I LOVE tidepools! There are so many animals in them. Look at the one above. What do you see? (Please tell me in the comments below this post!) I see a tidepool worm, hermit crabs, anemones, sea lettuce, and a horseshoe crab shell.
If a horseshoe crab is thrown in by the waves and cannot get out, it will not have enough air to breathe and it will be eaten by birds and bacteria. The whole tidepool environment will enjoy the feast of eating it!
Look at these cute little hermit crabs and their little claws poking out of their shells! They are so awesome! They do not make their shells. They use the old ones from mollusks. I wonder, how do they find all these beautiful shells?! When they grow out of their shell, they walk around looking for a bigger one and then exchange it. Sometimes they fight over the shells.
This is a little rock barnacle. They are filter feeders: little trapdoors open and tentacles with hairs come out to eat phytoplankton.
We found soft-coral on the shore. Soft-coral are made up of polyps, and corals are not plants but animals!
Yeah…., I only see something looking like a starfish, anemones most likely… 🙂 the rest looks just like stuff… 🙂
very interesting observation about the crab feast!…. tidepool is a nice example of an ECOSYSTEM, a place where some animals and plants live together and depend on each other