Today I am looking for starfish or sea stars. The peak of low tide is at 4:51 pm, but the tide pools are starting to form and the animals are emerging from their hiding places. Sunset at Doheny State Beach - Dana Point, California Rough periwinkles spend so much time out of the water and on the rocks that their gills take oxygen from the air. Periwinkles are a smaller species of snail.
Some snails can drill through the shells of other mollusks.Periwinkles are another group of animals I see on the rocks. They have sharp teeth on their tongues that shred food.
They can pull in their "foot" and close the opening in their shells with a disc called an operculum. Snails have tentacles on their heads and have one "foot" for walking and digging. Mollusks are a group of soft-bodied creatures that are usually protected by shells. Hermit crabs are not the only shelled animals I see, though. As they grow, hermit crabs move out of their small shells and into bigger ones. Hermit crabs live in abandoned snail shells. They have a hard covering called an exoskeleton on their front, and the rest of their bodies would be unprotected if they didn't have a shell. Hermit crabs have shells that serve as their houses. When I look closer I see colonies of hermit crabs, snails, periwinkles, and mussels. The first thing I see when I walk out onto the beach is rocks. Doheny State Beach is closed because of the bacteria levels in the water. It is 12:28 pm and the beach is deserted because of the cold weather. The library is a great place to go to find books about how tide pools form and the names and activities of the animals in tide pools. I want to know about the creatures and the area they live in more thoroughly so I go to my local library, Aliso Viejo Branch Library. Now I know when to come and observe the tide pools. All I have to do is look up the date and the high and low tide times for that day are listed. I pick up a booklet that makes it easy for me to know what time high tide and low tide occur. There are also a few books in the visitor center that give some basic information about tide pools. Salt water circulates through the tide pool to give the effect of waves and also to move small bits of food around the tide pool. Inside, there is an indoor tide pool with many creatures such as sand sharks, sea stars, anemones, sea urchins, and a wide variety of fish. The first thing I do on my expedition is go there. Life forms within a tide pool (Click to enlarge.)ĭoheny State Beach has a visitor center at the front of the park.
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