Some recent(ish) #pottery outta the kiln! 1: birdbath, 2: drippy cake stand, 3: vase crackled with sodium silicate, 4: oil bottles.

Baby sunflower star, Pycnopodia helianthoides. My first time seeing live ones in the wild since 2013! 🤩😍

Spent some time in Bermuda last week with my face in the water. It was pretty lovely, lots of #corals and #seahares and #fishes and even a #nudibranch.

Strrrrrrrrretch! #anemone

More #nudibranchs from Monday's #tidepool trip. 🤩

Great low tides this week — get out to the #tidepools if you can! Got up early yesterday to find these #nudibranch gems.

Spent a couple morning low tides this week in the #tidepools near Morro Bay. Saw some fun stuff, like #nudibranchs, including the tiniest Hopkins' Rose I've ever seen!

Lots of sparkly Branched Dendronotid #nudibranchs (Dendronotus venustus) hanging out on the docks in Morro Bay today.

The latest update to our free and fun Seek by iNaturalist app adds more than 60k species to its image recognition model! It will now also use your location to provide more accurate IDs! www.inaturalist.org/seek

Just tryna live my best #lowtidelife, getting out to the #tidepools when I can! Yesterday was big surf & a mediocre low tide, but still managed to find a good group of #nudibranchs & thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Infinity worm. ♾️🪱 #tidepools #polychaete #polychaeteworm

Just an #octopus doing octopus things in the #tidepools.

🎉 Celebrating 100,000 Modeled Taxa in the iNaturalist Open Range Map Dataset! To mark this milestone, we're making model-generated distribution data even more accessible. Explore, analyze, and use this data to power biodiversity research! 🌍🔍 www.inaturalist.org/posts/106918

Literally the best selfie I have ever taken. No notes. #nudibranch #tidepools

Hey hey, @inaturalist.bsky.social is up & running!

Okay but hear me out: intertidal snails have the cutest faces. #tidepools #snails

One of my fun finds from the weekend in the #tidepools was this baby Giant California Sea Cucumber! I've only ever found them farther north and have only ever seen them full-grown, so it was an unexpected sighting.

Spent both days this weekend in the #tidepools at a couple of my favorite sites. Things felt a bit churned up from the recent storms, but still spotted many cool creatures, including many #nudibranchs. Here are a few of them.

Today was #FatInnkeeperWorm day! Searching the mud flats of Bodega Bay for these worms and other interesting bay creatures.

My favorite souvenir from #COP16 in Cali, Colombia. Now more pertinent than ever. Print from La Linterna: lalinternacali.com

'Tis the season for California Fetid Adderstongue flowers! Took a little iNaturalist staff field trip to say hi to these stinky yet beautiful blooms. #fetidadderstongue #inaturalist

Happy Lunar New Year! For the Year of the Snake, here's one of my favorite #snake friends, the Sharp-tailed Snake. They eat slugs so they like hanging out in my backyard & garden. #lunarnewyear #yearofthesnake

Not us waiting patiently for a Virginia Rail to emerge from the reeds while we were watching Sandhill Cranes... only to have our only glimpse be in the grasp of this Barn Owl. 😂

The cacophony of a thousand Sandhill Cranes flying in at sunset.

Eight years ago today...

Six-armed #seastars (Leptasterias spp.) can be pretty amusing when they're regrowing arms. Good for a chuckle in the #tidepools. 📸 1 & 2: shooting stars 📸 3: big-little-big-little-big-litte 📸 4: when every day is leg day 😂

Tiny #seastars = big joy. ⭐ 1: Six-armed star (Leptasterias sp.) 2: Mottled Henricia (Henricia pumila) 3: Purple Sun Star (Solaster endeca) 4: Bat star (Patiria miniata) #tidepools #tidepooling #starfish

Work in progress: birdbath. #pottery #ceramics

Marine inverts are my favorites, but I do love #birds as well. Some of my favorite finds in Hawai'i were #endemic birds in the forests of Mauna Kea. 1: ʻOmaʻo (Myadestes obscurus) 2: Hawai'i 'Elepaio (Chasiempis sandwichensis) 3: ʻIʻiwi (Drepanis coccinea) 4: Hawaiʻi ʻAmakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens)

There were SO MANY PEOPLE out on the reef, but it was still a nice afternoon in the #tidepools, complete with some #nudibranchs.

There are some very nice low tides coming up at the end of the week and through the weekend, I would recommend finding yourself some #tidepools to visit. Always happy to offer suggestions & tips for #tidepooling.

I usually only find their shells, but spotting a live Appleseed Erato (Hespererato vitellina) in the #tidepools is magical – especially when they have their mantle out like this one. Extra bonus for the cute little amphipod friend whispering secrets.

