Excerpt and photographs from Craig Foster and Ross Frylinck’s UNDERWATER WILD by Quivertree Publications; with permission from Mariner Books (an imprint of HarperCollin Publishers LLC); All rights are reserved by them.
At spring low tides we would explore the shallows, carefully lifting rocks to see what lay hidden below them. Under every rock we found an incredible variety of small living things such as glowing worms, tiny rock suckers, and vibrantly-colored nudibranchs (a type of sea slug). Craig taught me how animals could be tracked using egg masses; using sea hares as our teacher he demonstrated how these luminous animals like glowing slugs were always close by their eggs; when we saw an egg mass we would find its parent hiding nearby – whenever we saw its glowing yellow spaghetti-like mass we would find their parent nearby hiding within minutes!
What struck me most was Craig’s passion for seemingly insignificant marine creatures. When I questioned him about it, he told me he found them more captivating than sharks and whales – an extraordinary admission from someone who spent so much time among some of the largest predators of sea life! Initially I found his statement somewhat absurd and couldn’t help wondering whether or not he meant what he said.
Sitting quietly on the rocks together, we began observing some fascinating animal behavior in the pools. Sea anemones waged slow-motion war with toxic stinging cells while sea stars chased top-shell snails over rocks; as they reached the edge, instead of going smoothly over, they leapt into the abyss leaving trails behind them in sand before finally landing safely back onto a sandy floor. Unfortunately due to sticky feet on their bodies, sea stars couldn’t release themselves and make the same leap; thus giving top-shell snails an edge over sea stars which couldn’t.
