but didn't photograph well. Even in person it was hard to tell what was going on. How many legs does...

The cosmopolitan moon jelly is found all over the world, frequently seen from the decks of Puget Sound ferries, and occasionally found dead on the beach at Hama Hama farm. Not sure if that qualifies them as a tideflat critter......

The tideflats are covered with miniature crab. They skitter around the beach, hide under oyster clusters at low tide, and go into attack mode when they sense someone overhead. But they can also be kinda cuddly:     Some of...

Sea urchins are echinoderms, and are related to sea cucumbers and sea stars. They're covered in protective spines, use tube feet for locomotion, and normally feed on algae. Sea urchin gonads, known more appetizingly as uni, are a popular food...

Humming toadfish are also known as plainfish midshipmen, California canary fish, or bullheads. The fish are nocturnal, and bury themselves in sand during the day, unless they're manhandled for a photograph. During mating season, male toadfish contract their swim bladder...

Hood Canal has had a tremendous barnacle set this year. The little guys are everywhere! Barnacles attach head first to rocks, shells, pilings, boats, buoys, etc. When the tide is in, their feathery legs, called cirri, sweep through the water...

Mystery solved! And it wasn't actually that great a mystery. The egg cases below were laid by a drill snail, a voracious oyster predator. The beautiful orange drill snail in the middle of the photo is native to the Pacific...

Pictured here is the Eccentric Sand Dollar, Dendraster excentricus, also known as the Pacific or West Coast sand dollar. The name 'eccentric' sounds intriguing...and makes you want to hang out with the scientist who came up with it...until you learn...

These are moon snail egg cases, not pieces of rubber that someone littered. Moon snails use sand and mucus to make the pliable cases. The eggs hang out in the case for a couple of months, then break free and...

These two crab were just, um, minding their own business when they were rudely flipped over and inspected. The crab at the bottom of this photo is male, the crab at top is female. Notice the difference in the shapes...