Volunteers, researchers, and curators got to hop along algae-covered rocks, and peer into the rarely exposed world of the San Pedro Point Fermin intertidal zone at dawn. It was the second-to-lowest tide of the entire year. Every few minutes you could hear a burst of "oh what! wow!" as people found and gently scooped up animals, from slimy sponges to brittle starfish to the behemoth black sea hare. Regina Wetzer and Dean Pentcheff, long time collaborators now, also collected specimens to bring back to the lab and voucher for permanent archiving as well as DNA barcoding. With these species barcoded too, we can now track them more accurately with our CALeDNA environmental DNA metabarcoding. :)
