40 articles
Henricia leviuscula, the scarlet blood star of Pacific reefs — smooth-skinned, patient, and able to catch plankton with its stomach. A complete species profile.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Pholis gunnellus lives in kelp holdfasts and under tidepool stones, can cross wet rock between pools, and carries a necklace of eyespots down its back.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Mytilus californianus builds wave-swept mussel beds that shelter hundreds of species. Glue chemistry, keystone starfish, zonation and conservation.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
As seas rise, coastal habitats migrate inland — unless seawalls block the way. How coastal squeeze threatens kelp forests and the intertidal zone, and what helps.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Eisenia arborea, the southern sea palm, is the tree-like kelp of the California–Baja low shore. Profile of its ecology, range shifts and role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The flat porcelain crab packs under Pacific shore rocks by the hundred, sifting plankton with feathery mouthparts and shedding legs it can calmly regrow.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The frilled dogwinkle drills barnacles on rocky shores and famously thickens its shell when crabs patrol — a textbook case of predator-induced defence.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Gelidium, the agar weed: how to recognise this small red seaweed, where it grows, and why its gels run from dessert moulds to microbiology labs.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Beyond the species profile: how the gumboot chiton's iron-toothed grazing shapes crustose coralline algae, kelp recruitment and the wave-washed reef.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The hairy shore crab is the Pacific coast's estuary specialist — bristle-legged, slow-footed and more comfortable in brackish water than its purple cousin.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The monkeyface prickleback is a long, algae-eating fish of Pacific rockpools — not an eel at all. Biology, the diet switch, and why poke-polers prize it.
Tom Okafor ·
Moonglow anemone (Anthopleura artemisia) species profile: the gravel-coated anemone that buries its column in sediment beneath rocks, and how to find it.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The mossy chiton is a surf-swept grazer in eight overlapping plates, its girdle bristling like a tiny hedgehog. Meet Mopalia muscosa of the rocky shore.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Lottia gigantea, the owl limpet, farms a private algae garden on Pacific rocks and bulldozes rivals off it. Biology, territory defence and status.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
The purple shore crab is the little purple scavenger under nearly every rock on Pacific rocky shores — a key cleaner linking the kelp forest to the tide line.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the saddleback gunnel — the saddle-marked, eel-shaped shore fish of Pacific kelp edges, and how to tell it from true eels and its gunnel relatives.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Carcinus maenas is Europe's toughest shore crab — a kelp-edge scavenger at home and one of the world's most consequential marine invaders everywhere else.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Leptasterias, the six-rayed star, broods its babies under its own body on the wave-beaten rocks of the Pacific kelp fringe — a small star with a big secret.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Striped shore crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes) species profile: the bold, fast, green-striped crab of Pacific rocky shores — sprinter, grazer and lab superstar.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Between Sydney's beaches lie sandstone rock platforms striped with ankle-deep seaweed. A walker's guide to the city's intertidal kelp coast, south to north.
Tom Okafor ·
Tide pools are mini-climates in a handful of seawater. Some shield life through marine heatwaves; others become traps. The physics, the genetics and the conservation case.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
How to explore tide pools without harming them: timing the tides, safe footing on weed-slick rock, species ID for beginners, and the etiquette that keeps pools alive.
Tom Okafor ·
A family guide to rock pooling on kelp coasts: picking the tide, the place and the kit, plus the three rules that keep kids — and tidepool life — safe.
Tom Okafor ·
Tides move more water than all the world's rivers. A clear guide to why the sea rises and falls — moon, sun, spring and neap tides, and what it all means for kelp.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
The gumboot chiton is the world's largest chiton — a hand-long, magnetite-toothed grazer nicknamed the wandering meatloaf. Meet the kelp coast's gentle giant.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
A field guide to finding the ochre sea star, reading the mussel line it maintains, and understanding what its recovery after wasting disease tells us.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Feather boa kelp streams from Pacific rocks in long, lacy straps, and shelters its own miniature rainforest of life. How to identify, where it grows, what eats it.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Soft as jelly, clinging like a limpet: the kelp snailfish lives where the forest meets the rock. Identification, ecology and where to look for one.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima) species profile: clonal armies, tentacle wars, symbiotic algae and survival at the top of the rocky shore.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The northern clingfish grips rough rock with a suction disc no engineered cup can match. Meet the small fish that surfs storm surge under stones and holdfasts.
Dr. Elias Brandt ·
Meet the woolly sculpin, the little California tidepool fish that survives heat, rain-fresh water and hours in the air between tides.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the crescent gunnel — the crescent-marked, rock-flipping eel-lookalike of Pacific tidepools, and why its colours make it a barometer of the weed it lives in.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Discurria insessa, the kelp limpet, lives its whole life on a single stipe of feather boa kelp — one of the coast's strictest partnerships.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the ochre sea star, the purple tidepool predator whose removal in a famous 1960s experiment coined the keystone species concept.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the high cockscomb, a crested prickleback living under rocks from Alaska to California — an intertidal survivor with a breeding male's comb.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Black tegula (Tegula funebralis) rules the high tide line of the Pacific coast — a decades-lived black turban snail whose grazing shapes kelp recruitment.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
Meet the penpoint gunnel — an eel-shaped Pacific shore fish that changes colour with its seaweed and guards eggs in a ball under the rocks.
Dr. Mara Ellison ·
The Moon and Sun raise the sea twice daily, and every coast turns that rise and fall into currents, mixing and zonation. The mechanics, plainly.
Dr. Lena Fischer ·
Turkish towel species profile: the rough-textured red alga of surf-swept Pacific rocks, its carrageenan chemistry, life cycle and kelp-forest role.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·
Meet the tidepool sculpin, the Pacific's toughest little fish: how it survives heat, low oxygen and hours out of water — and finds its way home.
Dr. Theo Nakamura ·