Pedaling my e-bike along 40 uninterrupted miles of beach this week, I expected the usual treasures like driftwood, shells, and the occasional piece of curious flotsam.
Instead, the tide delivered something far stranger: clusters of fragile, tan-colored tubes that looked almost handmade.
These were parchment worm tubes, created by the parchment worm (Chaetopterus variopedatus), an unassuming but remarkable resident of our coastal mudflats…