When the waters change temperature abruptly, some sea creatures don’t have time to move downward into the mud, or offshore into warmer waters fast enough.  Moving sluggishly and suffering from hypothermia, they wash up onto the beach and often perish when exposed to the wind.  We have seen quite a number of sea stars, sea cucumbers, sea urchins, and even several types of crabs on the beach during the last few cold snaps.  In many ways, this is a natural part of winter, and it’s a really interesting way to learn more about what is going on in the water nearby.  It was at this time last year that we found several intact giant tun shells on the beach, and learned about how they function in the ecosystem. Yesterday and today we walked on the beach and found some fascinating things.

We found a spider crab that had begun to molt, but hadn’t made it out of the older shell.  Here, you can see the soft shell crab emerging from the hard, smaller shell.  The soft shell must not have provided enough protection from the cold.  It was not an isolated event– we found another one in soft shell stage further down the beach.

The Post and Courier had an interesting article in December about cold-stunned wildlife and the effect the temperatures may have on the fishing and shrimping industries, and Charleston Waterkeeper was looking onto a fishkill of probably cold-stunned menhaden on Folly Beach last week.  The Post and Courier also had a story about that fish kill.

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/dec/15/rare-cold-stunned-turtle-stranding-sc-surprise/