We didn’t have much luck beachcombing at Bancoora yesterday. We did have better luck at a group of rocks that border the beach.
Now, I had no intention of actually checking out this rocky area. It felt too unstable and tricky to walk around. I suggested that if we wanted to go rockpooling, we should go to a different beach. My more nimble nephew had other plans.
We ended up finding some cool stuff. It was difficult to walk around, especially as I was wearing hiking shoes.
Decorator Crab
Haven’t tried narrowing this down to species, but tried to get photos from multiple angles. Later I want to organize information about the types of marine life the crab uses for decoration.
Seaweed
It has been suggested on iNaturalist that this belongs to the Rivularia genus. The Port Phillip Bay website lists Rivularia australis as. Shore Life Of The Great Ocean Road and the Barwon Bluff website mention Rivularia firma.
I don’t know enough – or anything – about cyanobacteria to understand the different between the species. Are they the same species? I would leave towards Rivularia firma as that is meant to occur intertidally.
Possible ascidian?
At this point Seth shouted at me to climb over the rocks – “It’s easy!” – to check this out. He is becoming very savvy about the type of critters I like.
I’m not sure what I have here. The smaller ones appear to have some kind of circular arrangement. A person on iNaturalist who is very familiar with sea squirts suggested it belonged to the Didemnidae family. It looks different to the ones I’ve seen in the past; almost like it is less solid. Perhaps this is due to age? Or even the fact it was under a rock instead of on an artificial structure?
Chiton
I’m putting this in the too hard basket, as the photo quality is poor and I’m struggling to understand the key features. iNaturalist AI suggested that this could belong to the Ischnochiton genus. I will return to this as my knowledge grows but for now, I’m not focusing of identifying chitons.
Barnacles
I’m guessing this is a surf barnacle. It looks like they may be broken and I’m struggling to see any clear plates.
