What's That Stuff?

Some people mistake these things for garbage on the beach. Actually, these rubbery-looking objects are live egg casings of the large, carnivorous Moon Snail (Polinices lewisii).

On a recent tidepool animal collecting trip Pacific Science Center Life Sciences staff brought back a few Moon Snail Collars for our visitors to handle and examine. During the spring and summer, female Moon Snails extrude sheaths of hardened mucus and sand filled with fertilized eggs. Although there are thousands of eggs living in a sand collar, the eggs will never produce young in our tidepool. The excellent filtration system of our Puget Sound Salt Water Tidepool will strain the eggs out of the water before they become viable.

Because clams are a dietary staple of the Moon Snail, this gastropod is unfairly maligned by some clam diggers. The prized butter clams of shell fishers are often too difficult for this snail’s drill.

Because of their size (up to 5 inches with a 12 inch foot) and destructiveness, we don’t collect Moon Snails - just their egg casings. Stop by to see and feel these fascinating organisms. They won’t be around long!

Want to learn more about Moon Snails? Go to http://www.dfw.state.or.us/mrp/shellfish/other/featured_snails.asp Read more!

Introducing New Tide Pool Animals

Please welcome our new tide pool animals, who have just completed quarantine. These animals were generously shared by Highline College’s MaST program.

Decorator Crab, Oregonia gracilis
This crab’s carapace is equipped with specialized hooked setae (bristles). It hooks bits of plant and shell onto these to camouflage its profile. Mature crabs decorate themselves less, but are often colonized by small organisms looking for a place to live. Decorator crabs eat carrion. We will feed it scallops.

California Sea Cucumber Parastichopus californicus

Sea cucumbers can eject their internal organs, or eviscerate, as a defense mechanism. They can then regenerate new sets of organs. They also eviscerate as an annual renewal during October and November. Gross fun fact: Recently this species has been discovered to take up nutrients via the respiratory tree in the anus especially in late winter/early spring when the animal was regenerating its gut. [Brothers et al. (2011)] Feeds on organic detritus and small organisms.

White Sea Cucumber, Eupentacta quinquesemita

Adults rarely expose their tentacles during daylight hours. Typically white sea cucumber have bits of shell and other materials attached here and there to the tube feet. During the evening, it will spread its tentacles to capture small food items and insert them into its mouth.

Leafy Horn Mouth, Ceratostoma foliatum

A large ornate, carnivorous snail eats mainly barnacles and bivalves. It drills through their shell with its radula, injects digestive enzymes and sucks out the dissolved tissue. We hope to keep ahead of this animal through collecting of barnacle rocks and small shellfish. This species can live up to 16 years, growing larger but also eroding its sharper edges as it matures.

Moon Snail Egg Cases, Euspira lewisii
We don’t introduce grown moon snails to the exhibit because they are voracious carnivores but we often find their egg cases on collecting trips. As reported in a previous blog post, moon snail sand collars make a cool discussion topic. They are a combination of sand, mucus, and eggs, which slowly disintegrate and release the eggs.

Hermit crabs, Pagurus hirsutiusculus and others

Hermit crabs have definite shell preferences, but these may be different in different places. The Bering hermit crabs we collect like shells too small to fully retract into. This is also true in the wild; we are not just offering undersized shells. Diet is mainly detritus.

Our tide pool contains hermit crabs that live in snail shells. We also have some of the snails themselves. Unlike the hermit crab, snails create their own shell and keep it throughout their lives. We allow handling of the hermit crabs but ask guests to leave the snails where they are. As on the beach, if something is attached, it is safest for the animal to leave it where it was found.

A good website to checkout more information about local tide pool invertebrates is “Invertebrates of the Salish Sea” - http://www.wallawalla.edu/academics/departments/biology/rosario/inverts/ or come by and visit our display tide pool.


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Tide Pool Collecting, April 2013

Another low tide, another opportunity for a Science Center team to collect interesting animals and artifacts for our Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool.

On Saturday, April 27th a sturdy group of collectors, permit in-hand, hit the cloudy beaches. This time our crew was comprised of Animal Caretakers Chris Russell and Maida Ingalls, Animal Care Intern Morgan, and Science on Wheels Instructor Andrea Rockwood.

While out on the sandy beach, they were able to collect (as allowed by our Fish and Wildlife permit) a variety of marine organisms. Here's a round-up of what they brought back:

4 - Moon Snail egg cases
Moon snails create an egg case using a combination of mucous and sand, laying their eggs in this mixture that then hardens up and often gets confused for trash. They chose not to bring back any actual moon snails due to the animal's aggressive appetite for anemones and other sea life we house in our Tide Pool.

14 – Sea Anemones
They also came back with several different species of sea anemones, including aggregate anemones (which like to clump together in large numbers on rocks on the beach), plumose anemones (which look like feather dusters), and a single green anemone.

5 – Burrowing Sea Cucumbers
They were lucky find so many sea cucumbers! These animals are usually hard to collect because of their ability to cling onto rocks and quickly burrow into the sand.

1 - Hairy Gill Worm
The team also came across a hairy gill worm, a new animal for the tide pool! We all look forward to learning more about this strange animal.

Other animals collected include fifteen hermit crabs, five ochre sea stars, barnacles on rocks, some chitons and limpets, shelled invertebrates that have survived for hundreds of thousands of years!

