Fun finds in the field

Today when we were checking the cages and counting the species in them, we saw some exciting intertidal things!

First, we found very obvious evidence that my predatory dogwhelks are indeed predators: there were many clear boreholes in mussels right next to them!

Here you can see a clean hole right through that mussel and my labeled dogwhelks—wearing pink and sparkly purple nail polish and circular orange number tags—in the background.

We also found an unexpected vertebrate in one of the cages!

Finally, a very active red octopus was crawling right next to us! I filmed it sliding by the cages and trying to hide under a flap.

It seems every time I go out I find something else I've never seen before, so check back soon for more updates!