Pacific sand crab ~ 11/25/13 ~ Asilomar Beach

Pacific mole crab / Pacific sand crab

Emerita analoga

They look like delicately patterned cracked egg shells. At first, I didn't think these pics were ideal as an ID entry, but it occurred to me that I tend to see the carapaces of sand crabs more often than actual live crabs, which has been late at night while looking for grunion.  Are they nocturnal?  I'm assuming the numerous carapaces are from a mass molt, rather than a mass die-off of sand crabs, but I don't really know. I'm always amazed how the composition of wrack changes through the seasons. Here's a mixture of sand crab carapaces, various red seaweeds, and surf-grass. It's nature's compost by the sea.

ps - In the first photo, directly behind the right carapace, the out-of-focus green surf-grass is covered in pink-colored crusting red algae called Melobesia mediocrus.

seaweeds ~ 09/01/12 ~ Asilomar Beach

delicate sea lace
Microcladia coulteri

posted 09/10/12 - As I was looking for barnacles the other day in a beachcomber's guide (Thanks, Jennifer!), I found a picture of a red algae that looked very much like this one. Finally, here's an easy ID... or so I thought. I took the name winged fronds, aka winged rib (Delesseria decipiens), from the book to obtain links for my blog post, but what I found online didn't look anything like what was pictured in the book. Bad photo or incorrect ID in the book, I can't say for sure. However, I discovered there are an almost identical form of Microcladia californica and a similar looking species Plocamium pacificum to what I have pictured here. It's difficult to know with certainty, because IDing a small piece of algae washed up on the beach is like trying to ID a plant solely on one dried leaf blown in from who knows where. Both Delesseria decipiens and Plocamium pacificum are saxicolous, meaning they grow on rocks, whereas Microcladia coulteri and M. californica are epiphytic on other algae.

giant kelp and Turkish towel

Macrocystis pyrifera or M. integrifolia and Chondracanthus corymbiferus or C. exasperatus

Geez, I only wanted to show the amazing different textures of these brown and red algal blades. I didn't realize there were different spp. found locally. Without seeing the entire seaweed, it's difficult to know for sure. Note the epiphytic Microcladia on the Turkish towel. As an aside, many brown marine algae are known as kelp. Seaweed is an informal term for marine green, brown, and red algae.

feather boa kelp

Egregia menziesii (now includes E. laevigata)

Finally, a seaweed that I absolutely know the ID. This post took me several mornings to research (click all the blue highlighted links), and I ended up feeling like I was banging my head against an intertidal rock. There's an incredible world of underwater life that very few people appreciate unless it happens to wash ashore in its dying and broken form. I'd love to take up scuba diving or go out on marine watching boats, but alas the hole in my eardrum keeps me from going underwater at any depth and I get terribly seasick. I probably should resign myself into simply saying, "Oooh, pretty seaweed."

red seaweed ~ 10/02/11 ~ Shoreline Park

red seaweed / red algae
Rhodophyta

Last year, during the period of time from the autumnal equinox through October, I captured brown algae (kelp) at Asilomar State Beach and green algae (sea lettuce) at the Monterey Municipal Beach. Without prior intention, I am completing my algae collection with red, even though not all red algae is actually the color red. Just like last year, I again heard the waves starting to crash just before the equinox, which likely break up whatever is growing near the shore. I'm impressed the ocean has seasons just like on land. Like leaves littered on the forests floors, the beaches are littered with seaweed during autumn.

As much as I wanted to place an ID, if only to genus, on this red seaweed, any guess I make would be pure speculation. I even had questions as to how the red seaweed I see on the beach is related to the harmless "red tide" algae. There are macroalgae and microalgae. Lost in the Landscape has an interesting blog post about red tide causing bioluminescent waves. It's all a bit confusing to me, and I've got a lot to learn.

The larger much more impressive giant kelp seems to get all the algae attention around these parts, and information on red algae is difficult to find. The best local sites I've found that picture red algae are:
Stanford's SeaNet Rocky Shore Red Seaweeds
Stanford's SeaNet Subtidal Red Seaweeds
MBARI's Monterey Bay Flora Rhodophyta
CSU Sonoma's Marine Algae of Northern California

grunion greeting, 2011 #3

grunion greeting
new moon, 10:45-11:30, clear skies

This was the last of our grunion greeting for the year. Admittedly, we didn't put much effort into it after only seeing 2 grunion in the past 2 years and 9 visits. In 2009, we went out a total of 15 times and were marginally successful in finding grunion. That year we didn't mind the sleep deprivation that comes from late nights on the beach, often as late as 1:00 in the morning. As our schedules have become increasingly demanding, it's been harder and harder to keep the enthusiasm going. I've submitted all my findings... er, non-findings to Dr. Karen Martin's grunion greeting study at Pepperdine University.

Despite the lack of grunion sighting success, I'm glad we participated in the study. It got us out on the beach on a regular basis, something we never would have done, let alone at night. We've been able to notice the subtle changes on and around the beach, such as the flattening out of the beach surface itself and the addition of the neon blue lights to the pub building at the commercial wharf this year. I wondered if the bright lights affected the grunion runs on this particular beach as it is so bright and reflects in the water right where we used to spot grunion.

