Oyster Blog — Tideflat Critters

Follow this link to a Seattle Times article about abalone in Puget Sound, complete with a video of the little creatures moving around.

Cousin Jesse pulled this thing up with his shrimp pot yesterday during the last day of the recreational shrimp season. It's about 5 feet long, and is rigid at the base and flexible at the top, kind of like a bull whip. It's slimy. It's not vegetable, and it's not man-made, and we have absolutely no idea what it is.

Sandworms (genus Nephtys) live in the mid-intertidal to deep-sea area. We found this worm while digging for littleneck clams at the edge of the Hama Hama delta. They are nocturnal predators, and use the proboscis to capture their prey: small worms, molluscs and crustaceans. They also evert the proboscis to create tunnels through the sand. Probably that's what this worm was attempting to do... he wasn't trying to eat a human hand; he just wanted to get out of the spotlight. For a more detailed description of nephtys anatomy, go here. Some marine worms have venomous glands at the base...

Mystery solved! To everyone except native Lilliwaupians the blood oyster is known as a rock oyster, or jingle shell. Officially, the animal is called Pododesmus cepio. Other names include Pacific jingle, blister shell, false jingle shell, green false jingle shell, and money shell. Another official name is Pododesmus macrochisma. The bivalve lives in the low intertidal zone to 300 feet. It's not a scallop (but thank-you to the  people wrote in suggesting that the red meat was actually scallop roe). And it's not a clam. But it isn't really an oyster, either.  Here's a photo of a live one: 'Jingle...

We don't know what this is. And neither did these three graybeards, who between them have nearly a century and a half of experience in the Hood Canal oyster industry: Nathan is the only one who wasn't shocked at the bright red bivalve. He said that they grow way out deep and called them "blood oysters." We love that delightfully dramatic name, and will continue to use it,  but the consensus is that it's definitely not an oyster. Are there any scuba divers out there who know what this is? Below is a series of photos showing Jim shucking the...