UK Wildlife Blog

There were some fish in the pools. Most of them were shannys

But there were some sand eelsThese sand eels are the main food of puffins and most the auks we saw on Skomer, so it was nice to see some live ones, rather than dead in a puffins beak!

One of the more sand rockpools held some sand shrimpsNow thats camouflage! Imagine trying to find that over some sand!

Most of the pools and some of the exposed rocks had limpets and barnacles, as well as many of the colour forms of beadlet anemone

Many of the pools and objects in it had a coating of pink.This is a type of encrusting sponge.

A young crab scuttled across some of itIts sand camoflage was nearly as good as the sand shrimps.

We also found an adult shore crab

A quick dig in the sand below a cast and we found a lugworm

Crawling around the barnacles, a few centimetres above the water level was this green leaf worm ( Eulalia viridis)

But find of the day was a species I'd always wanted to see: a sea hare
The sea hare is actually a type of sea slug and it can grow quite large too, reaching up to 30cm long. This specimen was only about 20cm.
When caught it squirted out a large amount of purple liquid from its back, rather like and octopus or squid does with its ink and it has been reported that this has a similar fuction, forming a disorientating screen for predators as it makes its fast escape, but,encrusting,pink,sponge being slugs this is unlikely to say the least! A better theory in my book is that it is posionous or at least unpleasant to potential preadtors. There is more on the function of sea hare ink here.

In a nearby pool we located another sea hare and what we believe are sea hare eggs.

And all the animals were of course returned to the pool they were caught in and unharmed - 2 of the 3 golden rules of rockpooling, the 3rd of course being keep and eye on the tide!