Biological Tales from the Brine Queen

Mysterys and metamorphosis

2011-12-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

I am being more and more drawn to the mysterious bug world that seems to be invading my life. Now I can experience the thrill of invertebrates on land! When I noticed this strange bug the other day I was completely taken aback. I could not figure out even what kind of bug this could possibly be. I suspected that it might be something larval, as I saw a few shed exoskeletons which might have been the same thing. But still, what was it? Not a caterpillar that was for sure. It had six legs, so it must be an insect... not a spider. But no wings? Hum...

To top it off, I noticed yet another strange bug near by. It looked like it might have been a beetle, but there was no hardened wing coverings and the abdomen was just to darn long. And what was with those crazy 'feet' at the end of the abdomen?

Puzzled I took some photos and went on my way, thinking I would never know for sure. I tried some searches for my mystery bug number one, and thought it might be some kind of mealy bug, but I was not totally convinced.

So a few days pass, and I go out to my plants where mystery bug number two is hanging out and low and behold I see a new bug, this one fairly recognizable:

Well, well a ladybug hanging out where mystery bug number two is... Maybe mystery bug number two is a larval form of the lady bug. They are the same color, and you can see the spots starting to form. So I do a little searching and find out that this lady bug is Harmonia axyridis, an asian ladybug. Luck for me, I also get to solve the identity of mystery bug number two AND number one.

As I suspected, mystery bug number one is a larval form; of the asian ladybug. Number two is the pupa of that same individual. What I took for 'feet' was actually the discarded molt of the larva at the end of the pupa. Metamorphosis is so cool... but I can imagine that it drove early entomologists up the wall, much like it drives us plankton-lovers up a wall!

St. Marks Wildlife Preserve

2011-10-22T18:48:00.000-07:00

Today I went to St. Marks for their Monarch butterfly festival. They were tagging butterflies that use the preserve as a stop over for their migration to Mexico.

There were quite s few pollinators out... Like this Gulf Fritillary and bee friend.

And Buckeye butterfly...

I was fascinated by this plain-looking butterfly called a long-tailed skipper. It looks pretty dull from the side...

But the back are beautiful and delicate shades of blue and green

There were also plenty of birds about... like this mocking bird.

And crazy-looking caterpillars. If you look closely, it's back end has a false head for the birds to eat.

All around was nature in action... like these dragonflies mating.

And this mantis taking advantage of the bounty of butterflies!

All and all a great place to go if you are into birds, bugs, or flowers... I will definitely return. To see what's new and maybe get a glimpse of the illusive spoonbill!

Leon Sinks State Park

2011-09-11T15:03:00.001-07:00

Today I went to Leon Sinks State Park. It is part of a larger park, but is an area where there are some sink holes. Basically the entire area is made of limestone and there is an extensive aquifer under the ground. As rain water and the ground water eat away at the limestone, sink holes form. Some of the "sink holes" were fairly unimpressive, as they were just places where the ground was lower than the surrounding area, but a few were very sharp. The most impressive was the big dismal, which had a sharp drop of 100 feet, to water which was also 100 feet deep.

There was also some swamps in the area. But unlike the wet sinks, they were mostly dry. The forest itself was dry and a lot of the foliage was turning brown. However, we still got glimpses of some beautiful flowers hidden here and there.

There were also a surprising number of mushrooms about especially given how dry it was. This one looked awesome, it may be a Russula pulchra.

There was also this crazy-looking batch of mushrooms which I am fairly sure are earthstars, or some other puffball type mushrooms. These explode spores out through the top of their body when they get ripe enough. The white ones are unexploded, and the brown one has already released its spores. Probably the best thing that I saw in the park!

Of course what I've learned about Florida is that it is all bugs, and things that eat bugs. We saw our fair share of dragonflies, bees, gnats, and a lot of grasshoppers. We also saw this Golden Orb Weaver, which I had originally seen in the LA Natural History Museum's spider pavilion. It was definitely something to see it in the wild! I though it was from some far away country like Malaysia.

We also saw these awesome beetles. They were quite large, about the size of my thumb, or a little smaller.

The biggest find of the day was this beautiful five lined skink. We saw it near the big dismal sink, where it was hanging out inside the tree.

Of course, I nearly had a heart attack when a big group of people stomped by and scared it away before I could get a picture... But a little patience and it came back again and I got the shot!

Snorkeling in a hard-bottom gulf community...

2011-08-20T13:28:00.000-07:00

Snorkeling in the gulf in a rocky bottom area brought some new animals and some old... The beach itself was more peopled and it was mostly a sandy bottom habitat with a man-made break wall. It was that break wall that was the object of my snorkeling activities.

There were many more types of fish in the rock areas than in the sandy-bottom area that I had previously visited. The rocks provided an excellent surface for algae to grow. Which in turn, provided excellent foraging opportunities for many fish, like these sergeant major fish.

There were also some predatory fish, like the mini-barracuda which I spotted, but did not get a good photo of, and this large sheephead (not to be confused with the California sheephead) with its attendant remora.

There were also some fish that were present in both spots, like flatfish and this toadfish. Although I did not see the toadfish in the sandy-bottom area, I knew it must have been present because I could hear it. It drove me nuts trying to pinpoint the noise coming from this fish. It was so loud that if I was swimming over it, I could feel it vibrate through my body.

There were also many invertebrates, most noticeably crabs. But unlike the sandy-bottom habitat, most of these crabs did not decorate themselves, nor did they bury themselves in the sand. Instead they hid in rocky crevices. You can also see some of the large colonies of compound tunicates in this shot...

There were some snails, which were laying eggs on the rocks...

and some blennies that were living in the holes of the rocks.

Of course there were also some soft corals at the base of the rocks, many compound tunicates, and urchins... But my favorite find of the day was these beautiful jellyfish.

They had a very mild sting, but I did not know that at the time so I kept my distance. If I had known, I probably would have gotten closer. At times, some individuals played host to fish, and I found out that there may have been crabs living in their bell as well.

My final critter of the day was this octopus, which was caught by a fisherman on the break wall. He let it go and I was able to grab this shot before it scuttled off.

Pretty neat, and definitely a higher diversity of fish than in the sandy-bottom area. I can't wait to compare it to a more natural hard-bottom habitat, such as a coral reef habitat!

Snorkeling in the gulf...

2011-08-17T19:02:00.000-07:00

I went snorkeling a few days ago, in a nice sandy-bottom habitat. Unlike the west coast, the gulf sandy-bottoms are very shallow for a long way out... and warm!

I saw some large sand dollars, a ton of snail tracks, and worm castings. All evidence of a thriving infaunal community.

There were even many egg masses, like this, poking up from the sand.

Most of the life was focused in and around patches of sea grass. It was here you had a lot of the megafauna, like this blue crab, hanging out.

I also saw this puffer fish, and a couple of stingrays...

Of course, I did not really see the stingrays until they moved and swam away from me!

There was a lot of crazy interactions happening all around me too. Like these snails... I don't quite know what's going on here, but I think the one snail is being eaten by the other!

And of course, the obligatory battle between fiddler crabs on land...

All and all a good time... and surprising too. While I expected to see the stingrays, sanddollars, worms, and snails. I did not expect to see urchins, tunicates, and mussels which generally prefer harder, rocky substrates. Many of them were nestled in the sea grass. Perhaps the mussels had settled in the root system of the sea grass, and the tunicates settled on them.

I can't wait to see what a rocky-bottom habitat holds in store!

Florida Museum of Natural History

2011-08-15T16:02:00.000-07:00

I went to the Florida Museum of Natural History not knowing quite what to expect. On one hand, the website was very well managed and made it look like a decent-sized museum with all the trimmings. On the other hand, I knew it was part of the University of Florida campus, and many other campus 'museums' are generally one room affairs with minimal signage and virtually no learning opportunities.

I was happy to learn that the museum lived up to the website's promises more than my expectations of a campus museum. It is housed in its own building, surrounded by a couple of art museums in the corner of campus. It had three main exhibits, a Florida fossil exhibit, peoples of Florida, and a rotating exhibit which happened to be on canoes. There was also a discovery center for the kids and another hands on display about 'wild music'. As the wild music cost extra and there was a day camp in the discovery center, I did not hit either of these two sites.

The Florida's Fossils section was well laid out, first taking you through a series of picture timelines showing generally what flora and fauna dominated which era, then you got to get an idea of what animals could be found in Florida by viewing the fossils. Each animal plaque was topped with a miniature bronze statue depicting how the animal would have looked in life, making it easy to pick out the animals you want to read more about and compare the skeleton to the fleshed-out version.

There was an amazing giant sloth, much larger than anything I had seen at the Page museum, and a glyptodont (a giant armadillo-like creature), which I absolutely adore!

I also learned that there were many cats found in the Florida region including American Lions [err... I mean Jaguars], the smaller precursor to the saber-tooth cat found in CA, Dirk-toothed cats, and Nimravids. Nimravids look just like dirk tooth cats but one of the bones in their skull (the post-orbital process) is solid, unlike 'true' cats.

The peoples of Florida exhibit was a little more chaotic. This could have been due to the fact that we may have entered it backwards, but since we could not tell for sure... well, I guess that was part of the problem. Either way, in the middle of the exhibit there was a corridor filled with larger than life models of common sea animals of Florida.

It was very fun, and I think I may have spotted my future research animal there... I was confused as to why this exhibit was in the middle of a hall devoted to the peoples of Florida, though.

The rest of the hall focused on some of the main native groups of Florida. The Seminoles were one group, and the other was a group called the Calusa. The Calusa lived in southern Florida and were excellent wood workers. Their wood carvings and art really impressed me. I loved their style.

In addition to the main building, we also went to the butterfly rainforest, which costs extra, but was so worth it. The butterfly rainforest, unlike many other butterfly pavilions was a permanent display, and because of that, the habitat was wonderfully lush.

