LITTORAL
Land exposed between low and high tide is called the littoral, it includes rock pools and sandy and rocky seabed. The plants here are sea weeds, which are a kind of algae. They fix themselves to rock with roots that grow into the rock but they can be ripped off in storms and then float onto beaches. Molluscs such as top shells, winkles and whelks, and limpets, graze the seaweed for food. Crabs and lobsters and squat lobsters live here, when the tide is out they hide under rocks and weed. At high tide they walk across the seabed to eat molluscs and small crabs. There are fish such as the blenny, rockling, pipefish and Cornish sucker, also prawns and shrimp, which get caught in rock pools at low tide. At high tide everything swims around and big fish such as wrasse, conger eels, bass and grey mullet swim in to see if they can catch smaller fish or crabs among the rocks or on the seabed. Seals live here, they also hunt for fish in the kelp beds which are in deeper water, just off shore.