What looks a sponge, smells like a volcano and is found in rock pools?

Well, the answer can be found in A Guide to Coastal Wildlife, a series of programmes in which Brett Westwood joins naturalist Phil Gates on the coast of Northumberland and with the help of recordings by wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson, they offer a practical and entertaining guide to the wildlife which you’re most likely to see and hear in different coastal habitats. In this first of five episodes they start with probably everyone’s favourite childhood haunt, the rock pool.

These are home to shore crabs and hermit crabs, as well as sea anemones, breadcrumb sponges and sea squirts. We learn how sea squirts which appear to be little more than bags of fluid clinging to the rocks might be our evolutionary ancestors, we hear how a school teacher invented glass shells to study the reproduction and subsequently house-moving antics of hermit crabs, and discover how when it comes to building, it’s the breadcrumb sponges which have mastered the art with some clever self-assembly scaffolding tricks!

Produced by Sarah Blunt.

First broadcast on 28 March, 2016.