Scarborough Rockpooling

You may be wondering where the fantastic little cuttle and the beautiful blue-rayed limpet, among others, have gone. They have been legally transferred to our brand new mollusc page! Yee-ha!

PICTURE GALLERY - OTHER SPECIES

Back in early summer, a Sea Spider was found at Holbeck. The species, identified as Nymphon gracile was found on the lower mid shore underneath a large rock. They move very slowly, and are quite small and slender, with a leg span of 3cm.

We found our first jellyfish (phylum: Cnidaria) on the 21st September 2009. It is a very small moon jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) that was no more than 20mm in diameter. It can grown to over 40cm in diameter, but our was a very small specimen that was in a shallow rockpool (the larger adults are in deeper waters away from the shoreline). They are transparent with four-way radial symmetry and have four distinct pale rings in the bell which are it's sex organs. You can't see those in our picture due to our example being so small.

Hardly a rockpool species this! Grey Herons (Ardea cinerea) are occasionally seen snacking on foolish crabs with the seagulls. We've seen four or five now, not always when we have been rockpooling.

Worms are also common at Scalby. They can be very difficult to identify, so one of the following pictures doesn't have a scientific name to partner it unfortunately.

This worm has been identified as Phyllodoce laminosa and was over 40cm in length. It was found under a rock on the lower shore at Scalby. We think juveniles of this species may have also been found at Holbeck this autumn.

We have seen a few different species of Polynoidae worms under rocks at Holbeck, Cornelian Bay, and Scalby. So far we have not managed to identify any of them. Hopefully with a few more finds and some sustained effort, we can put some scientific names to this worms.

 ANY NEW SPECIES THAT DON'T FALL INTO THE CRUSTACEAN, ECHINODERM, MOLLUSC, OR CHORDATE PAGES WILL BE POSTED IN HERE