Ok go back to your home
oh! Here's something else, this
This is the really cool thing about animals living in this kind of habitat
they're perfectly camouflaged
do you see what this is right here?
Oh hey Mark! Oh hey Taylor!
So whatcha doing out here today Mark? Well Taylor I'll tell ya!
Coming down to the beach at low tide, is pretty much my favourite place.
What's so cool about the intertidal zone Mark?
Well, the thing that I like about the intertidal is it gives you a chance to kind of walk around
under the ocean, so the intertidal area is the part
that usually gets covered by water at a high tide
and totally exposed on a low tide
so when you come down to the beach
on a low tide, you can
get down close to the water level
and you're basically looking at a whole ecosystem
all these different habitats
that are under the water
check out these anemones for example
so these are aggregating anemones
they just look like a weird little brain
but if you were to come down and you were to see them under the water
you'd see that they've got their tentacles out
here's a different kind of anemone
A-NEM-O-NE, it's not an enemy
it's not your enemy it's an anemone
So,  you can imagine that all of these
lifeforms, these creatures, when they're
out of the water, they have to basically behave
in a completely different way, so look at these
anemones here, these are all
aggregating anemones, you can see
they kind of look like a wrinkled brain
they are all sort of sucked up so they can
conserve water and protect themselves
but look at this guy, he's still under the water
this is a different species
this is called a giant green anemone
you can see he's still got his tentacles out he's hunting for food
so here's an aggregating anemone
and he's still got his tentacles out too
but these ones out of the water
they're basically in like protect mode
Alright Mark! let's go find some cool stuff in the intertidal!
Well we don't have to go far, because everything is cool in the intertidal
let's just see what's under this rock
Woah! look at all these little crabs
Pretty much any rock that you pick up is going to be hiding all kinds of different creatures
here we've got about a dozen little crabs
let's pick another rock
what about, this one
Woah
This is a different type of crab. This is a kelp crab
isn't he beautiful
so when these guys get bigger
they're actually going to move out into a more subtidal habitat
and they're perfectly camouflaged on strands of kelp
ok, go back to your home.
oh, here's something else, look
this is the really cool thing about animals living in this kind of
habitat, they're perfectly camouflaged
do you see what this is right here?
it's actually a fish
this is a little gunnel
and it's perfectly camouflaged
it looks exactly like a little piece of seaweed
You see it there? This a fish that live in the intertidal zone
I'm going to try to really gently pick him up
and put him in this shell here
we really want to be gentle gentle gentle when we're
looking at creatures in the intertidal
because we have to respect the fact
that we are disturbing them a little bit
So here he is, he's in the water
see how beautiful that guy is, and he looks
exactly like a little piece of seaweed
So they're not really eels, though they kind of look like an eel
Okay, let's check out this rock
Woah
that's a big gunnel
Do you see him here, see how he's hiding under the seaweed?
just really gently
bring him to the surface
just using one finger
do you see how big that guy is!
So these fish they obviously need to be in the water
but they can also crawl around the rocks no problem, you see him
he's so camouflaged
oh hello you beauty
look at that beautiful pattern on his face
so these guys can actually crawl around
in the intertidal
there he goes
back to your watery home my gigantic friend
k third times the charm
whoa
whoa Mark!
So this is a really cool
little find, here's a seastar
and he's clutching his own rocks
he's doing some rock lifting of his own
ok we''l be really gentle
and we'll put this back where we got it
we'll make sure we are not crushing anybody
hey Mark, this crab over here isn't even hiding!
he's hiding in plain sight, he's got
such perfect camouflage he looks exactly like a rock
Ok Mark, another day another rock, what have we got
here, I'm going to use a shell,
to gently pick this guy up here, look at that
oops, he's darting away
look at this shrimp, look how camouflaged this guy is
oops he's darting away again, he's a darter
nice, right?
We'll keep him in the water
So you can see that one kind of
- woah he's almost transparent
One of the kind of common themes
here, is camouflage
right the intertidal is
a zone of constant conflict, everything is trying to eat everything else
and everything is afraid of being eaten
low tide, you're exposed, birds,
small mammals are coming out
bears are flipping over rocks and they'll lick you right up
the water comes up, all of a sudden you have to worry for little fish
or bigger crabs or whatever
this is one of the most dynamic
and terrifying places to make a living
and so all of the animals that live here have adapted
to protect themselves as best they can
and then also maximize their success as predators
and so you see a lot of really really really amazing camouflage
in the marine environment and in the intertidal zone
wow I can't believe how many different types of seaweed are out here
oh seriously, intertidal area is the best
to come and learn your seaweeds, they're actually really
cool, seaweeds are an amazing
group of organisms
we live in an area of super high diversity
and the best time and the best place to come
and learn seaweeds is a nice beach like this on a low tide
you get so many different kinds and they're all on display
Yeah this stuff right here looks so cool Mark!
What kind of seaweed is this?
Actually Taylor, this isn't a seaweed, this
is actually a flowering plant, it's called
surf grass, and it's one of the very few species
of actual plants that have
adapted for life in the ocean, woah!
a flowering plant under water!
You better believe it baby!
Oh Mark! I hate when people leave garbage on the beach
Are you talking about this little guy?
Yeah! This isn't garbage this is
something a lot cooler
This is basically, feels kind of like plastic,
or almost looks like concrete
but this is a moon snail egg case
which is basically like one of the coolest things ever
So moon snails are these big huge
predatory snails they lurk around in sandy substrates
they come out, they hunt all types of food in the intertidal
and this is how they reproduce, they reproduce
sexually in the intertidal
area and then the female pumps out
thousands and thousands and thousands of eggs, and she encases them
in this sand, gelatin, matrix
so this is all one big mass of eggs
You see these all over, but they're not garbage
so we'll put it back here and
we'll let these little eggs continue to develop
Did you know moon snails can live to be 14, 15 years old, it's crazy!
So one of the things i find fascinating
about the intertidal is you come down here
and you start exploring
You invariably get down on your hands and knees
and it's a very micro world, small world
and it's easy to lose yourself
and you stand up and you look around and you realize
that the intertidal is where the whole
ocean, the largest ecosystem on earth
meets all of the land in this case
this huge massive forest
and basically the intertidal area seems really big when you are zoomed in
on any little thing you are examining
it's just like a really narrow band
you know like this whole beach, this whole intertidal area
is less than 200 m wide and maybe a few hundred meters long
but you have to imagine this habitat stretches
down every single coastline in the world
and in that narrow band you have an entire world
You know, it's just the coolest place to come and explore
and it's magical, I love it
We are so lucky to have places like this right in our back yard
Wow Mark, thanks for that great lesson, we'll
see ya around town.
Yeah, for sure Taylor, sorry if I was a little crabby today
Oh check this out, this is a moon snail
shell,  so we got a shell
growing on a shell, growing on the other shell
is a bunch of seaweed and I guarantee you
if we put this under the scope, we'd find
other stuff living in and amongst
all the algae on that other shell, there's literally
nothing in the intertidal that doesn't have many layers
of life living on it
