I’ve been too busy with work to do much exploring, photographing, etc. this week, but I have some photos of sea stars saved from my trip to Cumberland Island that I’ve been meaning to share. (I’ve managed to break myself of saying “starfish” – they’re not fish, after all!)
I have yet to see any sea stars on our beach here on Jekyll Island, but we found them in abundance on Cumberland. There were a lot of dead, drying ones along the tide line, but we also found a couple at the edge of the waves that were still alive.
Tube feet!
This one had been crawling across the sand – I had to crank up the contrast on the photo to make the trail show up, and it still doesn’t look that great, but I think it’s cool.
Okay, so I have to wonder . . . why would they be abundant on Cumberland but not on Jekyll?
I wish I knew! The shelling happened to be particularly awesome the day we were on Cumberland due to a tropical storm passing by out at sea and churning things up, but in my limited experience beachcombing on Cumberland is always more productive than beachcombing on Jekyll (not that we don’t find cool stuff here on Jekyll as well). I really have no idea what quirks of currents or differences in habitat are responsible. Maybe Cumberland’s offshore community of invertebrates is simply healthier due to the lack of human activity there?