00:00:01.340 - 00:00:19.500

on tonight's feature report, We're going to have a look at the sea and the shore around us. After this word from pan american dr, cadet hand is director of the bodega Marine lab of the University of California. As such, he is probably one of the foremost

00:00:19.500 - 00:00:35.620

experts on the flora and the fauna of the pacific coast. Is this sort of marine life that you find on a rocky coast, such as this greatly different from that which you would find on a mud flat, sort of like night and day on a hard

00:00:35.620 - 00:00:48.730

rock coast like this, the organisms are either crawling free over the surface or else they're permanently attached to the rocks or the seaweeds that are out here. Whereas in the mud and sand flats, most of the animals tend to be borrowers. There are very few things

00:00:48.730 - 00:01:03.680

that live free on the surface and almost everything is down in the mud. Is this a particularly rich soil spot of the earth for marine diversity? Well, the coast of California and indeed the west coast of the United States is one of the areas of great

00:01:03.680 - 00:01:20.460

richness, very largely because of the cold water that that bathes the coast. This means we have highly oxygenated waters and there is a natural richness that goes with this which makes it possible for this great abundance and diversity of organisms to exist. Mhm. I've seen a

00:01:20.460 - 00:01:35.220

lot of these things that look like acorns. What are they? These are barnacles. These are a relative of crabs and shrimp that's settled down when they're still larvae and build a hardline Michel over their body and then when the waves come in they stick their legs

00:01:35.220 - 00:01:53.700

out and as the water goes through these legs, they represent a fine net that captures small food particles. This is a CNN money. It's a relative of corals and jellyfish and things that we call hydroids. It catches food with adhesive material on the tentacles and with

00:01:53.700 - 00:02:07.610

microscopic structures that actually penetrate the tissue of the food object. Are they comin along this coast there extremely common. We have about 20 different kinds of sea anemones, some of them very, very colorful, many of them disguised with gravel so that they're a little hard to

00:02:07.610 - 00:02:22.270

see when you meet them. Are these muscles edible? Yes, they are at certain times of the year. This particular time of the year, it's a little bit dangerous to eat them. We have a member of the plankton, one of the minute floating plants which has a

00:02:22.270 - 00:02:36.420

very toxic material in it, and the muscles which filter water for a living accumulate this in their tissues. And a single muscle is enough to kill a human being. If it's carrying the toxin, it isn't always present, it's a bit spotty. But so we have this

00:02:36.420 - 00:02:49.350

muscle quarantine on right now. Tonight's feature report a tour of the shore with dr cadet hand of the bodega. Marine lab of the University of California. This is jim Anderson