I could spend hours poking around intertidal areas and discovering fascinating creatures. Intertidal rocks and pools are exposed during low tide and submerged in high tide. They teem with natural life.
Limpets on intertidal rocks
I love limpets, not least because they make such a hilarious endearment(I went around saying ‘you silly little limpet!’ after I saw them for the first time).
What I love about the natural world is how unassuming creatures can reveal so much about their ecology. Limpets, for example, disperse using ocean currents in their larval stage, affecting the structure of their populations along different parts of the coast.
Intertidal zonation
Intertidal rocks are particularly interesting because they are hugged by different kinds of marine life depending on how often parts of it are submerged in water. If you look at the big rock in the picture above, you will notice zones of different colours- which are really different algae and seaweed that are adapted to the different zones on the rock. The lowest zone is almost always submerged in water and the highest is often exposed.
The Forest Spirit 