Marine Beach Walk
Throw rubbish in the bin: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Over 100,000 marine animals like dolphins, turtles and whales die each year from eating plastics or getting entangled in rubbish.
Molluscs
Molluscs are soft-bodied animals that usually have a strong muscular foot. Some are quite fast with long tentacles! Molluscs include sea snails, cuttlefish and squid.
Cuttlefish
Large (15-50cm), elongated body with tentacles around the mouth. Change colour and pattern to communicate, camouflage and warn off potential predators. Internal structure called a cuttlebone often found on the beach. Made of calcium not bone and provides buoyancy.
Leaden Sea Snail Egg Mass
Clear jelly bean like egg mass often mistaken for a jellyfish. Hundreds of tiny snail eggs are suspended in the jelly. Leaden Sea Snails can grow up to 5cm. Burrow through surface layers of sand in search of prey and use large foot to secure victims.
Bivalves
Class of molluscs with two shells that close around whole body for protection. Pull water in and out of their body for oxygen and food. Include oysters, hairy mussels, clams and pipis.
Cnidarians
Cnidarians are wobbly animals with many tentacles with stinging cells, which can sometimes be very painful and dangerous.
Blue Blubber
Most common jellyfish along eastern Australia. Blue dome-shaped bell up to 45cm across. No mouth, food is passed to stomach through small openings on each arm. Tentacles with stinging cells catch crustaceans and plankton. Sting can be painful but not serious.
Blue Bottle / Portuguese Man-O-War
Bubble-like float with blue tentacles. Made up of a colony of specialised individual animals. One is the float, others form feeding tentacles and reproductive organ. NEVER TOUCH AS THEY HAVE A SEVERE STING!
By-the-Wind Sailor
Looks similar to blue bottle but has a flat sail rather than a bubble-like float. Often washed up on the beach. Does not sting.
Seagrass
Marine plants, closely related to the lily family. Unlike algae and seaweed, they are true flowering plants with leaves, roots, flowers and seeds. There are 6 species of seagrass in Moreton Bay, including “dugong grass” (Halophila ovalis and Halophila spinulosa), the diet of the dugong.
Mangroves
Mangroves are trees which grow on the coast, where the land meets the sea. They stabilize and protect shorelines and provide an important nursery habitat for marine life. Mangrove seeds are buoyant and wash ashore to colonise new areas. There are 8 species in Moreton Bay. The most common are the Grey and the Orange Mangrove.
Pumice Formed when flowing lava begins to cool down. Pumice stone is full of tiny air holes that make it lightweight and float.