There were many different types of butterflies... all fluttering around.

My biggest gripe was that there was no good guide for them. They had some hand held deals which did not even have a 4th of the butterflies picture on them. Their website has an excellent guide, however, so I was able to id these beauties after the fact fairly easily.

In addition to butterflies, they also had some birds flying about, like this orange weaver finch... which made Carlos happy. It's definitely a beautiful place to sit and watch. Since the entrance to the main halls were free, I felt okay spending the cash to get into the butterfly rainforest and I am glad I did!

All and all a good place to go and see some things unique to the Florida area. You can decide what you want to see based on what you want to pay for. They also have discounts for Florida residents and students (but only Florida college students).

Pyrosomes

2011-08-12T19:39:00.000-07:00

So I ran across these crazy animals called pyrosomes a while back and I have been completely fascinated by them. When I was first presented with them, I could not figure out what they were! It turns out that they are a type of tunicate... and indeed looking at them under a microscope does help point that out.

Here you can see an individual of the tunicate colony, making a u shape, and surrounded by a clear tunic. The left side of the U is most likely the endostyle, a structure which gives support. On the right side of the U, the thicker side, is the pharynx, which they use to filter their food. Below that, the thick, pinkish structure is most likely the gut.

Each of those pyrosome colonies were made up of hundreds of these individual zooids, each of which captured its own food by filtering water through its pharynx. However unlike regular tunicate colonies, where the filtered water comes out somewhere along the surface of the colony, in pyrosomes (which are shaped like a cone with the smaller end closed off) the filtered water is shuttled to the inside and then comes out the large end. This allows them to swim!

It's hard to imagine these very dense, hard colonies swimming, but that's just what they do. Additionally, their name (pyrosomes = fire body) comes from one other unique feature that they possess. At the tip of each of the zooids they have a light producing organ, which allows the colony to light up like a christmas tree. I would love to see one drifting along, shining gently in the dark sea...

Abalone development

2011-07-08T12:06:00.001-07:00

I recently got to be a part of an abalone spawning team, where we induced abalones to release their gametes. It was very fun to see the fertilized eggs develop, and interesting for me because it was the first time that I had actually seen spiral cleavage in action! It was so different looking than radial cleavage...

I did not manage to get pictures of all of the stages, as I had to sleep, so expect some gaps. But I hope you enjoy this abalone development slide show that I put together of the stages I did see.

Grunion Development: Day 9

2011-06-27T21:09:00.000-07:00

Not much seems to have changed from day 8 to day 9. The grunion is still the same size, and has not gained any new pigmentation. The yolk has decreased a bit, but at this point no major developmental; changes are visible. However, on day 9 they are much easier to hatch!

You can still see the remnants of the yolk in the young fish's stomach.

Grunion Development: Day 8

2011-06-26T23:00:00.001-07:00

The eyes are fully pigment, and the body as well. The body has grown to such a length that it wraps around the inside of the egg a little over 2 times. The oil droplets have been completely depleted, and there is a little yolk left. What you can't see is that the embryo is very active, with eye and body twitches being quite common.

Grunion Development: Day 6

2011-06-24T22:08:00.004-07:00

The embryo has grown, with the tail wrapping all the way around the egg and back around the head. The eyes have a lot of pigment and the body is starting to get a little pigment. The oil droplets are almost all used up and the yolk has a lot of blood vessels connecting it to the embryo.

Grunion Development: Day 4

2011-06-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

The embryos are noticeably larger, and structures are becoming readily apparent. You can see the nerve cord running down the center of the embryo. gill arches forming behind the eye, and the eye itself has an indented pupil.

What you can't tell from the picture is that the heart is also nociable and pumping, and there are musculature visible along the length of the tail.

Grunion Development: Day 3

2011-06-21T18:38:00.000-07:00

Now you can clearly see many features of the developing embryo. It has also grown large enough to wrap around the back of the egg, with the tail just peeking out on the left hand side. The oil droplets are being used up and condensed into one large drop right in the center.

Grunion Development: Day 2

2011-06-20T19:18:00.000-07:00

Now it's approximately 37 hours after fertilization. You can still see the oil droplets off to the left, but the embryo has under gone some big changes. Instead of being a cap of cells it now has a definite form, with the head and developing eyes in the center, and the rest of the body trailing off to the top right.

Grunion Development: Day 1

2011-06-19T18:57:00.000-07:00

I thought I'd take some pictures of grunion eggs as they develop, just because I could. Here is day 1, approximately 13 hours after fertilization. You can see the dark orange oil droplets in the center, and a pale yellow cap of cells off to the left. That is the developing embryo.

Catalina Above and Below

2011-06-12T17:48:00.000-07:00

So I went on a trip to sample some of the sea life found around Catalina Island this past weekend. In the deeper parts we found some hag fish, which produce copious amounts of slime with the slightest provocation. The slime has microfibers in it and makes it particularly strong.

We were also lucky enough to get a deep sea octopus. This one might be a big-eye octopus, as it lacks the spots of a two-spot octo, and was caught in very deep water.

This trip was filled with all sorts of cool mollusks, like this very large black sea hare. It was probably around 13 pounds. We caught about three of these beauties. The black sea hare is the largest gastropod in the world! Luckily for me, it does not ink.

We also got a lovely navanax. The navanax is a predatory snail that follows the slime trails of other snails then swallows them whole. After digesting them, it will spit out the cleaned out shell.

We also found a couple of different types of nudibranchs. The ones pictured below are pelagic nudibranchs and are commonly found on drift wood or drift kelp. Their color depends on what they eat, with brownish individuals dining one pelagic barnacles (also in the photo) and purplish ones dining on the by the wind sailor.

We did not have any luck chumming for blue sharks this year, but we were very lucky to see this crazy critter come by our boat. Yes my favorite fish ever, the mola (or ocean sunfish) swam near our boat. Judging from the size of the fin sticking out of the water, this beauty was huge! It made my trip!

We also were lucky enough to see a variety of marine mammals. These pictured below were Risso's dolphins, the largest dolphin in our area. We also saw bottle-nose and pacific white-sided dolphins.

Mohave National Preserve

2011-04-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

So we went on a trip to the Mohave natural preserve, with the idea that we were going to see Mitchell caverns, the only limestone cavern in the CA park system. Based on some of the pictures it looked like a mini Carlsbad cavern, so I was very excited. Of course, the first thing to greet us after the four hour drive was this...

The caverns had been closed since December of last year for 'maintenance', supposedly to re-open in October... So we decided to drive around and see what else there was to offer, hoping to see some neat fossils that we had heard might be around the area.

There was a nice stand of Joshua trees on our drive...

and some other nice pockets of desert flora...

After a confusing talk with the rangers at Kelso station, we (and the rangers) finally learned where the fossil sponges were located, from their on-call geologist. While not much to look at, it was still something that I had never seen.

There was also some evidence of modern life too...

And of course, the Kelso dunes themselves...

All and all an okay trip. I was definitely disappointed about the caves, and would have planned a trip to Joshua Tree National Park instead if I had known ahead of time. What was really nice about the trip was the people. The rangers were very willing to chat, and helps us find places to see, or places that were at least open...

My time with a heteropod

2011-04-11T19:34:00.000-07:00

We got a new addition last week, a Carinaria japonica an unusual animal commonly called a sea elephant, after its long snout-like proboscis. It is generally around 13 cm (5 in) but can get to 50 cm (20 in) long. This one is about 30 cm (12 in). This animal is a type of snail, called a heteropod, that is modified to spend its entire life swimming in the water column.

Its shell is very reduced, to decrease the weight on the animal, and located on the bottom of the creature. Because of the shell's weight, small that it is, the animal spends its life swimming 'upside down'. The flap that it uses to swim with is a modified foot, and it has a large radula at the end of its proboscis for capturing prey.

It has very well developed eyes for a snail, complete with spherical lenses and ciliated retinas. The retinas themselves are interesting, because they are a thin strip, rather that a large patch. Because of that its vision field is only a few degrees high, and 80 to 180 degrees long [1]. Some species solve that problem by constantly sweeping their eyes up and down.

They eat other things in the plankton, preferring things like arrow worms, salps, copepods, and krill [2]. The prey is ingested whole, and digestion generally takes place without any mastication. There really is not much known on how they capture their prey, and I'd like to make a few comments based on observations made while feeding this little guy.

I have been feeding him by hand, which is certainly not natural, but I have noticed that when I drop food or put food near him, he cannot capture it without some sort of pressure behind it. The jaws of the radula seem to push out, then open, clamp the food then drag it back in. If there is no pressure behind the food, the radula just pushes it away. He generally solves the pressure problem by maneuvering his proboscis so that the food is trapped between it and the wall of the tank.

Obviously, that trick would not work in the wild, but I have noticed a second trick which would work in the wild. With floating food, he sometimes curls in to a circle and traps it between his proboscis and his large broad tail. This may be a behavior which helps them capture food in the wild... we won't know for certain until someone seriously takes a look at that.

In the meantime, I will continue to observe and marvel at my new companion...

2011-02-12T18:53:00.000-08:00

You know how I love me some developing squid... Here is some before and after shots of the common market squid.

You can see that baby still in the capsule with the yolk coming out from the tentacles. When the squid is ready to hatch, the capsule and the chorion (which surrounds the embryo) are greatly thinned. However, they still present a considerable barrier. Squids have a hatching gland, called the organ of Hoyle, which produces an enzyme that dissolves the chorion and the capsule wall.

Here's a nice quick shot of a post-hatch baby. You can see some of the chromatophores, pigment-containing cells, as black dots on their body.

To round off this post, I thought I'd close with a video of those chromatophores in action!

Can we get an A?

2011-01-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

I am not sure what to make of this...

