What is it all about? #6 seashore life

The seashore is one of the most interesting of all natural regions to "the casual visitor" and "the professional naturalist" as well as all those people who have made their home along the coastline. Constant change becomes here more obvious than any other place. Yet certain life forms have their home in specific homelands or zones, never mind the tidal changes. One feature of seashore life is that certain animals seam to live in certain areas. It was the late E. F. Ricketts, who is said to have introduced the following zones for our area. He numbered our Pacific Coast into zones 1, 2, 3 and 4. J. W. Hedgpeth says ""Similar zonal arrangements occur on all temperate ocean shores." From our area and visits to Asilomar we know that the upper zone, the sprayzone is the region where we find white barnacles.


Here we also find smaller brown barnacles. That's where we have periwinkles and the active scurrying rock louse. "On sandy beaches in the upper zone we find beach hopper and beach fleas" says J.W. Hedgpeth.
The second zone or rockweed zone is characterized at its upper limits by tufts of greenish brown. Various clams live in this zone as well. The third zone, just below the mean sea level to the upper limits of the lowest tides is the "midlittoral zone" such is frequented by a host of creatures. Here is where the California mussel, the Purple Urchin and the large Leaf Barnacle are at home. On sandy beaches such zonation is less obvious "but in the general region there occurs a brilliant red worm (Pectinophelia) some 12 to 18 inches below the surface" says says J.W. Hedgpeth. The common sandcrab is found somewhere in this zone, providing meals for many of our shore-birds. On bay shores in sandy mud we can find a variety of snails and some wormlike creatures (Phoronopsis harmeri).


The lowest zone, Zone 4 or "infralittoral", is the part of the shore exposed only at the lowest tides. Such is the zone on rocky shores with the green Surf Grass, the large Red Urchins and the Palm Tree Kelp. That's where we found an abundance of seasnails during our Asilomar visit. A great variety of creatures lives in the ocean all and all much different to what we commonly are used to see on land.

We, the visitors, are always surprised by changes brought on by waves and wind. No two visits to the beach are the same. New treasures wash up every so often. Some findings so strange but wonderful freshly cast up by the sea's constant motion. Washed ashore fragments of a puzzle may be experienced as the greatest gifts nature provides just for us on a daily basis, for you and me to be admired...