Saturday, June 9, 2012

Making Friends with Anemone

An absolutely perfect day to visit Moss Beach tide pools, aka the Fitzgerald Marine Preserve.


Although it was very windy and quite cold when we arrived at 8am, it warmed up a bit in the bright sun. 
Our normally intrepid little explorer was a bit daunted by the cold and mostly watched from the beach, although even he could not entirely resist the lure of the exposed rocks and critters.


a meeting of the limpets

somethings fishy in this pool

I wonder what critters that make these kinds of marks in the rocks

very interesting pattern on the underside of a limpet shell

sea snails

oh how I love thee Wikipedia! It took <1 minute to identify this creature, the Acanthadoris lutea (aka "Orange-peel doris"), lounging about among the spiny sea urchins

cool Chiton (aka "sea cradle")

and finally, is it a friend? No, it's anemone!

 but we're going to make friends with it