Story of a black jelly

2011-01-19T19:28:00.000-08:00

Last summer we had a rare event. Tens of black sea nettles (Chrysaora achlyos) washed ashore on our beach. These guys are pretty rare, so we jumped at the chance to get some gonadal tissue to start a new culture of jellies. We collected the adults from the beach, and I extracted the gonadal tissue from the insides of the bell. (This was a rather painful process which involved me getting stung for three days.)

I used bits of the tissue to sex the animals; females had eggs, and males had packets of sperm. After I figured out who was what, I put a little bit of male gonads and female gonads together in a petri dish and mixed them up, to beak open the male's sperm packets. (It felt a bit like making red scrambled eggs.)

Male sperm packets

Female tissue with eggs

After 3 days, planulae were spotted swimming in the petri dishes.

After 5 days, the planulae settled to the bottom to become polyps. These are newly settled with only 2 fully formed tentacles.

Four months later, I am very happy to say that my polyps have begun to strobilate. I have some beautiful ephyrea, that will become (in my opinion) the prettiest-colored jellies ever.

Bringing in the new year

2011-01-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

This new year's day has been pretty exciting because for the first time ever, we still have baby California spiny lobsters in our care. This little guy was 184 days old, about 14 days older than last year's record. He was also a little smaller than a quarter, all stretched out.

Larval lobsters can remain in the plankton for up to a year, so we still have a way to go before it settles and looks anything like the lobsters we know. This year, we've seen some growth that we've never seen before, new legs and tail sectioning, and it's mostly due to a difference in the diet we're feeding them.

Here's hoping that they continue to grow in the new year!

Anatomy of an electric ray

2010-09-22T19:00:00.000-07:00

I love my job. Sometimes I just get to participate in (or watch) cool stuff. As was the case a week ago, when I learned that we were going to be dissecting an electric ray.

This electric ray had been brought in by a fisherman, who didn't want to eat it or let it go to waste. So we decided to hold a public dissection, so that we could learn more about it. We also preserved some of the pieces for our collection, to be used for later research or teaching.

Electric rays are slow-moving rays that live off of the pacific cost, in cool waters. They don't have a stinger, but do have a specialized organ that produces electricity, which they use to capture food and defend themselves.

In this picture you can see the two-chambered heart, center, at the right most edge of the cut. Below that (center) is the stomach. To either side of the stomach are two very large livers. Like all sharks and rays, the electric ray lacks a swim bladder and depends on the oil reserves in the liver to help maintain buoyancy. The large green ball near the upper liver lobe is the gall bladder.

This is a nice close-up of the electric producing organ. Basically, it is little more than coin shaped muscle stacks. Since muscles produce electricity, the arrangement of muscle tissue in this configuration helps optimize the amount of electricity produced in the area. By having an organ on either side of the body, the electric ray can stun prey trapped between the two sides of their fins.

Slime star

2010-08-31T18:19:00.000-07:00

This is Pteraster tesselatus, commonly known as a slime star. As its name implies, when disturbed this star can produce copious amounts of slime, which may protect it from predators [1]. It eats sponges and the like and lives in the colder waters off the west coast of the US.

It also has an interesting feature common to many members of its family. It has a 'brood pouch'. The surface that you see is actually a soft covering which covers the true surface of the sea star. In other members of the family, females will release their eggs from their gonopores (like all other sea stars), but retain them under that covering until they develop into juvenile sea stars and crawl out. In this particular species, they do not brood their young, and instead send them shooting out of the osculum, an opening in the covering. The osculum is generally used for exchanging water from the water vascular system to the outside, and can be seen opening and closing even in individuals who are not spawning.

My little squids

2010-08-19T19:11:00.000-07:00

Well, the class is wrapping up, which is why I have not been able to post much. We did two projects which required a lot of sleepless nights. Luckily, I was able to finish my paper last night and actually went to bed before 1 am. I did a little study to see if I could reduce the number of embryos in squid egg capsules to see if it affected development. I was quite pleased with it, because they actually survived (not a sure thing when you are breaking open egg capsules).

So here is a pic from one of my squids...

If you look closely at the top of its mantel disk, you can see its two little bumps that will become the fins. The arms /tentacles are forming, and the eyes are becoming more defined and developed. And my favorite part... on its arms are little suckers!

They've still got a bit to go, but since tomorrow is the last day, I've returned the rest of the mass back where it was collected.

I have eyes!

2010-08-13T15:59:00.000-07:00

Or at least eye primordia. This is a picture of one of the squid embryos I am working with for my second project. If you look closely at the lumps on either side of the embryo you'll see clear ovals, that's were the eyes will develop. I am very excited to see how they will look tomorrow!

It's been a bit busy, as the paper for my first project was due at the start of the week, at the same time as the proposal for my second (and a presentation on the first during the middle of the week). Hopefully, I'll get a good head start on the second paper tonight... so I can take the time to go whale watching this weekend. I can't believe the program is ending so soon.

Microplankton and Megaplankton!

2010-08-02T16:32:00.000-07:00

Another member of the plankton. This is a larval ctenophore. You can make out its ctene rows along the side of the body and the massive mouth right in the center. When I see them, they normally have a copepod stuffed inside.

On the macro side, we found this large fried egg jelly (Phacellophora camtschatica) floating around our dock the other day. The bell can get up to 2 ft (60 cm) in diameter and the tentacles 20 ft (6 m) long. They eat other jellyfish.

Coolest thing ever?! I think so!

2010-08-01T12:56:00.000-07:00

So we're encouraged to have pets in class, and I chose to take care of some Owenia sp. because I thought their development was cool. Today I was changing their water and giving the more food, when I thought I'd check them out under the scope. Some of them were really close to settlement, and even started settling on the slide. Luckily, there are tons of video cameras around and I was able to capture the process.

Here it is, Owenia settlement, speed up, in all its glory.

2010-07-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

We were lucky to capture about two young giant pacific octopus larvae in one of our night light adventures. Although it looks more like a squid, it is an octopus. As it gets older the mantel becomes rounded and they spend more time on the bottom.

Just to give you some scale, this little guy is about the length of my pinky fingernail. He will live for 3 to 5 years and get to be about 14 ft from arm to arm.

More cute worms!

2010-07-28T08:24:00.000-07:00

In addition to Owenia there were lots of other larvae in our plankton tows. These are just two of my favorites, although everything looks cute when it's a baby! The top is some sort of polychaete, and the bottom is not technically a worm although it is worm-like.

It is a phoronid, and is most closely related to bryozoans and brachiopods. Their bodies are shaped like worms, although they have a great feathery lophophore which they use to filter water for food, and their anus loops out near their mouth. They also live in tubes, and they can brood their young in it. There are only 20 species of phoronids world wide.

Revenge of the epitokes

2010-07-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

Another night light at FHL. This time we got the large epitokes, about as long as my forearm. You can see a shrimp trying to break the worm open to get the gametes inside later in the movie.

Night lighting

2010-07-25T08:08:00.000-07:00

One of the way we get larvae is by lowering a light into the water at night. Many animals are photopositive, that is attracted to the light, which helps them maintain their position in the water column and find food.

By lowering the light at night, we create a sharp gradient of light and can attract a lot of animals. Most of them in this video are megalopae (baby crabs) and epitokes. The epitokes are fast, pinkish, and wiggle as they swim, while the megalopae are much bigger and chunkier.

Friday Harbor

2010-07-24T22:33:00.000-07:00

So, I have just gone up to Friday Harbor Laboratories and have been enjoying my immersion in science after quite a long spell without. I am learning all about larval biology, so have been going on field trips to many different sites, like this mudflat pictured above, to look at egg masses and collect larvae.

One of my favorites is this Owenia sp., which is a type of worm that builds tubes out of small sandy particles. This creature has an interesting development, as the juvenile worm develops around the intestine of the larval body. When it is ready to settle, it drops out of the sac where it was developing and eats its old larval body.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an Invert

2010-02-03T22:33:00.001-08:00

Phylum: Ctenophora

This is a nice picture of a ctenophore from Monterey Bay Aquarium. Ctenophores are often confused with jellies, as they look similar, and have only two cell layers + the mesoglea. However, ctenophores lack the special stinging cells which characterizes all members of the cnidarians (jellies, anemones, and the like). They do have special sticky cells called colloblasts, which they use for feeding. They are active predators, and can use either sticky tentacles or muscular lobes to capture their prey. the above ctenophore is a lobed variety, and catches its prey by closing those large lobes around it. You can see some of the copepods that it had for lunch in its gut.

The other way comb jellies are different from your average jelly is: the way in which this animal moves. The creature cast produced an excellent movie describing this unique (for a multi-cellular organism) mode of locomotion. If you watch, you should also be able to explain why the comb jelly in my picture has beautiful rainbow stripes...

CreatureCast - Comb Jelly Movement from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

After the storm...

2010-01-30T09:00:00.000-08:00

Because of the storms and high winds which have recently rocked our coast, we've had a number of things wash up on the beach. The most spectacular of which was this...

A Risso's dolphin. We don't know why this guy died, but we do know that he is very young. Risso's get to be 10-12 ft in length, and are born at about 4-5 ft. He may have been just too inexperienced to ride out the storm. We won't know the cause of death for sure until someone does a necropsy. Very little is known about this species, so this little guy will help advance our knowledge.

Life Photo Meme: Ancient

2010-01-29T16:16:00.000-08:00

I have lots of photos of ancient organisms, but I had to go with this picture of fossilized hadrosaur skin. First off, considering how fossils are formed, I am always impressed by seeing fossils such as these, and I am sure other feel the same way. Secondly, they offer a glimpse of what these animals may have looked like alive. Now, scientist are able to use some of these amazing fossils, notably fossilized feathers and protofeathers, and an old technique to get an even better view of what these animals looked like.

