Addendum:
The Tomales Bay Tidal Flats
in
Between Pacific Tides
by
Joel W. Hedgpeth
1952
priapulus humanus . priapulus caudatus
Priapulus humanus ..... or ..... Priapulus caudatus


Compiled by
Robert Roy J. van de Hoek
2001
On rocky shores it is not always easy to make out the groupings of animals into communities (with the obvious exception of the mussel beds), for the animals are often jumbled together. A tidal flat on sandy or muddy bottom, however, is a striking contrast - here the animals are so characteristically grouped that it is possible to say, here is an area of worms or phoronids and there, a colony of mud shrimps. These groupings are called communities, and ecologists recognize various degrees of organization in a virtual hierarchy of such natural groupings. Thus, we have such terms as consocies, associes, and association. The arrangement of these groupings is a result of the complicated interplay of the physical factors of the environment: the nature of the substrate, of currents and tidal action, of the influx of fresh water, of salinity and temperature, and of the biological factors imposed by the animals of their environment (such asa the binding of the sandy bottom by tube builders and the retention of water in burrows) and upon each other. In such a complex system of interrelationships, a change in any one factor may set in motion a whole train of changes which will be reflected by a perceptible change in the limits of the various communities. Thus, the communities of such an area as that of upper Tomales Bay will change from year to year in details, although the general aspect as well as a characteristic arrangement of zones may remain the same.

Or, to put it another way, the area of a tidal flat is a meeting ground between the sea and the land, a tension zone (as Pitelka and Paulson, 1941, have called it) where we can observe, as nowhere else, the reciprocal actions between organisms and their environment. It might also be pointed out that organisms capable of adjusting themselves to the fluctuating and sometimes drastic changes of such an environment as this have a much better chance for long-range survival than those adapted to a more precise set of conditions. A change in the factors, then, would wipe out the species. Here on the tidal flats, outposts and sometimes entire divisions are wiped out, but the territory is quickly regained when the balance swings back again. An estuarine environment may well be the most stable environment in the long run, and estuarine faunas are the oldest and most conservative.

The arrangement of the communities in Tomales Bay was worked out in 1941, but the map we present here has not been published before. Although the outlines of the communities and of the shore line are different today, the basic pattern can be expected to remain the same, unless the “inexorable march of proggress” catches up with Tomales Bay, as it has with such areas as Mission Bay, Newport Bay, Elkhorn Slough, and other parts of this coast which were famous marine environments when this book was first written. Tomales Bay so far has not attracted the schemes of the engineers nor suffered the blight of industrialization. Let us hope that it remains the happy haunts of Priapulus and marine biologists, with the ghost of a railroad that lost the race for progress still haunting its western shore.
J.W.H.

For detail of Pitelka and Poulson survey see page 300 [Between Pacific Tides, third edition of 1952, and the revisions of 1956, 1960, 1962, 1965. The Fourth edition of 1968 does not include the Addendum of Tomales Bay].

Note by Roy van de Hoek

The map accompanying this Addendum has an illustration of Priapulus near the bottom of the map, which Joel Hedgpeth also mentions in the text above. Priapulus is a worm with no segments, and is placed in its own grouping with 17 species that are found in marine and brackish waters of estuaries of the northern hemisphere. Priapulus grows to a length of less than 8cm in length, which translate to about 3 inches in size. I find it interesting and satisfying to see that Hedgepth has an illustration of this worm on the map with an arrow pointing to the region of Tomales Bay where it is found. Below the illustration and the arrow are written the following words:

Priapulis humanus
(alias P. caudatus)
lives here.
It appears to be humorous but also quite serious to see that Hedgpeth utilized the word of “humanus,” in light of his quoted passage in the Addendum of the “inexorable march of progress.” The famous zoologist and naturalist, Lamarck, who lived several hundred years ago, named the worm as Priapulis, which translates as "little penis." Thus, Priapulus humanus in its entirety as a scientific name, translates as "human little penis." The essence of the Hedgpeth humor for me is that the "Men" who destroy wetlands, estuaries, and marshes, are evil and they have a "little penis." Or, are they worms? It is mostly the "engineers" who do the actual destruction, particularly those that work for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Perhaps I'm mistaken about this analogy and it is just coincidence that Lamarck and Hedgpeth have brought this out in the scientific name, since this worm does have the appearance of a little human penis.

The geography of hope that Hedgpeth expressed for Tomales Bay appears to have been a premonition with a “seer” quality to it. For now anyway, even in 2001, in our “new human millenium," it will remain natural and not be impacted by humans and progress. Indeed, Tomales Bay has a State Park and a National Park, established in 1963 as the beautiful Point Reyes National Seashore. The California State Parks is the steward and caretaker of beautiful Tomales Bay State Park, which is situated quite close to the vicinity of the worm, known as Priapulis humanus. This estuarine-bay called Tomales is a goal for what other southern California estuaries could be recovered and restored to if we can redefine and revision “human progress.” A new vocabulary term, “wetlands,” has emerged since Hedgpeth wrote his Addendum. Since the mid-1950s, the wetlands concept has been growing slowly, but the last decade of the Twentieth Century has seen the term skyrocket to prominence. People and citizens have latched on to this word, such that estuary and marsh have become less important as terms to the lay public. Environmental education, environmental literacy, and citizen awareness is going to have to learn how to use interchangeably the terms of estuary, lagoon, bay, wetland, marsh, deep-water habitat, upland, and ecosystem, if we are truely going to save “estuarine wetlands” from the “inexorable march of progress.” The worst nightmare environmentally for Tomales Bay would be that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, developers, and real estate speculators dream about a scheme to build a tidal dam at the inlet to Tomales Bay near Sand Point. It would be an engineering project that some developers and engineers would relish as their kind of "progress."
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