Sea pork often attaches to structures such as jetties and
pilings as well as to coral or seaweed. Generally found from
the low tide line to depths of 30 feet, it is eaten by bottomdwelling fish such as skates and sharks. While sea pork can
be seen frequently on the beach it is even more plentiful
following a storm.
The sand collar is another one of those mysterious items
you may spy on the beach, particularly at low tide. Blending
discretely into the sand and shaped somewhat like an old
fashioned detachable collar, this is the egg casing of the moon
snail. If you touch it while it is wet, it will have a rubbery feel,
but will be brittle and disintegrate if it’s handled when dry.
Moon snails have a very large foot, which they can make
even bigger by engorging it with water. When the female is
ready to lay her eggs, she molds the egg casing by wrapping
her huge foot around her shell and also using it to spread sand
between her shell and surrounding foot. After cementing the
sand with mucus, she places her eggs on the layer of sand and
then encases them in another layer of mucus and sand until
the collar shaped sculpture is completed. At that point, she
digs into the sand, leaving the collar behind on the beach to
shelter the thousands of eggs contained in it until they hatch
a few weeks later.
No day at the beach would be complete without many
encounters with our beach “salad,” kelp. This large seaweed
is a type of brown algae that grows on the floor of shallow
parts of the ocean where it forms dense deep-sea forests.
It is extremely fast growing and a favorite food of grazing
creatures like sea urchins.
Last, but not least, if you see something on the beach that
looks a bit like a telephone cord (assuming you can remember
those!), you’ve spotted a whelk egg casing. The egg cases of
each species of whelk are unique. For example, the pods in
the casing of a knobbed whelk have scalloped edges, while
those of a channeled whelk are beveled.
Whelks produce their eggs twice a year—in the spring and
in the early fall. The casings, which are strings of pods, can be
as long as 40 inches and each can contain well over 100 pods
and up to 100 eggs per pod. The mother whelk buries one
end of the string in shallow water, leaving the rest to float for
several months while the eggs develop. Usually, if you pick
up a whelk egg case, you will see holes in the pods indicating
that the eggs have hatched. Occasionally, you may find one in
which some of the eggs have not hatched and be able to see
tiny whelk shells inside the pods.
Now that we’ll be able to answer a few of the questions
that may come our way, let’s go out and enjoy our beautiful
beach! NK
Sea pork by Pamela Cohen
Sand collar by Erin White
Moon snail by Pamela Cohen
Kelp by Pamela Cohen
SUMMER/FALL 2015 • VOLUME 34
7