When you visit sea life at the beach, remember to leave animals where you find them and as you found them. Lifting rocks can be especially hurtful to the animals living below. And the next time you visit Pacific Science Center come see our newest tide pool residents. It’s a much dryer and warmer environment for observing sea creatures this time of year!

Our sincere thanks to long-time Pacific Science Center volunteer John Aurelius and the Indianola Beach community for allowing access to their shores.

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Love Your Beach

In wake of the current disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico, we feel extremely lucky for the opportunity to explore our own local beaches, and to appreciate the delicate and unlikely balance of the animals that live along all shorelines. While we continue to hope for the best in the southern coast, we invite you to learn more about the tidal ecosystems that exist on Washington beaches. It’s been said that you can’t protect what you don’t love. We hope you’ll love it too.




On April 29, a group of Pacific Science Center’s life sciences staff and volunteers, along with two of our Science on Wheels teachers took a day trip to Indianola beach to collect marine life for our tide pool exhibit. As always, we brought our scientific collections permit from the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife, a list of animals we needed and we came prepared for rain or shine.

It was a beautiful day, and we collected a fine selection of animals.

2 - Aggregate anemone
4 - Christmas Anemone
17 - Hermit Crabs
3 - White anemone
3 - Plumose anemone
1 - Sea Algae (large bag)
5 - Sea stars – ochre
4 - Barnacle groups
3 - Mussel groups
3 - Burrowing sea cucumbers
1 - Key hole limpet
3 - Gunnel fish (juvenile)
5 - Snails
4 - Shrimp (small)
9 - Chiton, mossy or lined
2 - Isopods
1 - Cockle
4 - Moon snail collars



As we worked and enjoyed the day, the environmental damage in the Gulf of Mexico was never far from our minds. Pacific Science Center’s tide pool model was developed to help foster appreciation and stewardship of Puget Sound. Never have those goals seemed more important; nor has the beach seemed more valuable or more fragile.


It can be overwhelming to think of large scale issues that threaten beach health. But there are many things we can do in our daily lives to preserve beach habitats. From visiting the beach respectfully and responsibly, to reducing the use of toxic pesticides, to cleaning our car at a carwash instead of on the street, to using the car less – many simple decisions impact the health of beaches. In caring for the beach, some will become involved in influencing bigger policy questions that help shape the future for our marine animals. We invite you to meet our animals, visit a beach, and link to other organizations dedicated to preserving the health of our irreplaceable Puget Sound.


Once again, we are grateful to PSC volunteer John Aurelius and the Indianola Beach community for allowing us to collect permitted animals from their shores.

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Late Summer Tide Pool Collecting

This weekend, Cari Garand and Wendy Hanson did an end of summer tide pool collecting trip, along with volunteer John Aurelius who generously lets Pacific Science Center collect from his beach at Indianola.



Trained beach naturalists, Cari and Wendy collected carefully, taking only organisms allowed on our permit, and leaving animals as they found them if they could not be used in our tide pool exhibit.


Here are the animals that Cari and Wendy brought back:

Hermit crabs: 15

Mottled Star: smaller ones, 4

Shrimp: 2 very little

Limpets: no large ones, but many small ones came in attached to other animals

Painted Anemone: 1

Aggregating Anemone: 4 mostly came attached to stuff

Moon Snail Egg Cases: 3

Barnacle covered rocks: 10

Chitons: 3, 2 bigger mossy or possibly hairy ones and one small lined

Snails: 8

In addition to the animals we might expect from a collection, our team spotted a bunch of the coolest looking items we’ve seen! The gelatinous, finger like objects are squid egg cases, and you can actually see the baby squids floating around inside the case.


Of course, Cari and Wendy wished they could bring some of these cases back, but knew that our system would not support such large, free swimming predators as mature squids. So the cases stayed on the beach.


Cari and Wendy used their professional experience to assess which animals would work best in our Puget Sound Salt Water Tide Pool. But being professional does not mean the collectors didn’t feel the wonder and excitement of being on a beach.


We encourage everyone to visit one of our local beaches, and spend time getting to know Puget Sound better. Bring your camera; you never know what amazing pictures may be out there.

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Tide Pool Collecting, July 2012

The recent low tides for Puget Sound mean only one thing for the Life Science Department: Tide pooling! A few days ago, a spirited crew took off, permit-in-hand, to find interesting animals and artifacts for our Puget Sound Saltwater Tide Pool.

Members of this collection trip included Diana Johns, Katy McCown, Chris Russell, Cari Garand, and our Animal Care Intern, Chloe.

Here’s what was collected:

Moon Snail egg cases - 4
Hermit Crabs – 15
Lined Chitons – 3
Mottled Sea Stars – 4 small
Rocks with barnacles – 1
Plumose Anemones – 1
Aggregating Anemones – 5
Snails – 7
Scallop shell – 1
Burrowing sea cucumber – 1
Christmas anemone – 2
Limpet – 1

Take a close look the next time you visit our tide pool exhibit but please be careful. Some of these critters are fragile and rightfully shy in their new environment.

Once again, we thank PSC Volunteer John Aurelius and the Indianola Beach community for allowing us access to their beautiful tide pools.
Thank you, John, for photographing this expedition.


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