- What's going on everybody? I'm Mark Vins.
And today, I'm taking you on an adventure with me
to search for the bizarre tide pool creatures
of New England.
Ah, it's pinching me!
(dramatic music)
(upbeat music)
It's about to be low tide for the day,
out here just south of Boston, Massachusetts.
And this is the first time we've gone exploring
in the tide pools of New England,
the east coast of the United States.
We've filmed many tide pool adventures on the west coast,
but I'm really excited to get out here today.
These will be some debut creatures
for the Brave Wilderness channel,
meaning we've never seen anything
that we're gonna find today before.
To throw a little twist on things,
we're going to build another tide pool aquarium,
so we can get a closer look at some of the smaller creatures
that can be found here later in the day.
But, before we can fill this tide pool aquarium
with cool creatures, we've gotta find 'em.
And to do that, we're gonna grab our bucket, dip net,
and a good set of gloves.
Let's get into it,
and see what kind of cool stuff we can find.
Here we are, the first tide pool
we're going to explore for the day.
And I can already see a couple of creatures
we are definitely interested in getting a closer look at.
Now, you'll notice,
these rocks are absolutely covered in snails.
And these are a very important part of this environment.
It's worth getting a couple of these.
Let's go ahead and put those in our bucket.
First finds of the day.
Tide pooling, in general,
produces the most bizarre lifeforms
that we can feature on the Brave Wilderness channel.
Oh yeah, here we go.
We've got some really good rocks to flip here.
(grunts) Haha! Got a crab!
He's trying to pinch me, but I have gloves on. Not today.
Getting some really good stuff so far.
Looks pretty good.
Oh, that is a great sandworm.
We will take a look at these here, and let them go.
And the reason these aren't real great
for our tide pool aquarium is they really are subterranean.
As soon as we put down some of the rocks and the sand
in the aquarium, they're just gonna bury.
So, because of that, it's better to observe these creatures
right here on the surface.
But let's get a couple cool shots of these.
These are very neat animals, very bizarre creatures.
And these are aquatic worms, and they can swim.
Whoa, creepy! There they go.
Very interesting finds out here in the tide pool.
(water sloshing) (rocks crunching)
(upbeat music)
Oh, right by my finger,
that is actually a great find,
and is going to be a big part of the story
when we build our tide pool aquarium later.
I know it doesn't look like much,
but believe me, when you learn more
about the creature that I have in my hand,
you are going to be super surprised.
We're at that point where
we're looking for the really difficult-to-find creatures.
So I'm always looking for areas
that just were recently covered with water
as the tide is receding,
like this area right here, actually.
(grunting) Let's try this rock. Oh boy.
That was a heavy one.
Nothing new there. All the same.
Actually, wait a second. That is a new one.
That is the species I was looking for. Yeah!
Woo! Got another one.
Great! That is perfect.
You can let go now. Here we go.
All right, cool. Haha, yes!
We found quite a bit so far, flipping rocks.
I think it's time to get out the dip net,
and try another tactic.
I like this pocket here. This pocket looks really good.
See how there's this low overhang?
That low overhang is great refuge
for a lot of creatures that might be swimming in there.
And we want to do this fast.
(upbeat music)
And just got a lot of snails on that one.
Try to get underneath a little bit better.
Oh yeah! There we go!
Those are shrimp! Oh yeah.
(upbeat music)
Gotcha! Perfect, look at that.
That's a good one.
We've got seven species so far,
and I feel like that is pretty good.
I think if we got one more for the day,
we are ready to build our aquarium.
Nope.
Haha! I got it!
That is exactly what we were looking for, folks.
Okay, great! That is perfect.
Okay, that's gonna conclude the searching portion
of today's tide pool adventure.
Now, let's make it back to our base camp, and set up shop.
Woo, man! That was perfect.
Oh man, I didn't think I was gonna find that last one.
Before we start introducing any of the creatures themselves,
we need to sort of build up the environment.
Let's make the habitat look like the tide pool environment
that we just found these creatures in.
So, the first thing I'm going to do,
because this is a rocky environment,
is just get some of this coarse sand.
This is pretty much the look of the environment.
And we don't need a ton.
And I think the first one that we're going to add
also has an organism on it.
This right here is a blue mussel,
and these are the exact same mussels
that you see served in restaurants.
They're a big part of the marine sustainability
out here in New England.
These mussels actually attach themselves to rocks
just like this, using sticky strands called byssal.
Byssal is what mussels use to affix themselves,
so they're not washed away by the tides
and the crashing waves in this environment.
I'm gonna put that down in there.
So let's work our way smallest to biggest
with all these tide pool animals.
I got a few shrimp, so let's put a few shrimp in there,
where you'll have a better chance to see them.