Zhang and others have reported that they are able to tell what color the dinosaurs feathers were by taking a look into the preserved parts of the cell using a scanning electron microscope. Protein pigments present in modern-day feathers and fur have unique shapes based on color, and are fairly resistant to breaking down. When these scientists looked at ancient dino (and bird) feathers, they found the same pigment shapes. Now they can tell by looking for the pigment shapes what color the feather was. What's more, by looking at the distribution of those shapes they can see if it had stripes, spots, or mottling.

I am looking forward to the new and improved museum models showing the actual colors of these amazing dinos and birds!

Life Photo Meme: Hostile

2009-10-15T09:44:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Anthazoa

Order: Actiniaria

Family: Actiniidae

This is a starburst anemone (Anthopleura sola), which is common in intertidal areas along the west coast. Anemones, like jellies, have stinging cells which they use to capture food and defend themselves. If you've ever touched an anemone, you've felt the sting as a sticky sensation.

In addition to the normal tentacles used to capture food, some anemones have a second set of tentacles which they inflate in the presence of other anemones. These tentacles, called acrorhagi, have larger stinging cells... larger than those found in the feeding tentacles. They will use the acrorhagi to fight with the anemones encroaching on their area.

This is complicated be the fact that some anemones with acrorhage asexually reproduce by splitting down the center. The two new anemones will not fight with each other, but will fight with any anemone that is genetically different. The anemone pictured above is solitary, and will not have any cloned neighbors, as clones from this anemone generally move away quick.

If an anemone gets beat very badly and needs a hasty retreat, they can inflate the bottom part of their body with air, and float away.

Life Photo Meme: Frosted

2009-09-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Gastropoda

Order: Nudibranchia

Family: Tethydidae

I guess all larval animals have a clear, frosted appearance, but I choose this particular larva because it's special to me. This is a veliger larva, a larval stage which is typical to the marine snails. In particular, this is a baby lion nudibranch, Melibe leonina. This larva hatched today, and I am trying to rear them to adulthood.

The fuzzy bits toward the bottom of the veliger is cilia, which helps it swim. The two round dots that look like eyes are actually statocysts, which help the larva figure out orientation (up and down). These guys have a thin shell in the veliger stage, which they lose when they metamorphose into juveniles.

Adult lion nudibranchs live in the kelp canopy, and eat small creatures that live on the kelp or float by. They use their big oral hood much in the same way a Venus fly trap catches flies. Because of the way they feed, they are one of the easiest sea slugs to keep in a public aquarium. They are also one of the few sea slugs to swim.

From Biological Tales from the Brine Queen

It will take a little over month before these little veligers metamorphose and settle into the adult form. It will be a welcome challenge to try and keep some of them alive for that long.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-09-03T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Decopoda

Family: Hymenoceridae

This Crazy looking creature is a harlequin shrimp. These shrimps are found in the Indo and Eastern Pacific waters. They grow to about 2 inches and tend to live in pairs. They can be territorial to other pairs, and patrol their territory looking for their favorite food, starfish.

Because they are so colorful and easy to breed in captivity, they are something of a favorite in the marine pet trade. There are also tons of stories about how they feed, some of which may be due to the shrimp's personal style. The most common strategy is to flip the starfish over and keep it on its back. This may be accomplished by using their large, flattened claws.
Afterward, the shrimps may keep the starfish immobile by eating the tube feet first. There have even been some antidotes of the shrimp feeding the starfish to keep it alive longer.

Despite its popularity as a pet, there seems to be a lack of information about its natural behaviors. One source postulates that these shrimp may sequester toxins from its prey into its body, and this may be why they have such bright coloration [1], but no-one really knows for sure.

Things to watch...

2009-09-02T20:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this over at Pharyngula, and thought it was the neatest thing. Many times science videos like these are either oversimplified and boring, or way over my head and boring. I was very entertained by this, and learned something new!

CreatureCast Episode 1 from Casey Dunn on Vimeo.

New Creature casts are definitely somthing to watch for. Their blog is pretty spiffy too.

Mark your calenders...

2009-08-31T13:48:00.000-07:00

International Coastal Clean-up day is on September 19th.

It's almost time for the annual coastal clean-up day! Every year at this time, people from all over the world come together to clean up beaches.

Don't live near a beach? Find the nearest river, stream, or water way and help clean it up. Find a site near you. California does a great job in organizing sites all along the coast and in several inland river areas.

Can't find a clean-up site in your area? Make your own.

If you just want to to it by yourself, and not through an agency, that's fine too. The important thing is to give back to those beautiful areas that we all love to enjoy.

Life Photo Meme: Fine

2009-08-21T18:20:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Pleuronectiformes

For this week's theme, I chose this cool picture of a display at the California Academy of Science. This is a real flatfish, which has been prepared using a special staining process. The bones are stained red, while the cartilage is stained blue.

This is a common technique in science, and it can be used to study how bones develop, or how they work relative to each other. By leaving the specimen intact, one can see how the bones in the jaw move, without damaging any of the fine tissue and cartilage which holds it together.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-08-06T21:42:00.001-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Gastropoda

Order: Pulmonata

Family: Arionidae

Here we have an amazing picture of a Banana slug (Ariolimax sp.), which I captured a photo of it as it roamed across the forest floor in Muir Woods. There are three species of Banana slug known, one of which, Ariolimax columbianus, is the second largest terrestrial slug in the world. It can reach up to 25 cm (10 in) long. All live in the foggy, forest belt on the pacific coast from Central California to Southern Alaska.

These guys posses a pneumostome, a hole which is visible in this picture as a dimple a bit down from the head. The pneumostome opens into a highly vascularized cavity which acts as a simple lung for these animals.

They are very prone to dehydration, so tend to inhabit areas that are moist, and produce lots of mucus. At the tail end of the slug, you can see some debris caught in the slug's mucus plug. This plug covers the caudal pit, where the mucus is produced. Their mucus not only keeps them moist, and helps them move, but also protects them as it has an anesthetic-like chemical making them unappetizing to other creatures.

Finally, Banana slugs also use their mucus as a mode of communication. During mating season, they will incorporate pheromones into their mucus, making it easier for another slug to find them.

Life Photo Meme: Parasitic

2009-07-30T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Isopoda

Family: Bopyridae

For my parasitic photo I could not resist putting up these. They are ghost shrimp, and the ghost shrimp on the top is a healthy female with eggs, while the pale one on the bottom is a female infected with Ione cornuta. The parasite is under the exoskeleton, but can be seen as a large lump on the side of the shrimp (right side).

This parasite goes through a rather complex life cycle, where if goes through a couple of different hosts before ending up in ghost shrimp. The first Ione to land on the shrimp's gills will become a female and the second one a male. They spend the rest of their lives in the shrimp's gill chamber, and grow with the shrimp.

While I seem to lack a photo of Ione outside of it's host, I do have a picture of a very closely related parasite Orthione, which looks and acts very much like Ione, save that it lives in mud shrimp instead of ghost shrimp.

(The little curled-up part towards the bottom left is the male, he is much smaller than the female and generally lives on her)

Life Photo Meme: Arid

2009-07-16T16:21:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Caryphyllales

Family: Cactaceae

This is a golden barrel cactus (Echinocactus grusonii). They can live for at least 75 years, and don't produce flowers until they reach 20 years of age. They can grow to 3 ft (1 m) high and 2 ft wide (0.6 m).

While they are used widely in cultivation, these plants are considered critically endangered in their native home range of Central America. There does not seem to be a lot of information on these plants... In the Huntington library and gardens (where this photo was taken), all of the golden barrels on display had been cultivated from seeds. I don't know if the secondary growths on this cactus are new plants, but I suspect that it is so.

Life Photo Meme: Spiny

2009-07-10T20:21:00.001-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinoptergii

Order: Scorpaeniformes

Family: Cyclopteridae

This is my all-time favorite fish, the Pacific spiny lumpsucker (Eumicrotremus orbis). They are found in shallow waters and seldom go deeper than 500 ft (152 m). They are found in northern waters from Washington up to Alaska, and also off the coast of Japan. They are so small and cute. The largest they can get is 5 in (13 cm), while your average lumpsucker is 1 in (2.5 cm)

They are very poor swimmers, owing to their round body and small fins. They also lack a swim bladder, so when they stop swimming they sink. What is most distinctive about them is the large suction cup that they have. The suction cup is a pair of highly modified pelvic fins, that helps them stick onto rocks.

The females tend to have a greenish hue to the plates that cover their body, while the males have a red tint. They eat small crustaceans and worms.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-07-02T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Decapoda

Family: Pandalidae

This are newly settled spot prawns (Pandalus platyceros). They are only a month old in this picture and about 1/4 of an inch (4 mm) in size. The adult spot prawn get to be 10.5 in (27 cm) long and are considered to be the largest shrimp on the west coast of the US. Spot prawns start out their lives as male, then switch to females as they get older. They can live for about 6 years in California and up to 11 years in Alaska.

They are on the Monterey Bay's Seafood Watch best choice list as spot prawns are often caught in traps, rather than nets like normal-sized shrimp. Dragging nets along the bottom of the sea floor often causes damage to the habitat and produces a lot of by-catch, as many other animals are caught along with the shrimp. Using traps minimizes by-catch and damage to the surrounding habitat.

Life Photo Meme: Soiled

2009-06-25T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Myxini

Order: Myxiniformes

Family: Myxinidae

This is a close-up picture of a hagfish's slime. The hagfish can produce vasts amounts of slime, enough to fill a bucket that they happen to be captured in. This slime consists of fibrous protein threads, mucus, and seawater. You can see the threads in this picture, if you look carefully.

Recent research suggests that the bulk of the mucus is actually seawater that is trapped in the mucus-coated threads [1]. This makes a certain amount of sense, given that the mucus expands rapidly when in contact with water (much like a sponge). It may also explain how these hagfish can produce such vast quantities of slime...basically, they are just puffing up a little bit of slime with water.

