Welcome to Glacier Bay my name is Ranger Emma and I'm Ranger Steve we are here at
a negative 3 foot low tide so areas that are not often visible in the park are
visible today and so we're out here exploring we hope to find some really
large sea stars like Pycnopodia and some other sea stars maybe some sea
urchins or different kinds of worms and see what else we find. So let's get
started and start delving into this intertidal area. If you didn't watch our
previous intertidal video we did go over to the tide pool etiquette in more
detail so I'm just going to briefly rehearse those today number one is we're
gonna explore tide pools from the edge number two is I'm gonna step on bare
rocks wherever possible a third point of etiquette is when I'm turning over rocks
I'm going to be very careful of the life and I'm never gonna force an animal free
from its hold and then the last one is if I'm gonna touch an exposed animal I'm
gonna wet my hands before I touch that creature so let's get started and let's
go into that intertidal zone following our tide pool etiquette
so we have here pycnopodia, the sunflower star it's one of the larger
sea stars they can actually reach almost a meter, about 3 feet across and it is a
big predator known for eating other sea stars actually they usually hang out in
the pretty low intertidal zone so way down low they don't like getting
stranded like this thankfully the tide is coming back in right now that will
soon cover this sea star if you look closely you can see all the little
tentacley legs and the little vacuum suctions all along there that help this
sea star move and capture prey.
this has some cool things on it... I've uncovered a rock and we have a multitude of intertidal
creatures living on it we're gonna do a still photo and we're gonna have you
identify and see what you can spy on the underside of this rock.
So I've been turning over some rocks and I discovered quite a few things that
live under these rocks and one of the more exciting ones is this little spider
crab often referred to as a decorator crab and they are called a decorator
crab because this little creature will take bits of algae and glue it onto its
shell and what it's doing is its decorating or it's camouflaging itself
it looks just like a piece of kelp when it's fully covered but this is a crab
that you can find under these rocks in the intertidal zone another group of
creatures that I found under the rocks are some fish called gunnels and these
fish are long and thin they look very much very similar to eels they are very
active when they're in my hand but when you put them in a plastic container they
settle down and they were very well adapted to live under these rocks
because they are flattened they can live naturally under the rocks and the rocks
will protect them from predators but also from drying out and then the third
creature that I discovered under rocks a beautiful worm segmented worm this is I
would refer to it as a clam worm and it's sort of transparent so you can sort
of see inside some of the body organs
what's cool about this area in the intertidal zone is the abundance of
worms and there's a worm that creates this cone it's pretty amazing I think
this might be might be an empty cone but it's made by
a cone worm and what this worm does is it takes bits of sand and it glues them
together forming this outer structure and the worm will live inside there I
believe it's a filter feeder but it's a perfectly shaped cone made out of beach
sand oh there's one in there this is one of
the cone worms in its sand casing. they both
have worms in them. here as the tide is low they're all curled up but as the
Just like the last time we went tidepooling we found sea anenomes. Here as the sun is shining
on them as the tide is low they're all curled up but as the
tide rises they will re-emerge and open out their arms to start feeding again
here we have a rock with some gunnels under it but there's something new...
(laughter) I don't know what it is...
the exciting thing about intertidal exploration is discovering things that
you don't even know what it is. This is probably a type of worm but there's so
many different worms in this area that I don't know all the different species
that survive here. ooh now you can really see some hairs
there's a pretty crazy worm under here oh yeah I don't know what that is but sort
of long and skinny and red and blobby and the color is absolutely astounding
you never know what you'll find when you turn over these rocks also the neck of a clam
it looks like right there
you can follow this curve there's a lined chiton
so this isn't a creature but this is the eggs of a creature this is the eggs of
the moon snail and the way the creature makes this it's called a sand
collar is that the snail exudes a glue with its eggs and it glues the sand
grains together and embedded in within the same grains are its eggs and we
often find these deposited in the sandy areas of Glacier Bay this time of year
the intertidal area is a very difficult habitat for these creatures these are
marine animals but for half the day they are exposed to the elements to drying
out, to terrestrial predators they have to be really strong and have a
lot of special adaptations to survive in this really harsh environment whether
it's really wet or really dry it was really fun though to come out and see
these different animals as they were surviving in this dry environment well
the tide has turned it's starting to come in well that will conclude our walk
for today thank you so much for joining us we had a wonderful time
you