Life on Intertidal Rocks: A Guide to the Marine Life of the Rocky North Atlantic Coast

by Cherie Hunter Day

Overview

Easily Identify the Living Things You Find on Intertidal Rocks!

Enjoy learning to identify marine life on the rocky north Atlantic coast with this pocket-size field guide from author Cherie Hunter Day. With this handy, easy-to-use book, you'll be able to identify a wide variety of living things in no time. And its small size makes it just right for fitting into your pocket or pack when you go for a walk along the rocky coast.

Features:

• Identifies plants and animals that live in the intertidal zone of the rocky coast, from Cape Cod north to the Bay of Fundy
• Explores and provides information about the specific and unique life that thrives in tide pools, caves, and crevices, as well as on rocks, wharves, and pilings
• Explains intertidal ecology and how these fascinating and varied creatures—sea slugs, crabs, rockweeds, star fish, and many others—survive in the harsh and ever-changing environment between the limits of high and low tide

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780912550152
Publisher:	Wilderness Press
Publication date:	01/01/1987
Series:	Nature Study Guides
Edition description:	Ecco ed.
Pages:	64
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 4.00(h) x (d)
Age Range:	10 Years

About the Author

Cherie Hunter Day currently resides in Menlo Park, California, and is the author of several nature-themed books.

Read an Excerpt

Isopods

These abundant, well camouflaged crustaceans have flattened bodies and fused abdominal segments. Breathe through leg-like appendages under tail plate. With seven pairs of walking legs, they are well adapted for crawling and swimming. Most depend on speed to escape enemies. Females carry developing young in brood pouches.

Northern Sea Roach Ligia oceanica

Body to 2.5 cm long, grey-green to golden-brown. Scavenges and scurries over wharves and pilings in upper level and splash zone.

Baltic Isopod Idotea baltica

Body to 2.5 cm long, tan to olive-green, often colorfully mottled with red, brown, black, and white. Scavenges among lower level seaweeds, and in crevices.

North Shore Isopod Jaera marina

Body to 5 mm long, grayish-tan. Common on middle and lower level pilings, seaweeds, and hydroids. Grazes on algal film and detritus that collects on sheltered shores.

Table of Contents

Species List

• Blue-green algae
• Thread-like green algae
• Ribbon-like green algae
• Sheet-like green algae
• Brown algae and Rockweed
• Feathery brown algae
• Kelps
• Sheet-like red algae
• Calcified red algae
• Feathery red algae
• Sponges
• Hydroids
• Sea anemones
• Coiled tubeworms
• Scaleworms
• Ribbonworms
• Periwinkles and whelks
• Mussels
• Jingle shells and toenail shells
• Sea slugs and nudibranchs
• Bryozoans and sea-moss animals
• Acorn barnacles
• Isopods
• Amphipods
• Crabs
• Spider crabs
• Lobster
• Hermit crabs
• Sea spiders and pycnogonids
• Sea stars
• Sea cucumber
• Sea urchin
• Tunicates
• Sea squirts
• Vertebrates and fish