#sand lance

*drops a sand lance out of my pocket* oops sorry aha *drops a sand lance out of my pocket* oh man I’m so sorry I - *drops a sand lance out of my pocket* I don’t know where all of thes- *drops a sand lance out of my pocket*

Rock soles, speckled sanddabs, helmet crabs, graceful crabs, red rock crabs, longnose crabs, snake pricklebacks, anemones, and more await you beneath the emerald sea surface off the shore of Steilacoom, WA.

The sand eel, also called a sandeel and a sand lance, at first glance appears to be a small eel, but upon closer examination is seen to more closely resemble a fish that has simply been stretched out. The sand eel is in fact a fish, and not a member of eel family.The sand eel makes its home in the waters of the North Atlantic. There are at least two major species, the European sand eel, Ammodytes tobianus, which is found from the coasts of Greenland and Iceland, to the British Isles, Scandinavia, and as far south as the coast of Spain. The American sand eel, Ammodytes americanus, is found along the east coast of Canada, and through the coastal New England states to New Jersey, although a few have been sighted as far south as Delaware. The heaviest concentrations of the American sand eel are found in the waters off Nova Scotia, the coast of Maine, and Cape Cod. These fish are typically 4 to 6 inches long and roughly a tenth as wide as they are long.

Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica) and their favorite food, sand lances (Ammodytes sp.).

Seagulls by kamomebird on Flickr.