Meet the colonial #hydroid Schuchertinia milleri, aka Miller hydractinia, hedgehog hydroid, or (my fave) snail fur. It ranges from Vancouver Island down to Monterey Bay. I've only spotted it a few times while #tidepooling, and it's a treat every time!

Last sunset of 2024 | First sunrise of 2025

Inverts are generally weird, polychaetes are definitely weird, & spoon worms are the weirdos of the polychaetes. They're cylindrical & soft-bodied with a non-retractable proboscis which can be rolled into a scoop-shape to feed. Here's Ochetostoma baronii, found while snorkeling in Baja. #InverteFest

I am always excited to find a Stalked Jelly (class Staurozoa)! Not all that much is known about them, but I think they're fascinating. Two species here: Manania gwilliami, spotted on the Sonoma Coast, & Haliclystus sanjuanensis, seen on the Puget Sound coast of the Olympic Peninsula. #InverteFest

Nope, not a worm, not an anemone. These are Phoronids, aka horseshoe worms, & they're their own phylum! They're marine animals that filter-feed with a lophophore (that spiral (or horseshoe) crown of tentacles). These are Phoronopsis harmeri, found in Bodega Bay. #InverteFest #Phoronids

Two inverts in one! A Common Rough Woodlouse (Porcellio scaber) infected with Invertebrate Iridescent Virus 31 (Iridovirus armadillidium-i), turning it that lovely blue color. #InverteFest

I think I won "coolest aunt ever" when I showed my then 5-year-old nephew how you could find #scorpions at night with a UV light. Spotted this one with him near Cabo Pulmo, Baja. Maaykuyak vittatus, part of the Devil Scorpion family. #InverteFest

Happy #InverteFest! Excited to celebrate some non-crustacean inverts! Here's a Day #Octopus (Octopus cyanea) in it's hidey-hole. Spotted it while #snorkeling in Hawaii last week.

Big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in #Crustmas this year! All these #crabs are reaching out to give you a hug of gratitude - no pinching, they promise. See you next year! #25DaysofCrustmas

Merry #Crustmas to all! To celebrate, here are some hungry hungry Pacific acorn #barnacles (Balanus glandula) from Pacific Rim National Park Reserve on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Hope your #Crustmas dinner is a feast! #25DaysofCrustmas

Need to squeeze in a Nightmare before #Crustmas gift on #Crustmas Eve: the eggs of a parasitic #copepod (Splanchnotrophidae) growing out of a Babakina festiva #nudibranch! These parasitic copepods are species-specific, & this one hasn't been described. #25DaysofCrustmas

Merry #Crustmas Eve, friends! Here are Buoy #barnacles (Dosima fascicularis)! They're pleustonic (living at the sea-water interface) goose barnacles that drift the ocean using floats they make or find- like Velella! Sometimes we get lucky enough to find them when they wash ashore. #25DaysofCrustmas

Just a little #Crustmas celebration from @montereyaq.bsky.social, reminding us that barnacles are just little weirdo crustaceans. #25DaysofCrustmas

Washed up creatures are sometimes my most exciting finds, since they're species I wouldn't normally find in the #tidepools. Case in point, this Tuberculate Pear Crab (Pyromaia tuberculata), today's #Crustmas crustacean. It's a benthic species, with adults often inhabiting continental shelves.

Well, my time in Hawaii is over, but let's stay in vacation mode a little longer here in #Crustmas-land. 3 years ago I took myself on a #tidepooling vacation to the Olympic Peninsula for a set of summer early morning low tides. Met this Helmet Crab (Telmessus cheiragonus) out by Port Townsend!

The Bloody Pebble Crab (Leptodius sanguineus) is today's Hawaiian #Crustmas crustacean! It's one of the most common shoreline crabs in Hawaii – I found this one tidepooling in Maui instead of snorkeling. Pāpaʻi is the general word for "crab" in Hawaiian. #25DaysofCrustmas

Look at this #Crustmas friend! It's a Halloween Hermit Crab or Cone Shell Hermit Crab (Ciliopagurus strigatus) (pāpaʻi iwi pūpū or unauna are the Hawaiian names for hermit crabs generally, thanks @hulilimu.bsky.social‬!). Love that orange & red banding and its preference for cone snail shells.

Spent some time with my face OUT of the water (but my feet still in it) #tidepooling yesterday. A few of my favorite finds. 1: Jorunna alisonae OR Tayuva lilacina (???) #nudibranch; 2: Nanus Cone (Conus nanus); 3: Black Doris (Dendrodoris nigra); 4: Hawaiian Snakehead Cowrie (Monetaria caputophidii)