Shannon Marine Point

Shannon Marine Point

Nudibranch (lab)

This is a beautiful sea slug, with beautiful bright orange tentacles. I didn’t see it move, but I would imagine it moves similarly to a slug. It has adapted to keep safe from predators, and eats invertebrates.

Triton (beach)

The triton is a preadtor to many sea creatures, but maybe most importantly is a predator to the sea star. It is known to be an important species in keeping star fish from over populating. We found the triton on our nature walk, washed up on the shore.

Pile Perch (boat)

The pile perch is a fish that we saw when we surveyed the number of organisms in our tub. It seemed to be flopping around, desperate to be back in the water. The pile perch is a very small, flat fish and is often fished for and is a source of food for marine life.

Sand Shrimp (boat)

The sand shrimp are a small species of shrimp often used as bait for fishing, and is also an important source of food for marine life. They moved around a little bit in the tub, but not a whole lot.

I learned a lot of interesting things on this trip, but my favorite creature to learn about was the nudibranch. Its bright colors are so fascinating to me! My perspective of the coast of the Pacific Northwest coast certainly changed. I thought it was amazing, the abundance of organisms we found when the tub was lifted back into the boat and we tried to survey how much of each species we could find. I definitely did not expect such a large number of organisms, so many that it was difficult to count accurately!

My question is how abundant are the creatures we saw in the lab in the Pacific, like the sea anemone and the sea cucumber?