Pacific mole crab – theoutershores

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Dabbling with Crustacean Competition

By: minustide February 2, 2013October 21, 2017

Crustaceans, Surfperch Preyecology, Emerita analoga, goose barnacle, Lissocrangon stylirostris, mallard feeding behavior, marine biology, nature, Pacific mole crab, Pollicipes polymerus, smooth bay shrimpLeave a Comment

I wonder how three similar and closely related surfperch can live together on homogenous sandy beaches. How do they subdivide theoutershores? One solution might be partitioning their food. To study this, I’m learning to identify what they eat; surf perch and their competitors. Above is one of the first surfperch food items I ever examined.…

A sandy foreground, cloudy skies, and sea stacks in the distance

Going, Gone

By: minustide August 16, 2012September 25, 2017

Crustaceans, Surfperch Preyecology, Emerita analoga, nature, Pacific mole crab4 Comments

One morning in June I was wandering around the outer shores during a very low tide, forecast to be -2.3 feet. You can get a sense of this in the photo below. A low tide like this always brings out a few people looking for stuff to harvest on the sandy beaches. They’re usually looking…

An Abundance of Orange

By: minustide May 26, 2012September 3, 2017

Surfperchorange, Pacific mole crabLeave a Comment

Because I spend a lot of time on the outer shores catching fish by hook and line, I’m always thinking about how to catch more. I guess this reflects some competitive tendency, but I’d like to think it’s more than that. It seems like every fish I encounter tells a story about something I’m curious…