You may have heard the phrase, stop and smell the roses,  at some point in your lifetime. Well, as a "marine biologist," myself and some of my colleagues do this a little differently. To examine the little things in life and to take a breath, we might head to the local docks and stop, lay on our belly, and observe the invertebrates.

When doing this,  you can see a whole new world controlled mostly by invertebrates. 

                          

     

When looking at these photos, from one eventful dock session, there were organisms from at least 5 different phylums and some of them were other parts of the world. These pictures don't give it justice on how many organisms there are living in the area. This picture barely covers a square foot, imagine how much there are when looking at the dock as a whole! 

While exploring, we found a huge sea anemone, Anthopleura Xanthogrammica...

...as well as a river otter.

Isn't exploring fun?