Beach And Sea Animals (2nd ed, 1957)

along the ocean beaches. The land, the sea, and the sky all meet. Because land, water, and air are such different environments, the things that live in these places differ widely one from another. Each plant and animal is adapted for living in its own unique way. For example, birds like these ganets live on the fish they catch in the sea. They build their nests and raise their families right on the rocky cliffs along the beaches close to their food supply. Another fish eating bird that lives along the beaches is the osprey or fish hawk. Ospreys have sharp talons and beaks for catching and eating fish. This egret may look comical as it pursues a fish, but the serious business of getting enough food consumes a lot of time and effort for many animals. The egret will keep trying until it catches one. Fish provide food for a large variety of beach and sea animals. There are many fishes in the sea. Some are beautiful, others are [Music] odd-looking, and many are especially interesting, like this porcupine fish, which can puff up with water and make its spine stick out to protect itself against enemies. The seahorse is a remarkable fish that doesn't look like a fish at all. Seahorses can hold on to things with their tails. Watch this orange colored seahorse catch a small shrimp. One of the most amazing of all is the frogfish or angller. It really angles for other fish with a fishing pole and the wormlike bait. Its fishing pole is a bony filament attached at one end to the angller's head. At the other end of the pole is a wormlike appendage. When hungry, the angller extends its fishing pole and vibrates it. Small fish attracted to the bait, which looks like a wriggling worm, are gulped down in one swallow by the angller. This spotted eel is another of the many unusual fishes in the sea, and the blue angelf fish is a real beauty. But the fish have a lot of neighbors that are just as colorful and interesting. This film brings together for us a wide selection of animals representative of those that live in and along the coastal waters of the United States and Canada. There are numerous kinds of crabs. The sponge crabs place bits of live sponge on their backs for camouflage. At low tide, fiddler crabs come out of their burrows to feed along the beaches. During high tides, their homes are covered by water. They spend about half of their lives on land and half underwater. Other crabs like this land crab spend much time out of the water. But all crabs must live near water or in damp habitats since they breathe by means of gills. Gills can function only if they are moist. When the head of this calico crab is partly out of the water, we can see the stream of water which the crab causes to flow over its gills as it breathes. This green spider crab is eating a dead minnow. Many crabs are scavengers and help keep the beaches and sea water clean by eating dead animals. Because of its shape, this odd creature is called a sea cucumber. It eats organic matter it finds on the sea floor. Its mouth has a ring of branch tentacles which help the sea cucumber to find and eat its food. It has many little tube-like feet for moving about. Each foot has a little suction cup at its end to help hold onto things. Sea cucumbers are related to the sea urchin. Sea urchins have a protective covering of stiff spines which some also use in walking. From beneath we can see that the urchin has tube feet like the sea cucumber to assist it in moving. Another close relative which has tube feet, the starfish also lives on the sea bottom. It can bury itself completely in the sand for protection. Serpent starfish have snake- like flexible arms for moving about. They are also called brittle starfish because their arms break off easily when grasped by enemies, thus affording them an opportunity to escape. Sponges of many shapes and colors live among the rocks and plants on the sea floor. While sponges look more like plants, they are sea animals. This conch shell is covered with a kind of sponge that eats into shells. The sea snail which grew this shell is dead and gone. Now its shell is serving as a home for the sponge. And the toadfish also finds it a good hiding place. Sea anemmones are animals too, though they look enough like a flower to be a plant. The tentacles poison and capture some animals. But clown shrimps live unharmed among the tentacles of some anemmones. Flower worms also look like flowers, but are true worms. They breathe and feed by means of their feathery gills. When frightened, they pop into the protecting tubes which they build around themselves. Flower worms and the colorful bristle worms are related to the familiar earthworm which is strictly a land animal. Nutubbranks are snails without shells. Some have brilliant patterns. They move along by the muscular action of their broad flat foot, just as most snails do. This is a tulip shell. Here's a sea snail that has an odd way of moving. It sort of hobbles along, propelling itself with its muscular foot. Many different animals find protection in the shells left by dead sea animals. Here an octopus has used an old conch shell to brood her family of young ones. Octopuses, conchs, and nutubbranks all belong to a division of the animal kingdom called mollisks. Another interesting mollisk is this beautiful balve animal or file shell. The final shell propels itself by forcing jets of water from between the two halves of its shell as it claps them together. My What's this? It looks like a walking garden, and that's about what it is. A hermit crab has moved into the empty shell of another dead sea snail. A type of seaweed is growing on the shell. While its name implies that it lives alone, the hermit carries a lot of company around that it may not even know about. A sea anemone has lodged among the plant growth on the shell, and a dwarf seahorse finds the plants a convenient place around which to wrap its tail as it goes for a ride. Some tiny barnacles, greatly enlarged here by the camera, are also getting a free ride. Barnacles pull food matter into their mouths with their feathery feet. Flower worms often build their tubes on shells. Worms have built all the little tubes you see on the surface of the shell. On the inside wall of the dead shell, a living mollisk has fastened itself. What a lot of neighbors the hermit has. Perhaps the hermit stirs up food matter for these free riders as it feeds or as it drags its shell house around in the water. At any rate, the shell provides a base and the hermit provides transportation for a roving community of sea animals and plants. We have seen that beach and sea animals are abundant in numbers, variety, interest, and color. But we have observed only a few of the amazing animals that live here. Perhaps you can take a trip to an ocean beach or read some of the fine books in the library and learn more of the interesting stories about beach and sea animals. [Music]