Northern Pipefish
Syngnathus fuscus
Related to the seahorse, captures food with a trap-door mouth. Scales fused into armor-like plating.

Marsh Grass Shrimp
Palaemonetes vulgaris
Translucent with brown or red spots for camouflage. Up to 2"long.

Grass shrimp are an important link in the eel grass bed food chain.

It can even feed on hydroids which are growing on green algae. Hydroids are animals related to sea anemones, coral and even jellyfish. They have stinging cells called nematocysts to capture there food.

Green Fleece
Codium fragile
Introduced approximately 50 years ago, Codium seaweed is now prolific in our shallow bays. Although it is not indigenous to our waters, it found a specific niche as a substrate for animals, such as these hair-like hydroids, to attach to.

Eelgrass, seaweed (macroscopic algae), and phytoplankton (microscopic algae), are the producers that start the food chain. Photosynthesis converts light energy penetrating the shallow water into the chemical bond energy trapped in their body parts.

Oxygen gas, an important product of photosynthesis, remains on the algae as bubbles when the water is still.

Banded Rudderfish
Seriola zonata
Uses eel grass beds as spawning grounds.
Adults will then migrate out the inlet; back to deeper water.

Comb Jellies glisten as sunlight travels through their transparent bodies and as they emit the light produced from bioluminescence.
Nature's living light makes them twice as bright!

Northern Comb Jelly
Bolinopsis infundibulum
Eight combs which are rows of cilia. These tiny hairs sweep food into its mouth.
Unlike jellyfish, comb jellies do not sting and can bioluminesce.