- Wow, sweet check this out.
Come up here.
Look at this box of water just filled with crabs.
Alright, let's get down, we gotta film this.
Wow, alright, come on down.
Here hand the camera to me.
Sweet.
Wait 'til you guys see all these crabs.
This is going to be awesome.
Not exactly easy getting down here is it?
Here you go.
Alright, you good?
Watch the rocks, they're slippery.
- [Voiceover] What are they?
- These are pelagic red crabs, and they come in
by the thousands.
Look at that.
Ow ow they're pinching me.
(adventurous music)
The shores of California may look
as if they're nothing more than rocks and crashing waves.
However, if you arrive at low tide,
carefully navigate the slippery rocks,
and know exactly where to look,
you'll find a mysterious world of fascinating creatures.
And sometimes, if you're incredibly lucky,
you'll find yourself in the right place
at exactly the right time
which is totally what happened for the Brave Wilderness
crew and I when we came upon a massive wash up
of pelagic red crabs, a marine phenomenon
that only happens every once in a great while.
Alright, welcome back everyone.
Okay so we're on location in Southern California right now
filming our new series, "Beyond the Tide,"
shooting some B-roll shots and have come up
to the edge of this cliff and look in
and see an entire pocket of water filled with
pelagic red crabs.
Here let me grab a handful of these
so you guys can see them.
Come here.
Ow ow ow, getting pinched, getting pinched,
but look at that.
They look like little lobsters.
Now you may be saying to yourself, Coyote, is it a crab?
Is it a lobster?
It kinda looks like a shrimp.
Technically these are not true crabs.
They're actually a sub-species of squat lobster,
and let me just grab one and hold it up here for you.
The reason they're called squat lobsters
is they keep the abdomen tucked up underneath the thorax
just like that.
Oh, got away from me.
Get back here.
Hah, got the same one back.
And you see that?
You see how its butt looks kinda squatted?
That's where they get the name squat lobster from.
But they do use the tail to help them navigate
through the environment.
Now you look at this little creature
and you think to yourself,
well it's got those big pinchers up front,
they must be quite the predator.
Actually, these crabs are vegetarians,
and when you see them underwater,
they have all these tiny little hairs on their legs
and actually use those hairs to help them filter food.
If you look at the ones down here in the water,
you can actually see them displaying this behavior.
Look at this one right here
on this green clump of sea grass.
You can see all the little hairs extended out,
and he's just pushing pieces of food into his mouth.
That is so cool.
Wow, I am literally in a pool of crabs right now.
Look at that.
I can just reach my hands in there
and get an entire handful of them.
Now this is actually a really rare phenomenon
that is happening right now.
It's only every few years that you see a major wash up
of these crabs on the shore.
These crabs typically live far out at sea
in the pelagic region, meaning that they're suspended
in the middle of the ocean,
not on the shore, not on the basin,
but just swimming freely out through the water.
Now they do make great food for whales,
even something as large as a blue whale
will go back and forth through swarms of these,
gobbling them down.
As soon as they end up on the shore like this though,
we've got sea birds flying all over the place,
and it's an absolute buffet line.
Let's see how many I can get in my hand at once.
You know what this kind of reminds me of, Mark?
When we were doing the newt episode,
and I was able to just walk into a pool of newts
and pick up tons of them.
Look at that.
An entire handful of pelagic red crabs.
You may be wondering to yourself, are these crabs edible?
I would say no.
There wouldn't be much meat on an animal like this,
just the tiny little tail has a little bit of meat in it.
They're mostly exoskeleton, eyeballs, and innards.
For such a bizarre looking little ocean creature,
they certainly are beautiful with that
bright red coloration.
Watch this when I put them down into the water,
it almost looks as if they glow.
That is so cool.
Now one question I often get is,
Coyote, where do you and the Brave Wilderness team
find inspiration for the shows you create?
That's a great question, and the answer is books.
When I was kid, I absolutely loved to read,
and if the subject matter was animals or dinosaurs,
there's a good chance I read it twice.
And as a big kid, I still like to read books,
but I travel so much sometimes it's difficult,
so what I do is listen to books on audible.com.
Now audible.com has over 250,000 different books
to choose from, and just recently,
I listened to "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea"
by Jules Verne.
Now this was one of my favorite books as a kid.
Actually read it for the first time
when I was eight years old.
I find a lot of inspiration in books,
and "Twenty Thousand Leagues" definitely helped
shape the design of Beyond the tide.
You have a situation like this.
These crabs, which belong far out in the ocean,
yet they have washed up here on shore,
a true mystery that is absolutely fascinating,
and that's what I love about tide pools.
You never know what you're going to find.
So this is pretty cool.
Recently audible.com found out that I was listening
to their books.
They wrote to me and said, Coyote,
we should do a giveaway for the Coyote Pack,
and I said that would be absolutely perfect,
so right now, because you're watching this video,
if you go to audible.com/coyote,
you can get a free 30 day trial period
and download your first book absolutely free.
Alright, I'm going to let this little crab go
and head back off into the tide pools
to see what we can find.
I'm Coyote Peterson.
Be brave!
Stay wild!
We'll see you on the next location.
The tide pools of the world are filled with all kinds
of mysterious creatures, many of which
I had never even heard of, and certainly,
have never captured for the cameras.
The Brave Wilderness team and I are incredibly excited
to bring you this new series, and we promise
that just when you thought we found the most bizarre animal
you've ever seen, something even stranger
will show up in the next episode.
If you're excited for Beyond the Tide to start,
make sure to go back and watch the episode
of Breaking Trail that inspired this new series,
Exploring for Sea Creatures.
And don't forget, download your free audiobook
from audible.com/coyote.