Eggs of the Intertidal

Eggs found in the intertidal are often the most difficult items to indentify.  Seattle Aquarium Beach Naturalists have been equipped with ID sheets to make the life easier but for others perhaps this group of images will be of some use.  New image:  illustration added at bottom of Pile Worm eggs...these egg masses are often found floating in the drift in summer and have been a mystery for some time.  This ends up as a clump of dirty tan eggs about the size of a jumbo chicken eggs....individual eggs are not visible without a microscope.  Will try to add image of actual egg mass next time I see one.

Things to Remember:

Arthropod females hold eggs and release hatched larvae (crabs, barnacles, shrimp).

Echinoderms broadcast spawn and do not attach eggs (a few Sea Stars retain eggs till they hatch)

Most worms broadcast spawn some lay attached eggs.

Some Mollusks broadcast spawn....(chitons, limpets, some snails).

Fish often attach eggs (Scuplins, Herring, Lingcod, Smelt) others broadcast spawn (Cod, Flounder) or have live births (Dogfish Sharks, Perch, Rockfish)

Cnidarians mostly broadcast spawn or divide asexually or retain eggs and release tiny adults                    

 BEACH EGGS

Frilled Whelks laying eggs

Dungeness Crab with eggs

Gravid Tidepool Sculpin

Unidentified Polychete worm eating Bubble Shell Eggs

Gravid Tidepool Sculpin

Northern Kelp Crab with eggs

                             

Spinyhead Sculpin male with eggs

Sea Lemon laying eggs

Barnacle Eating Nudibranch with eggs



Big Skate eggs in egg case

Black-clawed Crab with eggs

Bubble Snail with eggs

Bubble Snail with eggs

Burrowing Sea Cucumber with eggs

Gumboot Chiton laying eggs

N. Clingfish with eggs

Crescent Gunnel with eggs


 


Ghost Shrimp with eggs

Green Annelid worm eggs

Green Annelid worm that laid eggs above

Graceful Cancer Crab with eggs

Lacuna snail eggs on eelgrass

Plainfin Midshipman eggs

Plainfin Shipman male with eggs

Moon Snail with egg case (sand collar)

Hairy Triton with eggs

Red Octopus with eggs

Giant Pacific Octopus with eggs

Sculpin eggs

Shaggy Mouse sea slug with eggs

Sea Star female spawning

Sitka Shrimp with eggs

Taylor's Sea Hare eggs

Frilled Dogwinkle with eggs

Sea Lemon sea slug eggs

Opalescent Sea Slug with eggs

Opalescent Sea Slug eggs on Moon Snail sand collar

Frilled Whelk egg capsules

Frilled Whelks mating

Rockweed Isopods mating

Aggregate Anemone dividing

Emarginated Whelk egg capsules

Flatworm and egg masses

Rockweed Isopod with young at pouch

Rockweed Isopod with young at pouch

Plainfin Midshipman eggs

Porcelain Crab with eggs

Lacuna Snail with eggs

Hairy Shore Crab with eggs

Noble Sea Lemon eggs

Lacuna Snail eggs

Lacuna snail with egg mass on shell

Pile Worm eggs

Plankton - Drifters of the Sea

Plankton are likely the most numerous organisms on Earth.  Planktonic viruses number about 10-100 million per teaspoon of seawater, bacteria come in second at about 1/10 that number.  Scientists estimate that if all the viruses were lined up end to end the line would reach out somewhere between 60 and 100 million light years. New findings by scientists estimate that 1/2 the ocean's planktonic bacteria are photosynthetic using a unique pigment, proteorhodopsin and other deep sea bacteria are photosynthetic using the dim light from deep sea thermal vents.
The ones we can observe with a magnification of as low as 10X are more familiar to the general public.
                                                     
                                             General Plankton Information
Holoplankton:  Planktonic organisms that spend their entire lives as members of the plankton.
Meroplankton:  Planktonic only in some stage of life.

Holoplankton include: Viruses, Bacteria,  Diatoms, dinoflagellates, other single cell algae, most copepods, some amphipods, arrow worms, pterapods, larvaceans, salps, some jellyfish, some protozoans and others.

Diatoms

diatom

Dinoflagellate

Larvacean

Noctiluca

Pteropod

Copepod

Rotifer

Krill

Meroplankton include:  Larval stages of :  crabs, shrimp, lobster, hermit crabs, barnacles, sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sand dollars, most mollusks, many species of fish, sea anemones, tunacates, sponges, worms, bryozoans, various arthropods, salps, siphonophores, etc....and some stages of jellyfish, as well as reproductive cells of seaweeds

Larval Barnacle



Larval Barnacle



Amphipod

Parasitic Copepods

Crab Larvae

Larval Annelid Worm

Larval Sea Squirt

Larval Snail

Larval Fish

Larval Sea Slug

Larval Bryozoan

Larval Shrimp

Lion's Mane Jellyfish

Phytoplankton:  Plankton that are primary producers; they produce their own food, carbohydrates, through the process of Photosynthesis:  

Six molecules of water plus six molecules of carbon dioxide produce one molecule of sugar plus six molecules of oxygen .

Included are certain bacteria, diatoms, coccolithophores, other algae, some dinoflagellates. 

These phytoplankton produce about 1/2 of the Earth's oxygen supply and form the base of the food web in much of the ocean.  The CO2 enters the ocean via the atmosphere....which at present in increasing and causing ocean waters to become more acidic (see earlier blog).  Phytoplankton also require other nutrients which may be the limiting factors in phytoplankton abundance.

Zooplankton:  Animal members of the plankton; both holoplankton and meroplankton. 

Many are larval stages or animals that will leave the plankton as adults; sea stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sea squirts, crabs, shrimps, snails, clams, mussels, worms, sea anemones, bryozoans, barnacles, sand dollars, many fishes, sponges, oysters, are all meroplankton. while copepods, arrow worms, salps, larvaceans, are among the holoplankton.

Jellyfish have both attached and planktonic life stages.

Puget Sound Plankton:   See previous blog on "The Fertile Fjord" to learn more about our local plankton.

Don't forget you can get the book online from SEA GRANT.

Plankton images: The Seattle Aquarium and Richard Bell