Above is the cement structure that I've mentioned so often in previous posts. It was our marker for where to turn around on the beach and head back to the commercial wharf. I didn't like hanging around, because people were often sleeping on the beach right there in the total darkness.

giant kelp with eel-grass and surf-grass
Macrocystis pyrifera with Zostera pacifica and Phyllospadix sp.
Zosteraceae

I had never heard the term wrack before participating in this study. Thankfully we didn't have to ID it to submit reports. We only had to make a general estimation of how much was present, if at all. Generally there was very little wrack during grunion greeting nights, which I think had to do with the calm summer waves. As a side note, many sites still recognize eelgrass as all belonging to Zostera marina, which technically has skinny leaf blades of only 1.5-12mm wide, whereas Z. pacifica has wider leaf blades 12-18.5mm.

monkeyface-eel
Cebidichthys violaceus

I think the most fun was having a chance to talk with local fishermen who we wouldn't normally meet. One fisherman told me the fish was a "monkey-faced spine fish." Thanks to the power of google I found the ID. It's a prickleback, not an eel, so spine fish is a good descriptor. There's something really fascinating about how information is passed from one fisherman to another in a verbal way complete with stories (and exaggerations). There's a whole subculture to fishing. Names and such are not always correct, but when it comes down to it, all that really matters is, "Is it good to eat?" I suggested to Karen that she might consider recruiting the local fisherman for watching grunion in Monterey. They're out late at night anyways. Who knows, we may or may not go grunion greeting next year.

ps - While searching for monkeyfaces online, I found this wacky, zany fishing music blog, the kind of gotta-love-people-who-are-real-yo: The Monkeyface News.

crow and sea lettuce ~ 10/30/10 ~ Monterey Municipal Beach

American crow picking through sea lettuce
Corvus brachyrhynchos picking through Ulva sp.

It's posts like this that remind me why I truly like creating this blog. I've spent a very enjoyable morning searching online for crows and sea lettuce (an unusual combination)... and learning new things that I would have otherwise shrugged aside. If you're visiting Nature ID for the first time, make sure to click on the embedded links above in the common and scientific names.

I was surprised to discover there are at least 3 species of crows in North America, the others being the northwestern crow (Corvus caurinus) and the fish crow (Corvus ossifragus), and not to overlook the closely related common raven (Corvus corax) and Chihuahuan raven (Corvus cryptoleucus). Also, for recipes of sea lettuce, aka green laver, check out MBARI's site.

Oh! I guess I should mention this is the beach we usually do our nighttime grunion greeting in the summer. I've never seen the sea lettuce washed ashore like this, but autumn seems to be the time when the ocean sheds it summer growth, too. Interestingly enough, this was only a few beach miles away from Fort Ord Dunes State Park that we visited the same day.

ps 07/19/16 - From a recent news report, the green is Ulva lactuca.

kelp ~ 09/28/10 ~ Asilomar Beach

giant kelp with feather boa kelp
Macrocystis pyrifera with Egregia menziesii

bull kelp with surf-grass
Nereocystis luetkeana with Phyllospadix sp.
Zosteraceae

wrack

Usually, this beach is totally clear of debris with the softest sand around (the kind that squeaks beneath your feet). Asilomar is located on the ocean side of the peninsula and is often very windy and chilly; this is why we rarely stop to get our toes sandy or wet. However, the surfers in their wetsuits don't seem to mind.

I had an epiphany about the seasonal nature of the ocean and beaches while figuring out how to write this blog post. I liken the wrack as an oceanic version of the fall of the leaves back east and elsewhere in the northern hemisphere (see my list o' links of autumn leaf colors). This past Thursday morning, I noticed the sound of the waves crashing, even though we've been experiencing very warm, non-stormy weather. Yep, I know, we live less than a block away from the Monterey Bay and you would think we always hear the ocean waves... but, we don't. In fact, for most of this summer it was very calm and quiet, hence why the constant crashing noise that started last week stands out. I had always assumed the sudden appearance of wrack had to do with storms, and yet there are no storms in sight. I've been trying to look into why we have bigger waves right now, but I haven't found much online information.

ps 10/07/10 - For added reference, Wednesday, September 22, 2010 at 8:09pm PDT marked the autumnal equinox. Also, September's full moon hit its peak Thursday, September 23, 2010 at 2:17am PDT. Not only is this a harvest moon, it's a super harvest moon because of the timing all in the same night. For more information, see bigsurkate's blog post or National Geographic's daily news.

pss 10/22/10 - For a nice blog post in a similar vein as this one, read Bread on the Water.

pss 07/31/11 - While doing another post, I discovered there are actually 2 species of Phyllospadix found locally: P. torreyi and P. scouleri. There is no way I can tell the difference. I've made the changes in the embedded links. Also as a personal choice, I've decided to keep the seagrass family name of Zosteraceae, rather than list the surfgrass under the pondweed family name of Potamogetonaceae.
pss 09/22/11 - It's that time of year again. The sound of the waves woke me up. Again, no storm in sight. We've actually had very sunny days since 09/12/11. Before that it had been the usual summer coastal fog. I noticed the waves were louder sometime last week. I'm still wondering where to go to look up information about the seasonal changes of the ocean.