Tidepool Treasures

Heidi and I went tidepooling at a secret spot on the North shore of Maui yesterday and were very surprised with how much we found. The rocky point at low tide was a perfect place to find deep tidepools that could sustain life during even the lowest of tides. The usual suspects were all there, long zebra blennies darting into their holes, juvenile convict tangs frantically looking for hiding places, and gobies perfectly blending into the sand and rubble. But then Heidi noticed a couple of her favorite invertebrates, the sea hare! You can see how small they are compared to her hand and how beautiful they are in the close up shot above. This is a Lined Sea Hare. They eat a blue-green algae that gives them a build up of toxins in their body which can be harmful to human eyes but is of interest to medical researchers.
Then we were very excited to find a bubble shell (the beautiful blue snail with yellow spots). This is a cymbal bubble shell. These snails do have a shell but its perfectly transparent which allows the beautiful green, white, and orange animal to show through. They also feed on blue-green algae and can sometimes bloom by the thousands. I had only seen a couple of these creatures in tidepools up until now. There must have been 30 or 40 just where we looked!

Then something you never expect to see in a tidepool...or at least laying next to a tidepool, a Hawaiian Monk Seal! This is one of the rarest animals in the world. Only a 1000 or so exist and most of those are around the North-West Hawaiian island chain. Around 200 Hawaiian monk seals live around the 8 main Hawaiian islands and sighting are so rare that there is a special hotline the you call whenever you see one. This is only the second time that I have been able to call that hotline. This is an adult female just basking and resting away near the tidepools. And hour and half later the only sign of movement was that she rolled a quarter of the way over, like a sun tanning beauty rotisserie style.