These are, of course, slugs and snails, and don't actually move all that quickly, but I still think this sort of looks like the nudibranch is plowing through the crowd, tossing snails aside willy nilly.
Yay, another tiny Cuthona! This time it's my first Cuthona albocrusta.
Cuthona lagunae. I totally thought this was C. flavovulta, but I guess I haven't seen that one for a while, since it has white rhinophores and speckled cerata.
I believe this is Aegires albopunctatus, the White-Spotted Dorid. Although it lacks the dark markings on the tubercles present in the picture in my guide (Berhens, 2005), it has the minute white spots on the dorsum (you might have to look at the larger view, the big chunky tubercles, and that sort of Triopha-like body plan.
Decorator crabs decorate their faces with bits of plant matter. Apparently, so do Cryptic Kelp Crabs (Pugettia richii), which is what I think these are, based mostly on the distinct spines on the back of the carapace.
Maybe "brocolli back" would be more appropriate. "Broconotum" has a nice ring to it...
So pretty! We saw a couple of these out there, maybe 4 or 5. This one was about 2-2.5 cm long.
Saw my first Tritonia festiva in quite some time, and saw this orange morph for the first time.
As we were admiring a bat star, I looked up and saw a rock that was not a rock: a massive Cabezon! At least I think that's what it is. This sucker was at least half a meter long, if not 3/4 m.
Andrea got a better shot.
Found this wonderful isopod, probably some kind of Idotea, and most of my pics seem to have it's head in shadow, lending it a Hadean demeanor that is completely unwarranted, but pretty cool all the same. Note that weird yellow thing under one of its plates (sclerites? what do you call them for crustaceans?): some kind of parasite?
Walking roughly through this key, my guess is that this is Idotea schmitti, mostly based on the blunt process on the pleotelson. Anyone have any thoughts? This was about 5 or 6 cm long, found in the rocky intertidal near Pescadero, CA, between San Francisco and Santa Cruz.
I'm pretty sure this Platypedia minor, but my book only lists the genus and says there are 18 species in CA, so who knows. 4-5 cm long, observed near Alamo, CA.
