for crabs, snails, worms, sea cucumbers, and many other marine species that live within the protected
spaces of the mussel bed. Photo credit: Jacqueline Sones, UC Davis
A Mussel Bed is Full of Life, 80 Years Later
Just as the sun came up, Emily Longman held up a map of boulders that were laid out in front of her—a rocky outcrop off of Second Sled Road in Dillon Beach. To her surprise, the map was still largely accurate, nearly eight decades later. She walked in her rain boots towards one of the bigger boulders, a few feet higher than her five-foot stature, covered in a seemingly impenetrable layer of inky black mussels. But she knew what lay between them, and pulled them apart anyways. Glowing under her headlamp were tightly-packed red barleysnails, green anemones, white barnacles, beige limpets, and blue porcelain crabs.