Wrack Line 2020

August 19, 2020

  • View as the trail drops down onto the beach.
    Sea wrack treasures just ahead
  • Big drift log with lots of large pelagic goose barnacles
    Hitchhikers Lepas (Anatifa) anatifera
  • A small drift mass with all the usual stuff, surfgrass, seagrass, crustacean shells, and feathers
    Wondrous sea wrack
  • Dungeness crab pinching claw
    Pinching claw | Metacarcinus magister
  • Freshly dead razor clam, empty shell on the wet sand
    Razor | Siliqua patellae
  • Six thatched barnacles partially buried in sand
    Thatched barnacles | Semibalanus cariosus
  • California mussel shell, both valves
    Drifted from the rocky intertidal | Mytilus californianus
  • Sea wrack, full of diversity
    Lots to identify here
  • A molted carapace, top side up, with a couple nice barnacles on it
    Dungeness carapace | Metacarcinus magister
  • Bleached test, oral surface facing up
    Oral surface | Dendraster excentricus
  • Just a salmon-colored exoskeleton on wet sand
    Exoskeleton | Emerita analoga
  • washed up with some surfgrass
    Moon jelly | Aurelia
  • An epiphytic coralline on seagrass
    Melobesia on drift Phyllospadix
  • Just a drift mass of surfgrass with some Fucus and Sargassum
    You never know what you’ll find in the sea wrack


July 14, 2020

  • Molt of the hind part of the shrimp on wet sand
    Smooth bay shrimp molt | Lissocrangon stylirostris
  • About a 12" of trail, fairly close up, on wet sand
    Pacific mole crab trail | Emerita analoga
  • A small tangle of drifted surfgrass on wet sand
    Drift surfgrass, Phyllospadix
  • Carapace, right side up, on wet sand
    Molted Dungeness carapace | Metacarcinus magister
  • Molted exoskeleton, sans carapace
    Dungeness crab molt | Metacarcinus magister
  • A single stipe and blade on wet sand
    Laminaria sinclairii
  • Gruesome scene on wet sand. Dead female left behind with only its eggs eaten
    Birds excavate female Emerita to eat only their eggs | Detached telson, upper right


July 13, 2020

  • Trail down to the beach, thru the beachgrass on a sunny morning. Narrow bank of offshore clouds, dissipating.
    Tideline treasures just ahead
  • Freshly washed ashore, the barnacles are good-sized and in good shape. Bright sunlight
    Pelagic goose barnacles, Lepas anatifera, on a drifted log
  • The whole thing, not super fresh, on wet beach sand in bright morning sun.
    Drifted Alaria marginata
  • Carapace, right side up on wet sand in bright morning sunlight
    Molted Dungeness crab carapace | Metacarcinus magister
  • Kind of close up view of the whole exoskeleton. Looks like the crab just stepped out of it's old exoskeleton
    Fresh Dungeness crab molt | Metacarcinus magister
  • Mostly fragments of mole crab molts.
    Mostly crustacean molts in night’s tideline
  • Looking down on 2/3 of a fired egg jellyfish. This one looks a lot like a fried egg with a broken yolk. On wet sand with bright sunlight.
    Fried egg jelly fragment | Phacellophora camtschatica
  • A kind of oblique view of the top of a whole, and quite fresh, fried egg jelly on wet beach sand.
    A good-sized jellyfish |Phacellophora camtschatica


July 7, 2020

  • Gentle paved trail to the beach
    What finds await in the sea wrack?
  • Last night's tide doesn't have much material. Mostly small fragments from crustacean molts
    Fifty paces down the beach, a clean tide line
  • Just a small drifted eelgrass plant on wet sand
    Drift eelgrass, Zostera
  • Bleached test with a broken down center on wet sand
    Broken down sand dollar test, Dendraster excentricus
  • Just a little round show (no snail) on wet sand
    Purple olive show, Callianax biplicata
  • An unfamiliar dichotomously branching brown
    A sea wrack mystery
  • Dead female mole crab on wet sand. A bird has eaten its eggs and left the rest
    Unfortunate female mole crab, Emerita analoga | Birds key in on the eggs (only a remnant remains)
  • Jelly fragment on wet sand
    Sea nettle fragment, Chrysaora fuscescens
  • Looking down on the crab molt on wet sand
    Female Dungeness molt, Metacarcinus magister
  • A diverse clump of sea wrack on wet sand- lots of dead and drifted stuff
    A sea wrack treasure trove


July 6, 2020

  • Not much drifted material 50 paces down the beach
    A fairly clean tide line
  • Kind of a close up on molted barnacle feeding appendages.
    The molt is on | Barnacle feeding appendages
  • intimate view of the molted carapace
    Molted Dungeness carapace, Metacarcinus magister
  • A left-eyed bloke on wet sand
    A stranded pleuronectid | Starry flounder? Curlfin turbot?
  • Pacific mole crab molt on wet sand
    Mole crab molt, Emerita analoga