What hagfish use this slime for is still under debate. Most seem to be leaning towards the idea that the slime can clog the gills of potential predators.

Life Photo Meme: Airy

2009-06-18T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Liliopsida

Order: Arales

Family: Araceae

This is the bud of a corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum. At the time that the photo was taken, the blossom was 5 ft and 7 in (5.6 m), and expected to reach over 6 ft (3 m). When open the corpse plant smells of rotting meat, to attract their fly and bee pollinators. The flower has a purplish color (like rotting meat) and heats up the air around it, so that the scent diffuses farther.

These plant produce only one flower or one leaf at a time. The flower itself is not a single large flower, but is made up of smaller male and female flowers. The leaf can reach 20 ft (6 m) tall and 16 ft (5 m) across. They are closely related to calla lilies.

Bug Fair

2009-06-17T22:03:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago was the annual bug fair at our local museum. This was a pretty big deal as vendors from all around came to sell their bugs and bug-related gear. At the fair you could find dead bugs for your collection, live bugs for rearing or pets, bug catching and displaying gear, as well as t-shirts, hats, and other related things.

There was also a bug chef on hand, and live bug handling demonstrations through out the two day period. My favorite talk was give by a gentleman who did origami for a living. He had some amazing pieces, which looked just like bugs!

He was a physicist by training, so tended to approach origami from a mathematical point of view. He created a program which could tell you how to fold the paper to get any shape you wanted. He also pointed out the scientific uses of origami, such as airbag storage, a new stent which unfolds in your vein or artery to keep it open, and how telescopes in space use origami to fold into different configurations... Way cool!

Catalina Above and Below

2009-06-15T16:34:00.000-07:00

I went on a fantastic boat trip to Catalina this weekend. It was part of a special program with the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, and it was a great hands on experience. We first went to pick up a series of fish traps which had been set out the day before. The first trap was set 500 feet down, and was filled with hagfish.

This was one of the first times I got to handle one of these amazing fish. They produce copious amounts of slime, as you can see from the picture. The slime had a very fibrous feel to it, which surprised me but made a bit of sense as the slime has many protein fibers. The fish themselves are very smooth and soft.

The second set of traps was set in a shallower, rocky reef area. We caught a ton of lobsters and California moray eels. We were looking for two gravid lobsters for the aquarium's lobster rearing program. These lobsters have never been successfully reared in captivity, especially as the larvae spend one year in the water column before settling out into the ground. The aquarium were able to raise the larvae for six months last year, and are hoping to go longer this year.

We also caught a horn shark. His teeth were purplish, a sure sign that this horn shark was snacking on sea urchins. After returning the fish we got from the traps, we headed over to a kelp forest by the isthmus of Catalina. There the divers went down to capture some fish and invertebrates to bring up for us to see. They also videotaped their dive, so that we could see what they saw when they went down.

They brought up several fish, including Garibaldis, a Rock wrasse, and a Senorita wrasse. They also brought up this cute baby Sheephead. On the invert side, they got some sea star, urchins, and snails. After that, we docked at the isthmus for lunch and a quick hike.

We hiked across the island, and got a peak at one of the Bison the inhabit the island. They were brought to the island in the 1920's for a movie, and were left there. It was really neat to see this guy, which was so close to the foot path.

Our final event of the day was cumming for sharks. We put out some chopped up mackerel an other fishes and were visited by three blue sharks, a large female and male, and a smaller one who's sex I couldn't identify.

The large male was approximately 7-8 feet long, and the female was a similar size. We also had some mackerel on a string, to get the sharks to jump up to get them. It was a pretty cool. The boat trip there and back was pretty eventful too. We spotted a bunch of sea birds and some blue whales.

Life Photo Meme: Travel

2009-06-11T19:27:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Class: Aves

Order: Anseriformes

Family: Anatidae

These Canadian geese represent travel in so many different ways. I took a picture of these geese on a recent trip to New Mexico. Of course the geese themselves are highly migratory; flying from northern Canada to the southern US.

There are 11 subspecies of Canadian goose found in the northern hemisphere, and their body size decreases with increasing latitude. This split in sizes may be due to the fact that Canadian geese practice assortative mating. In this case, the birds choose their mates based on size; they prefer to mate with a goose that is the same size as them.

In my childhood, seeing geese flying south was a regular feature of the fall season. It seems very odd to me to see these birds flying about in the winter, now that I live in the southern areas.

Photohunter: advertisement

2009-06-06T14:06:00.000-07:00

This photo was taken at Kondalilla National Park, located near Brisbane in Australia. I think it sends a particularly powerful message about protecting the natural beauty of all parks.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-06-04T07:17:00.001-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Urochordata

Class: Thaliacea

Order: Salpida

This is a pretty neat animal, which just barely qualifies as an invertebrate. This is a salp, although I am not exactly sure which one. Salps are some of our closest relatives, as they possess several of the same characteristics, including a notocord. They are in the same phylum as the tunicates, or sea squirts, but unlike the tunicates, salps spend their entire life in the plankton.

The thin white band you see running along the bottom of the salp is the gills, which they used to filter feed with. The pinkish-yellow lump on the bottom right hand side is where most of the organs are (intestines and such). On the left hand side are two small orange ovals. These are another creature (amphipods) that are living inside of this salp. They can capture food from the salp's filter feeding current.

Salps can be found as solitary individuals or found in long chains of individuals, and can reproduce sexually and asexually. Their life cycle is rather complex because of this. As solitary individuals, salps reproduce asexually to form a chain. This chain can reproduce sexually with other salp chains. The sexual and asexual forms of the same salp species can look slightly different.

Bugs, bugs, and more bugs

2009-05-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago was the awesome bug fair at the Natural History Museum of LA, which is always a great event to attend. I was looking forward to it this year because we were planning on getting some companions for our gray death-feigning beetle, Stumpy. In preparation for this, we upgraded her tank to a 10 gallon terrarium and got her fresh plants.

She started laying eggs in the new enclosure, which I took as a sign of approval. However, I have suspected that the eggs that she has been laying may not be fertile, so we were really hoping to get a male for her. When Bug Fair rolled around we picked up 3 more beetles. We think we did get a male, as the smallest beetle likes to clamp on top of the identified females (ran up to stumpy first thing) and they always try run away.

One of the other beetles is most likely another female, as she exhibited egg-laying behaviour fairly soon after being placed in the tank. Hopefully, we'll have little ones in a few months, although I am worried about getting this larger tank up to the temperature that I suspect may be necessary for larval development (over 100 degrees F).

Here you see the ovipositor...

and lay those eggs, lady!

Life Photo Meme: Woven

2009-05-28T21:17:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Lepidoptera

Family: Bombycidae

These are silkworm (Bombyx mori) cocoons. While I always knew that silk was made from silkworms, and that the cocoons were boiled and unraveled to make a single strand of silk, I did not know that the cocoon could be unraveled to 1 Km (~ 1,100 yards).

Silkworms eat the leaves of mulberry trees and are native to northern china. They are considered domesticated, and have been raised by humans for over 5,000 years. They are considered unable to survive in the wild at this point and depend on human intervention to complete their breeding. (Supposedly, because they have lost the ability to fly) The silkworm pupa is also considered a delicacy and is eaten after the cocoon itself has been boiled to soften the silk strands.

Life Photo Meme: Metallic

2009-05-14T15:35:00.001-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Coleoptera

This is a box of beetles, which are one of the most numerous insect groups on the face of the planet. This combined with the fact that insects are the most numerous animal, means that this planet really belongs to the beetles. While the bright colors are often used as a warning signal that the beetle tastes bad or is poisonous, it can also be an attractive signal to lady beetles.

Jewelery and other fashion accessories have been made from the beetles' shiny metallic overwings. On the science side, beetles are used to create carmine particles. These particles have helped researchers understand water flow and feeding rates for many aquatic organisms, and are also used as a food coloring (red) for many foods.

As a fun side note to this insect-filled week, if you are in the LA area check out the Bug Fair at the Natural History Museum of LA this weekend. It is one of the largest and most amazing insect fairs around!

Life Photo Meme: Honor an Invert

2009-05-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Insecta

Order: Hemiptera

Family: Belostomatidae

This crazy looking bug is a giant water bug, Abedus herberti. They are found in pools of freshwater in the mid-west to southwestern region of the US. This is a male water bug, as females lay eggs on the backs of the male carapace. Matings are cyclical, where a female will only be allowed to lay a few eggs on a male's back before having to mate with him again. This will ensure that the males aren't brooding eggs fertilized by another male. This is particularly effective as genetic markers show that the last male's sperm has precedence in fertilization over any stored sperm [1].

The males take care of the eggs until they hatch. This includes spending more time on land, to keep the eggs from getting fungus. I would be interested in knowing what traits females are selecting for when they choose their mates.

Life Photo Meme: Blooming

2009-04-30T14:29:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Magnoliopsida

Order: Sapindales

Family: Anacardiaceae

This pretty little bunch of flowers is from the lemonade sumac, Rhus integrifolia. This plant gets its name from the sweet but tart fruits that it produces in the summer. Word is that you can make a lemonade tasting drink by boiling the berries, but I like liking the sap from the berries straight up. Just be sure you have the lemonade sumac and not some other kind. Other types of sumac are said to be toxic.

They are found in the coastal scrub areas and chaparral areas of southern California. They are able to grow in very nutrient poor soil as well as sand. Their thick small leaves and flowers helps make them resistant to droughts.

White Abalone

2009-04-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Gastropoda

Order: Archaeogastropoda

Family: Haliotididae

This is a very rare animal, the white abalone (Haliotis sorenseni). They used to be found in great abundance in the subtidal waters off California (80 to 200 ft), there are now less than 3,000 individuals remaining in the wild. This is an issue as these animals are broadcast spawners, that is they release eggs or sperm into the water column to be fertilized. If there are no other individuals nearby, then the eggs will not be fertilized. Because of the low population numbers and their reproductive strategy, these animals are considered reproductively extinct.

