A first look at realism - A Fascination for Fish: Adventures of an Underwater Pioneer - page 28

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A FIRST LOOK AT REALISM
A T EVERY OPPORTUNITY I was out collecting animals for either
Marineland of the Pacific or my own home aquarium. The fish and
invertebrate life I saw while underwater or in the rich tide pools of Pa-
los Verdes Peninsula was much more impressive than what was repre-
sented in the comparatively bare and static aquariums at the oceanarium.
For instance, Marineland had an exhibit of tide pool animals and plants,
but unlike real tide pools with their dynamic waves and surge, it was
motionless. To make things worse, the exhibit was in a square tank, a
shape almost never seen in nature.
The intertidal pools at Portuguese Bend in Palos Verdes were formed
by long fingers of rock jutting out from the shore into the ocean. Nar-
row channels between the rocks were home to a great variety of tide
pool life, including fishes: young opaleye ( Girella nigricans ) and two
types of tide pool sculpins ( Clinocottus spp. and Oligocottus spp.). These
animals have evolved to be quite at home in the waves that surge through
the channels.
To us, the powerful waves that pound the intertidal rocks look as if
they would sweep away everything in their path, but beneath the sur-
face the fish take shelter in quiet eddies until the tide goes out and the
period of calm water returns. The little sculpins have gripping pelvic