Lifer Moray Eel at Crystal Cove King Tide Jan 12 2024

As the tide receded, I found a pair of Octopi reaching out to each other overland between two pools. I suspected amorous intent. Both were light in color so at first I thought it was just one large octopus. But then after it realized I was there, the one reaching out the most switched to a mottled brown, much darker. The one staying under the rock remained white as the dark one continued reaching out. As I was angling for a better photo/video, I noticed in the larger pool directly below a few feet away, at the outflow where water from the octopi pool was draining into an object swaying up out the water - it looked like another octopus tentacle at first! So I went to look, and realized immediately it was a large 2-3' long California Moray Eel! https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/196458949 This Eel was trying very hard to get up the outflow into the next pool, presumably to get at those two octopi. So much so that it appeared semi amphibious in it's behavior. Has anyone observed an Eel leaving a tidepool to go into another one? That's what this one was trying to do. I'll ink video of it here soon.
My knees were shaking from such a rare (for me) observation. I spent some time photographing and talking to both the Eel (it finally left through the aptly named Eel Grass), and the Octopi. The Brown one was pretty red and I realized it wasn't too happy with my being there so I headed out, looking for other things to find in the tidepools. There was only one other Tide Pool Enthusiast out there that day, he arrived after I saw all this. Great Day!

Posted on January 24, 2024 07:44 PM by randallgood