However, they are on the list of endangered species, giving them great protection in their natural habitat. There are also some efforts underway to breed these snails in captivity to restock the wild populations. Work is slow, as it takes time for them to grow, and as growing them in farms leads to the increased risk of transporting diseases from the farm to the wild.

Life Photo Meme: Hidden

2009-04-16T17:31:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Gastropoda

Order: Patellogastropoda

Family: Lottiidae

Whenever I am in the intertidal, I love looking for the small hidden things. This is a close up of a limpet, most likely Lottia digitalis, hidden in a gooseneck barnacle cluster. Amazingly, these limpets can change their shell shape and color based on what they are resting on.

Limpets which hang out on gooseneck barnacles get lines on their shells that look like the lines on the barnacle. They also have a higher domed shell. Rock morphs are less patterned with a lower shell. This one does not seem to have too much cryptic coloration, but the shell is really worn. Supposedly, the change between these two morphologies is partly because of the change in algal diets in the two areas [1].

Life Photo Meme: Silly

2009-04-09T07:28:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Monotremata

Family: Tachyglossidae

This silly-looking animal is the short-beaked echidna, Tachyglossus aculeatus. There are only two types of echidnas in the world, the long and short-beaked. The short beaked echidna is found in Australia and the long beaked in New Guinea. Like the platypus, their beak has electrical sensors, which they use to find ants and other creepy-crawlies in the dirt. Like the other monotremes the adults lack teeth, so after catching their ants with their long sticky tongue, they crush them with hard plates on the roof of their mouth.

They also lay eggs. The female lays an egg during breeding season, but will then carry that egg around in a pouch until it hatches. She can deposit it down a burrow, if she needs to leave to go forging. The newly hatched echidna is only the size of a jellybean and will hitch a ride on top of the mother’s pouch.

Their paws are quite interesting. The front paws have long claws for digging, but the back ones are very strange. They curve backwards, so the animal is walking on the top of their foot. This backwards curve helps the animal push dirt out and away from the hole it is digging. They also posses an unusually long claw that curves farther out on each foot. This set of claws is used for grooming; it’s so long, so it can get in between the stiff guard hair spines. Despite the grooming, echidnas are home to the world’s largest species of fleas, which is 4mm long (0.15 in).

Anza Borrego State Park adventure

2009-04-05T05:48:00.000-07:00

Right now the deserts are blooming. I wanted to see this phenomenon for myself, so I packed up and headed for Anza Borrego. We had two goals; to see some flowers (I wanted to see cactus blooms) and to see some fossils.

We first headed to the mud hills area where there are Pliocene oyster fossil beds. This area is rather crazy looking as there are very large hills of dried mud all over the place. These hills are studded with gypsum, making them sparkle in the sunlight as if they were studded with palm-sized mirrors.

We followed a wash, a narrow path that had been carved out by sudden rushes of water, in order to reach our destination; the elephant knees and the oyster beds.

Along the sides of the wash was the only signs of green plant-life in the mud hills area. There were sage-like bushes, but most of the plants were as small as the size of your hand. Flowers were small and low to the ground, most likely pollinated by wind or ants. There was a beautiful plant with brilliant purple flowers, which was my favorite for the whole trip, as the flowers were so delicate looking, yet it was growing in such a harsh environment.

When we got closer to the elephant knees, we noticed that the top of the mesa and on three nearby formations there were a dark layer on top about 2 feet thick. When we hiked up the side, we saw that it was completely made of small shells and parts of shells. We could not find the oysters the size of dinner plates, but we did see a rather large piece of a fossil oyster. So goal 1 was accomplished.

Afterwards we headed back towards the center of the park where there was more green life.

Here we went on cactus loop trail, where there were several kinds of cactus and other plants in bloom. On the cactus side, there were beaver tail and hedgehog cactus which had magenta flowers, and barrel cactus which had yellow-green flowers.

There were also jumping chollas, which had green flowers. These cactus have a habit of breaking off their arms and hitching a ride on a passer-by, thus 'jumping' to a new area.

There were also some fantastic ocotillo plants in bloom, which I've been strangely attracted to since I fist saw them on a trip to Arizona. They have thorny stems, and only produce small leaves and large flowers after the rains. The flowers were these bright red spikes on the top of the plant (the first picture is of these beautiful plants).

After our cactus hike, we headed to the visitor center and palm canyon to see if we could spot the big horn sheep which are said to roam the park. Although this unplanned goal was thwarted, we did get to see a variety of wild life that did not leave us disappointed. In just the canyon, we saw tons of lizards, quail, ravens, and endangered desert pup fish in a man-made habitat. In mud hills, we saw tons of butterflies, lizards, and a cute beetle. On our way into the park, we even spotted a coyote crossing the road. All and all, an amazing experience!

Photohunter: Stripes

2009-04-04T10:54:00.000-07:00

I really love hanging out in the tidepools. You can always find such interesting things if you are willing to poke around and not afraid of getting pinched.

This is a striped shore crab, and I found him under a rock in the mid-intertidal zone. They like to eat algae and are generally eaten by gulls. They are pretty common, but I really like the colors on them.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-04-01T20:13:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Stomatopoda

This is a mantis shrimp. A fantastic animal which is known for its hunting abilities and extraordinary eyes.

This mantis shrimp uses its front appendages like a club, bashing its prey. They can strike at their prey with a speed of 50 mile per hour (23 meters per second). Because they move so fast, they create an area of very low pressure behind their club. The pressure is so low, the water actually vaporizes forming a cavitation bubble. This bubble can deliver an extra punch to the prey when it pops [1]. The popping bubble may deliver the same amount of force to stun the prey at the actual strike does [2].

Their eyes can pick up florescent signals, and three different types of polarized light through different regions of their eyes [3]. They have 11 pigments in their eyes, eight of which are used for visible light and three for ultra violet light [4]. Pretty amazing, especially when you consider that our eyes only have 3 pigments.

Life Photo Meme: Narrow

2009-03-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Order: Octopoda

Family: Octopodidae

This little two-spot octopus was only about 2 months old when the picture was taken. He (or she) would be able to fit into VERY narrow spaces, as the only hard part on its body is its beak. An adult two-spot octopus can get up to three feet in length (arm to arm), and has a beak about the size of you pinkie fingernail. This little guy was almost an inch (arm to arm), so I can't even imagine how small its beak is. But I do know that it fit into the most amazingly small spaces to enact its escapes.

This little octo is still going strong at the aquarium, and is about 6 months old at this point. We have had some success in feeding it, even though its diet constantly changes as it grows. Its about 2.5 inches from arm to arm now. Hopefully, we will be able to raise it to adulthood.

Bats!

2009-03-21T19:17:00.000-07:00

While wandering the internet, I came across this post by Carl Zimmer which was all about bats in motion. If you've ever wanted to know how bats fly, land, and feed, go over to The Loom and check it out. There are some truly amazing videos in slow motion that shows all those things and more... Really one of the best posts I've read in a while.

Photohunter: Yellow

2009-03-21T10:58:00.000-07:00

This is a black dorid (Polycera atra) that I caught feeding on some bryozoans I collected for my thesis. I have caught at least four different species of nudibranch (sea slugs) as I am collecting their main food source, but I think this one is my favorite for its coloration. These nudibranchs tend to e a little toxic, as they concentrate the toxins from their food source in their tissues, so the beautiful patterns are used to warn off would-be predators. Some nudibranchs take a different route, and use their coloration to blend in with their food source so well, it is hard to see them even when you look very closely.

Life Photo Meme: Quiet

2009-03-19T06:00:00.000-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Atheriniformes

Family: Atherinopsidae

These are grunion (Leuresthes tenuis). Found off the coast of California, these fish breed from March to July. Approximately three days after the full and new moons, these fish throw themselves on the sandy beaches of southern CA to lay their eggs. Any noise causes them to quickly flop back into the ocean.

Females bury themselves upright in the sand, while males lay on top of the sand next to the females. After the eggs are laid in the sand and fertilized, both sexes return to the ocean. The female can lay up to 3,000 eggs on a single night, and will return to the beach each time the tide is right.

Eggs take about 9 days to develop, but won't hatch until the waves from the high tides break them open, about 12 to 14 days later. Here is a picture of the developing eggs at about 6 days of age. You can already see the well-developed eyes.

If you were to look at these eggs under a microscope you can also see small red blood cells flowing through the blood vessels covering the yolk. You can also see the heart beating ( in this video, it looks like the heart is above the eyes). The tail and its associated muscles are also well developed and serve to move the small fish around in its egg.

Life Photo Meme: Hairy

2009-03-12T18:29:00.001-07:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Annelida

Class: Polychaeta

Order: Aciculata

Family: Aphroditidae

This is my favorite annelid. It is called a sea mouse, and from the top it is very difficult to distinguish as a worm as it is covered in seate (or chaete, depending on who you ask). It is not until you take a look at its underside, that you can see the segmentation common to worms, and the parapodia special to polychaetes.

The sea mouse can reach 6 to 8 inches (15-20 cm), and lives on the sea floor in from subtidal areas to moderately deep waters. (This particular sea mouse was caught in a benthic trawl at ~150 ft (50 m). They are active hunters and feed on other polychaete worms.

There is some interest in the optical properties of their seate. The seate projecting from the parapodia are often a copper color, but can turn a bluish-green when see from the right angle (and when not covered in mud). The crystalline formation of the seate is far more efficient in handling light than current man-made optical fibers [1].

