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All seashore creatures depend at first hand or second hand upon the
seaweeds or the tiny plants washed in by waves. But sandy shores and rocky
shores have different communities of animals.
Sandy shores:
Loose sand grains provide no foothold for the dwellers on a sandy or muddy
shore. Here, the common habitats are the mollusks, crustaceans and other
dig down to find safety from storm waves or drying up at low tide. At high
tide, cockles, razor shells and tellins push up tubes to suck in scraps of
food brought in by water. Lugworms stay buried, sieving food from muddy
sand. Here too the masked crab lies concealed. It takes oxygen and live on
their form water drawn in through two feelers that interlock and poke up
through sand to form a breathing tube.
Rocky shores:
The pools and boulders of a rocky shore support a largely different set of
creatures. Shore crabs occur on sandy shores,
but find more safety in rock
crevices. Limpets, acorn barnacles, mussels and sea anemones all anchor
their bodies to the rocks and there they survive the fury of the sea.
Limpets graze upon the algae growing on their rocks. The other three
depend for food on what the tide brings in.
Even at low tide, deep rock pools hold water. They offer food and safety
for small fishes, prawns, hermit crabs and sometimes lobsters.
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Icy shores:
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