There we go.
A shrimp, which of course, is a crustacean,
feeds on small zooplankton and other animals,
is definitely part of the cleanup crew here
in the tide pool environment.
But they're really cool-looking.
They've got a, almost a zebra stripe to them,
blue claws, and almost transparent.
You can see all of the insides, much like a glass frog.
I can see everything going on in there.
Very cool addition to today's tide pool aquarium.
Now, these are none other than our favorite little friends,
the hermit crab.
And hermit crabs are crustaceans
that use snail shells that are now vacant
to call their homes.
And they actually look a lot more like a lobster
than they do a crab.
They have a long hook tail
that helps them wedge their way into the shell
and stay tucked in.
But, as you'll see very soon,
they'll start crawling around on the bottom of the tank.
In my left hand, I have what is called a periwinkle.
And a periwinkle is a very common snail species
here in New England, and in these tide pools.
And in my right hand,
I have what is called a dogwinkle, or a dog whelk.
And believe it or not, the periwinkle in my left hand
is the favorite food of the dog whelk
that's in my right hand.
And I have to say, these dog whelks are voracious predators.
They will affix themselves to a bivalve, like a clam,
and then they will use their spiralized tongue
to drill into the shell, just like that,
and they will slurp out their meal
over a long period of time.
It's pretty crazy, if you ask me. Here we go.
Time for the all-stars of today's tide pool aquarium.
We have not one, not two,
but three species of crab.
This is a first.
The smallest crab is an Asian shore crab.
Got really sharp claws,
and then of course, two decent-sized pinchers right there.
Now this is one of the invasive crab species
here in New England.
They obviously, called the Asian shore crab, come from Asia,
and you can identify them
because they have three spines
to the right and the left of each eye.
Even though it's invasive, these Asian shore crabs
are certainly, ah, he's pinching me,
established at this point in time.
So, it will make a great representative
of today's tide pool aquarium.
Look at that. Right in front of the rock for the camera.
All right, time for the second species of crab for the day.
This fuzzy little crab
is none other than the Jonah crab.
And this is a native crab.
And you can tell because it doesn't have three
or five spikes next to the eye.
In fact, if we can macro in there past the fuzz,
you would see that it has nine spikes
on each side of the eye, three in the middle.
The three I can actually see right there in the middle.
But this Jonah crab is supposed to be here.
Very cool. Okay, welcome to the tide pool aquarium.
You make a great addition.
What we have next is none other
than the voracious predator of the tide pools,
the green crab.
Look at that crab.
And this is an absolutely beautiful one.
They come in a few different color morphs.
This one is green,
and it has purple claws, purple-tip claws.
And I can tell it's a green crab, whoa,
because it's very feisty, number one, definitely.
Ah, it's pinching me, (groans) on both sides.
Okay, okay, I'm not wearing the gloves anymore,
so it definitely hurts when you get pinched, ah!
These crabs prey upon mollusks and the other food species
that the Jonah crab that we just saw relies upon.
So they are an invader and a threat to this environment.
Unfortunately, they have taken hold
because they've been here for over 100 years.
And the reason I got two green crabs today
was not to get pinched more,
which is undoubtedly going to happen.
Whenever you hold two crabs, you often always get pinched.
So we have both a male and female green crab.
So the way I could tell the difference
between a male and a female crab is by looking at the apron.
The narrow apron is the male.
The wider apron is the female.
They do get a lot bigger than this.
Green crabs can actually grow up to four inches
from side to side on their carapace.
Of course, that's the top of the crab shell.
And they can actually stay out of water
for nearly eight hours at a time,
which is a lot more than the other crab species here,
making them a very invasive and robust predator
of this tide pool.
To cap off today's adventure, let's put them in there,
let's now add a few embellishments.
We've got some bladderwrack seaweed, a very cool plant
that you'll find here in New England.
The reason it's called bladderwrack
is because it has these little bladders of air
that help it float to the surface
when the tide moves in like it is right now,
so that that way they can get closer to the surface
to attract more light,
and they do need to photosynthesize to eat.
Couple of really cool shells,
to just add the finishing touch.
And there you have it.
And the tide has returned,
so I guess that's gonna be about it for today.
I hope everybody at home
enjoyed this east coast tide pool adventure,
where we built another tide pool day aquarium.
Now we're gonna take a couple of photos,
and then release all of these creatures
right back where we found 'em.
I'm Mark Vins. Be brave, stay wild.
We'll see you on the next adventure.
All right, let's get a few pics and let 'em go.
(upbeat music)
If you enjoyed this adventure,
make sure to check out the time we explored the west coast,
for a whole new cast of spiky and slimy tide pool creatures.
(bear growls)
(wolf howls)
(birds chirping)