Reviewing 'Alien Landscapes': Carlsbad cavern

2009-03-07T06:00:00.000-08:00

The following are pictures of (in my opinion) one of the most impressive spaces in all of the US. That is Carlsbad Cavern. The cave system is considered a national monument (like White Sands) and hosts about 110 caves. Carlsbad cavern is the name of both the park and the largest cave in the park. The entrance to the cave is atop a mountain, and the cave extends 750 ft (230 m) down. Once down you enter an amazing space...

These caves were formed by the mixing of hydrogen-sulfide rich waters seeping up from the the base of the mountain and rainwater seeping down. The mixture of these two waters created a sulfuric acid, which ate away at the limestone. You can still see pools of mineral rich waters in the caves.

This is a very unusual mode of cave formation, as most caves form by rain water only eroding the insides. The caves boast an amazing array of decorations: stalactites, stalagmites, columns, and draperies...

The formations are made in the normal way for caves. Rainwater seeping down deposits the mineral it picked up from the surface. Since the cave is now in the middle of a desert, the formations don't grow as fast as they did 10,000 years ago, when it was a woodland area. Here you can see the edge of a massive stalagmite that is still growing, with the area were the water collects and eats away at the surrounding limestone...

The cavern is a most amazing space...

Life Photo Meme: Honor an Invert

2009-03-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Order: Nautilida

Family: Nautilidae

This nautilus is a strange but beautiful member of the cephalopod family. Unlike its relatives, the squids, cuttlefish, and octopus, the nautilus has an external shell. It also possesses far more tentacles, (up to 90) that have no suckers or hooks of any sort. The hood on top of the nautilus's head is actually made from tow specialized tentacles, and acts as an operculum, or lid, for the shell.

They don't expend much energy swimming, as they relay on the gas filled chambers to keep them afloat. Because of this, they only need to feed once a month. They hunt small fishes and shrimp in the water column but scent. Although they have eyes, their vision is very poor.

Their eyes are a simple pinhole eye without a lens. The lack of a lens means light and images are not focused well on the retina, and water can actually pass into the inside of the eye!

Reviewing 'Alien Landscapes': White Sands, NM

2009-03-01T10:49:00.000-08:00

White Sands is a very interesting national monument in the middle of the desert. Between the mountains and a vast scrub land, the dunes of white sand that form the park seem to appear out of nowhere. In truth, the dunes are formed by the transport of gypsum grains from a nearby lake. The lake has a high mineral content, and as water evaporates it leaves behind the gypsum, which is blown to the dune area. The dunes can shift outwards at a rate of 30 ft (~9 m) a year. It is also the world's largest pure gypsum dune field.

As dunes are completely made up of the gypsum, they have beautiful white color.

The dunes on the outer edge of the field boasts a wide range of plant and animal life. As we were there in the winter, we did not see much animal life, but we did find some evidence of life; animal tracks.

The dunes in the inner part of the field are much starker. They have few plants, and less animals. There is virtually no water in the dune field, so all animals depend ultimately on the plants for a source of water. With few to no plants present on the inner dunes, animals cannot live there.

This place is very beautiful, and so very odd looking. I highly recommend a trip there. They say that the best time to go is during the early or late parts of the day. In order to take good photos you need some shadows. Additionally, noon can be very hot. However they do have a nature center in the middle of the park, which may be a very pleasant spot to pass midday in.

Life Photo Meme: Fiery fish

2009-02-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Scorpaeniformes

Family: Synanceiidae

This handsome fella/femme is a reef stonefish, most likely Synanceia verrucosa. Most people have heard of stonefish, as they are some of the most venomous fishes in the world, but few get to appreciate their beauty up close. Not surprisingly (considering Australia's track record), they tend to hang out in the indo-pacific region, especially on Australian reefs. They possess thirteen stiff spines on the front part of their dorsal fins, from which the venom can be injected.

They don't use their venom to hunt, but only for protection from predators (and humans). For hunting, they prefer to sit motionless on the reef and snap at passing shrimp and fish. They are beautifully adapted to blend in with the reef and reef rubble, right down to the bright orange blotches that mimic the color and shape of the sponges that grow on the rubble. Fantastic!

Life Photo Meme: Love and the Midshipman

2009-02-12T06:00:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Actinopterygii

Order: Batrachoidiformes

Family: Batrachoididae

This fish is the plainfin midshipman (Porichthys notatus). If you were looking at the top of the fish, you would see a plain grayish fish with a rather large mouth. One of the midshipman's interesting features actually lie underneath the fish. These interesting dots on the underside of the fish are photophores, which can produce a bright light pattern. Its still not clear what the light is for, but some speculate that the midshipman uses them to lure prey closer when hunting. The midshipman will hang in the water column and flash its light to attract prey items.

Interesting thing number 2 is how midshipman reproduce. Like most fish, males are responsible for maintaining the nest and attracting the females to lay their eggs. Male midshipman will hum for hours on end to attract females to their nest. The hum is produced by the fish vibrating their swim bladder, and can be so loud that people walking on a beach can hear it (and people living on boats often find it hard to sleep). Female midshipman who are producing eggs (more estrogen) are more sensitive to the humming noise and more likely to seek out its source [1].

Here's a nice news article on the midshipman's love life, with some sound bytes attached (for Quicktime viewers only).

Photohunter: Bridge

2009-02-08T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here's a pretty well known bridge; the golden gate bridge. What most people don't know is the great variety of life which resides under the golden gate bridge, like the seven gill shark.

Seven gill sharks are called that because unlike most modern day sharks, which have five gill slits on either side of their head, seven gills have seven. There are only a few other sharks which have more than five gill slits, namely the six gill shark, and the sharp-nose seven gill shark. These sharks are considered some of the most primitive sharks alive today. The seven gill generally hangs out under the golden gate bridge area, as it is the deepest part of San Francisco bay. They are also the largest shark in the bay, reaching 10 ft (~ 3 m) in length. The largest shark in the area, the white shark, does not enter the bay as it cannot tolerate the brackish water.

Back in the day, these guys were heavily fished for their oily liver. The fishery in San Francisco collapsed in the 1940s due to heavy fishing. They seem to be making a bit of a comeback, although there is no official data on their status. They are doing a tagging and tracking study on these guys, to see exactly how they use the bay, so maybe we can also get a better idea of population numbers too.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert... the coolest invert!

2009-02-05T06:51:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Order: Octopoda

Family: Opisthoteuthidae

This lovely fellow is the flapjack octopus or Opisthoteuthis californiana. Normally deep water creatures, this guy was caught ~1,000 ft (~333 m) from the surface off the coast of California. He possesses very large eyes, which help him find food using the barest glimmer of light that reaches those depths. There really is not much known about their diet, lifestyle, or even distribution (although they've caught them off of California and Japan).

They think that these guys are benthic, but they do have two very distinct swimming modes. The first is pretty common to all octopuses and squids; jet propulsion. They can squirt out a stream of water from their mantle which pushes them head first through the water. The second swimming mode is less common among octopuses. They can use the flaps attached to their heads as fins to swim.

Enjoy this video our flapjack friend swimming about...

Life Photo Meme: Lacy

2009-01-29T17:26:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Ectoprocta (Bryozoa)

Class: Gymnolaemata

Order: Cheilostomata

Family: Reteporidae

When I saw that this week's theme was lacy, I immediately thought of a lacy bryozoan (Phidolopora sp.). And you have to admit it does look pretty lacy. But most people would be hard pressed to identify what it actually is. Bryozoans are colonial animals like corals; but unlike most corals they have to capture their food rather than relaying on photosynthetic symbionts to make it for them.

They are not related to corals, as they lack the stinging cells that all coral posses. They are not closely related to anything existent, but are thought to be distantly related to brachiopods (those clam-like creatures that you can often by fossils of) and phoronids (looks like a worm with tentacles). Now that I write this, I realize those two groups are not horribly well-known either.

If you look closely at a bryozoan colony, you see little boxes. Inside each box (or zooid) is the living animal which is basically a set of tentacles (called a lophophore) connected to a stomach, and a muscle for extending the tentacles. They feed by using little hairs (cilia) on the tentacles to filter water for food particles. Below you can see a close up of the zooids with lophophores out and feeding...

There are only ~5,000 species of bryozoans world-wide, and are found in many different habitats in the ocean , from docks to deep ocean. The lacy bryozoan is found on the pacific coast and generally tends to be subtidal. It has been hypothesized that the holes that make it look like lace, help direct the water flow over each zooid.

Photohunter: Chipped

2009-01-24T11:25:00.001-08:00

I think this qualifies as 'chipped'. This big cat toy looks like it has been thoroughly enjoyed by its owner. This toy was probably put in the enclosure as part of an enrichment program. Enrichment is when you try to provide opportunities for an animal to act naturally. It could be as simple as providing a nutritional treat, hiding food around the enclosure, giving toys, or re-arranging the 'furniture' (logs, ropes, sheets, etc.) in the enclosure to create new places to hide or climb. Enrichment is just that, something to enrich the animal's well-being.

And you can see that this is one content kitty...

Life Photo Meme: Shiny

2009-01-22T18:02:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Cetacea

Family: Monodontidea

I finally got to see a Beluga whale! However, they were so white and shiny it was hard to take a picture of them...

Here are some interesting facts about the Beluga Whale (Delphinapterus leucus). They can get to 4.5 meters (~15 ft) in length and weight about 1500 Kg (3300 lbs). The whales are born toothless after a 14 month gestation period. They nurse for one to two years. After getting their teeth, they eat darn near about anything (octopus, worms, and fish to name a few).

They are a very vocal species; so much so, that they are often called the "sea canary". They are also the only whale with free cervical vertebrae (rather than fused), which means that they are the only whale which can turn its head or nod. They are most closely related to the Narwhal.

Abalone FYI...

2009-01-19T11:51:00.000-08:00

This may have slipped under people's radar, so I thought I'd put up a quick post. In February, the black abalone will be put on the endangered species list. It joins the white abalone and 2 species of coral as the only invertebrates on the list.

