Welcome to the Beachcomber’s Companion© web site!

At this site, you will find plenty of information about Atlantic coast marine invertebrates. Marine invertebrates are animals without backbones that live in saltwater.

If you live near the seashore, you may be familiar with the many types of invertebrates you can find living in tide pools, attached to—or hidden under—rocks and docks, lurking in the seaweed, or even buried in the sand or mud. If you don’t live near the coast, or even if you do, you can go virtual beachcombing on this site!

Find a critter that makes you smile? Share it with a friend by sending an e-Postcard!

Maybe you’d like to learn more about marine invertebrates—like how they are grouped and classified. Did you know that squid are more closely related to clams than fish? And that horseshoe crabs are more closely related to spiders than to other types of crabs?

Beachcombers can pack a beach bag with plenty of other web resources on beachcombing and marine invertebrates…just check out the links! And, if you would like to purchase a set of waterproof marine invertebrate field cards, produced by educators and scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Sea Grant Program, click here.