Whidbey Island Critters

[Dusty2]

Wow! Predators and cannibals too. Nice little buggers. The ocean is an eat and be eaten world from the smallest to the largest of critters. Complex and yet very basic but always fascinating. Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.

[Jan K]

Thanks Dusty.
Couple of sculpin portraits from Keystone.
Or: My horns are prettier than yours ...

[Jan K]

Another critter added to my list today
First the common relative :

and the one I think is the :

[LCF]

Cool, unusual find, Jan!

Going back to the cabezon, I find it difficult to believe that they only reach 23 lbs. I'm quite sure a couple of the ones which have hit me at Edmonds were MUCH bigger than that!

[Jan K]

Cool, unusual find, Jan!

Going back to the cabezon, I find it difficult to believe that they only reach 23 lbs. I'm quite sure a couple of the ones which have hit me at Edmonds were MUCH bigger than that!

Largest recorded Cabezon in California, according to their Department of Fish & Game internet site was 25 pounds. Since the Edmonds Cabezon are not fished, their weight is probably one for the record books

Also I am having second thought in the Spotted Swimming anemone. Although it is different from the usual common Swimming Anemone, today I found another white together with orange/tan one :(

[Jan K]

Few more from the nice Sunday boat dives. Lingcod are sure busy with eggs these days

[Tom Nic]

LOVE the picture of the blue mussels - wonderful composition!

[Jan K]

Good luck baby lingcod !

[LCF]

Jan, have I told you recently that I love you? Where else in the WORLD can you see these kinds of pictures and learn this kind of stuff . . . day after day after day.

I hadn't realized that ling cod lived such short lives. With the size of some of the "truck bumper" lings at Edmonds, I had sort of assumed that they had very long lives, like rockfish. Learn something every day!

[Jan K]

I was told that Deception Pass North Beach will be open on March 1st. Even the
Washington State Park website says March 1. To my surprise,
there were TWO gates locked and now they tell me it will be closed till April 1st.
So I had to backtrack to Keystone instead. Why did I get up at five in the morning for ?
I was surprised to find Puget Sound King crab of that size at Keystone,
most of the time I see only the bright orange juveniles there.


and some more common tunicates. I did not post the Pacific White Crust before:

[LCF]

Wow, that's a really unusually colored Stimson's! I love them because they are simply so pretty.

[Jan K]

[Jan K]

And more critters finding Orange sea pens tasty :

[Tom Nic]

Oh My Goodness!!! Amazing! All of them are awesome, but the little Striped peeking out of an Orange Sea Pen is just magical - you and the beauty of nature outdid yourself this time...

[dwashbur]

Every time you post, I learn something new. Thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jan K]

In the muck of Lagoon Point, I found Graceful Cancer crab munching on something.
The crab offered to share its dinner with the much larger creature, leaving the
front portion of the worm. They grow more than three feet long

[LCF]

Jan, you find the coolest things . . . but what's even cooler is that you record them and share them with the rest of us!

[Jan K]

Could it be that Spring is finally here to stay? Sunday sure seemed like it.
Keystone Jetty was little silty, but the sunshine made it cheerful enough ...

I waited and waited to see if the cleaner will show up. The Lingcod forgot it
is Sunday, day of rest for the sculpin cleaners

[LCF]

Love the view of the rockfish up through the green water. We've had lovely green water the last couple of weeks in Seattle, but no fish in it yet.

[Jan K]

Until today, I saw this critter only in the supermarket.

[Tom Nic]

One showed up at Redondo a few years ago. If anyone wants to continue the speculation as to where it came from I would suggest another thread so as not to hi-jack this one!

[LCF]

OMG -- did you wonder if you were narced out of your skull when you saw that? What a find!

[oldsalt]

While having seen many lobsters while diving in New England, I saw one once on the slope beyond the late Edmonds oil pier. Upon surfacing, I told the ranger about it and although I was severly tempted, I didn't harvest it because Edmonds is a no-harvest zone. She said that I should have taken it as it was an invasive species. The local bait shack kept live lobsters along with herring and shrimp. Some Tibetan Bhuddists bought the entire lot and set them free.
-Curt

[Jan K]

I know they are not part of our ecosystem, but I had hard time to take picture of it as it was deep inside a crevice. When I first found it, shining my light into hole, looking for critters, the lobster backed even deeper into the hole. I knew that the only way I can get a shot is to leave for while, switch on the focusing light on my strobe with a red filter, take the strobe off the camera arm and put it along the camera to even get it all into the opening. When I saw the size of its claws, I was not about to reach in and try to grab it. I need my fingers ...

[Jan K]

And from the exotic back to mundane.

Some sponges are impossible to ID from pictures. I tried. I got answer from one expert, but when I brought up
piece of the stinker, I couldn't smell anything. So maybe my nose is not up to the task or it is Whidbey No Stinker
Sponge. Just another critter to add to the long list of unidentified stuff