Illustrations by Jane Kim, text by Bay Nature staff.
Mouth in foot
In the small universe that is a tidepool, an ochre sea star (Pisaster ochraceus) dominates its patch of the rocky intertidal. Creeping on hundreds of tiny tube feet, it seeks out its favorite food, mussels. Those little tubes help pry apart the bivalve, letting the sea star begin to digest the mussel in its shell. When ochre sea stars are absent from a tidepool, the mussels can go wild. Kinda. They proliferate, filling an area and influencing what other species settle there. An afternoon in fall, during a low tide—this year, around the first week of December tides will be at their lowest—is an excellent time to catch sight of an ochre sea star, which, a little confusingly, are also commonly purple or orange or brown or red, or various shades in between.
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