In some ways this is a major win, as now the abalone will get the protection it desperately needs. In other ways, it is always a major loss when a species gets to the point were it needs to be on the list. The white abalone, (the other mollusk on the list) is basically considered reproductively extinct. They are very hard to rear in captivity, so no real progress has been made in raising and re-introducing them to the wild. I don't know if black abalone are similar to whites, or if they are more like reds, which are much easier to rear. So much easier to rear that they are often farmed.

One can only hope that there will be some way to restore the black abalone to the tidepools.

Review: Seattle Aquarium

2009-01-19T10:14:00.000-08:00

The Seattle Aquarium is located near the heart of downtown Seattle. It looks, from the outside, to be a cute refurbished warehouse. The inside is rather interesting... the bulk of the aquarium is taken up by two large touch tanks, containing seastars, anemones, urchins, and things like that. Along the back there were some free standing tanks, showing some of the more unusual sea starts, like the basket star. The stars of the main room was definitely the octopus tank and the jelly fish tank. The octopus tank consisted of two large cylinder tanks connected in the center by an "octopus crossing".

The jelly fish tank was a ring that extended below the floor, so that it looked like an arch (from floor level). People could stand in the arch and watch the jellies flow by. They also had a display from the artist Ray Troll on the wall surrounding the main room.

Tucked into the very back of the main room, was a display of the oddities of the sea. There they had Pinecone fish, a dragon fish, a pipe fish, and some other odd looking fish. Coming off of that display was a pacific coral reef display, which had several tanks of coral reef fish.

The fun stuff, in my opinion, was in an annex off the main building. There was more of a focus on the fishes of Puget Sound here, and several tanks which held either fish or invertebrates native to the region. There was also a very large dome tank, filled with rockfish.

Along the out side of the annex were salmon steps, and inside there was a section explaining some of the salmon rearing that they were doing at the aquarium and around the area. The top part was almost completely dedicated to mammals and shorebirds. They had harbor seals, sea and river otters, and (my favorite) fur seals.

I've never seen a fur seal before, so this was rather novel. They look rather like a very large, but cute, water rat (at least the face does). Over all, not a bad aquarium, but be warned that the price is very steep for what it is. At $16 for adults and $10.50 for kids, you may want to look around for some deals. They are a member of AZA, so you can get a discount or free admission if you are a member too. There are also package deals, where you can get into the zoo, a cruise, and some museums for a single price.

Photohunter: Hats

2009-01-17T06:00:00.000-08:00

I'm not much on hats myself, so I spent a bit of time going through my photos before finding this. It is a picture of my little sister dissecting a squid in a whale tail hat. This picture was taken at my all time favorite festival, the Whale Fiesta. This is a celebration of the return of the Gray whales migrating to Baja to where they have their calves. There are lots of fun activities going on, contests, and tons of vendors selling super-cool things (I'm hoping that the lady who makes nudibrach necklaces comes again). All and all my favorite festival to attend, and a very appropriate picture pick as the festival is next week!

Life size Gray Whale head (can you imagine fitting a hat to this?)

Life Photo Meme: Red

2009-01-15T09:35:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Order: Octopoda

Family: Octopodidae

This lovely guy is a giant pacific octopus, Enteroctopus dofleini. They are found along the pacific coast from Alaska to southern California, and prefer to live in rocky crevices from the subtidal to 1650 ft (503 m). They are nocturnal and feed on crabs, shrimp, bivalves (such as clams and scallops), and fish.

They live for about 3 to 4 years, which is a little longer than your average octopus who only lives about 3 years max. They generally reach a size of 16 ft (5 m) from arm to arm, and weight about 90 to 100 lbs (45 kg). They can change the color and texture of their skin to match their surroundings.

They are extremely intelligent and there are many stories surrounding this intelligence. One of the more common stories is that they can escape from their tanks and go to other tanks for a midnight snack, if the mood takes them. They can come out of the water, and are great escape artists, so it is very plausible that this story is true. At the aquarium where I used to work (where this picture was shot), the octopus were kept in a very large tunnel tank about 150 ft (46 m) long. It was a pretty cool experience, because the octopus had enough room to actually swim the length of the tank. Also, I often ran sleepovers in the tunnels, so got to see the octopus walking around the tanks at night.

Life Photo Meme: New

2009-01-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animlia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Rodentia

Family: Sciuridea

I am not exactly sure what kind of squirrel this is, but I suspect that it is a California Ground Squirrel (Spermophilus beecheyi). These guys seem to be exploiting a new habitat, as humans tend to give them peanuts along the rocky coast area. They seem to live under the rubble provided to shore up the shoreline.

This is not a new photo, but one that I took a couple of weeks ago on my last collecting trip. I am currently on a collecting trip in Washington and Oregon, so expect new photos from that when I get back!

Review: San Diego Natural History Museum and Balboa Park

2009-01-03T19:23:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Balboa Park and the San Diego Museum of Natural History. The park itself has tons of different museums and gardens in it, and our original plan was to hit the natural history museum, the conservatory, and the Japanese tea garden. The park has some great architecture, which we were practically required to stop and admire. The above picture was the San Diego garden society headquarters.

We made the natural history museum our first stop, and it was interesting, but smaller than what I expected. They had two exhibits going on, H20 =Life and a wild life artist. I was not particularly interested in either, but H2O had some interesting exhibits (mostly watching the mudskippers eating).

In terms of fossils, they took up half of the second floor, which was open in the center (H2O took up the other half). The interesting thing to me, was that almost all of their fossils were found in San Diego county. This meant that there was a wide range of aquatic fossils, including these odd pelican foot snails...

I also saw some interesting fossil dolphins and even a fossil walrus. It was very interesting to think that San Diego used to host walrus and river dolphins. The best thing I was the way that they displayed some of their dinosaur bones. Most places put either the bones on display or make a model of the dinosaur. This museum did a combination of both. So one side gave you the artist model of what the dino might look like with muscles and skin attached...

While the other side showed you the bones...

I thought this was a really effective way to showcase these dinosaurs, and hope that other museums pick up on this.

After the natural history museum, we headed to the Japanese tea garden (the conservatory turned out to be closed). The garden basically consisted of a straight strip planted with azaleas. There was a very small koi pond and a building that you can go into to see some pictures of Japan. I thought the building offered the best view of the garden...

In the back, there were some (about 7) bonsai on display. All in all, rather disappointing, particularly as we had paid $3 each to get in. What was the best was the food outside of the garden. They a really great cafe, which served a variety of Japanese food for a reasonable price. And the portions were HUGE!

An unplanned stop of the day was the San Diego Museum of Art. Normally, I don't do art. (I mean I like impressionists, but nothing else really) But they had an interesting display on the Art of Kimono and it was awesome. The person who made the kimonos, Itchiku Kubota, pioneered a new way of making them because he was trying to recreate an old method. It's kind of like tie dye or batiking in that the colors are dyed directly onto the kimono. He made a set of kimonos that when put together display a landscape going from fall to winter. There were 30 kimonos in that set, and he had plans to do summer and spring as well.

We did not even get to the Air and Space Museum where there was a star trek exhibit. I guess the lesson is, if you are going to Balboa park make your plans flexible and you won't be disappointed.

Life Photo Meme: Honor an invert

2009-01-01T07:15:00.001-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Porifera
Class: Demospongiae
Order: Dendroceratida
Family: Darwinellidae

For this month's honor an invert, I decided to go basic. Really basic. This is Aplysilla glacialis, the keratose sponge. It is found in the low intertidal zones to 84 meters (275 ft) down, all over the world.

This sponge is interesting because it lacks spicules; hard calcium or silica pieces that help act as the sponge's 'skeletal system'. Spicules are the classical way to identify and classify sponges, so this presented a problem. Now-a-days, they use not only the spicules, but also fibers and the secondary chemical compounds which it produces to help classify it.

Photohunter: Squeaky

2008-12-27T07:07:00.000-08:00

This cute little fish is a grunt sculpin. It is not a good swimmer, and it generally moves by using its bright orange pectoral fins to hop across the sea floor. They are generally found in shallow waters (subtidally) and live in crevices. They only get a little over 8 cm (3 .25 in). It has been reported that these fish make little grunting noises when you remove it from water.

Some interesting behaviour has been observed in aquariums during spawing season. Like most fish, males are generally the ones to guard the eggs. What's different is how the eggs are laid and fertilized. Normally, males have to entice (or chase) the females into their chosen nest site to lay eggs, however with grunt sculpins the females chase the males into a cave where they are laying eggs, and won't let them out until they are finished.

Life Photo Meme: Procreation

2008-12-25T11:54:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Annelida

Class: Polychaeta

Order: Aciculata

Family: Nereididae

This was a bit of a tough choice for me, as I have an oddly large assortment of animal mating pictures (although I always kick myself for not having the camera on me the day I saw barnacles mating). I decided to go with this 'morning after' picture, as I find this type of procreation to be very bizarre.

These are Nereis sp. worms. They normally live on the benthos, but when these particular worms get ready to mate, their bodies undergo a startling transformation. Their internal organs degenerate, and their body cavity fills with gametes. They develop stronger podia (paddle-like feet) for swimming and better sensory organs. Then, when the moon is right, they swim up into the water column. Males will find a female and swim in circles around her... then they both explode.

So above you can see chunks of worm, white strands of sperm, and reddish-yellow eggs (both of which are released from the body cavity by the explosion).

Photohunter: Wide

2008-12-20T07:11:00.000-08:00

Can't get much wider than this. This is a preserved megamouth shark. This shark is known only from 38 specimens captured, salvaged, or recorded world wide. Despite its very large mouth, the megamouth eats small planktonic animals, such as jellies and copepods. It follows its prey, swimming up through the water column during the night and descending as night falls.

Life Photo Meme: Royal

2008-12-18T07:46:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Mammalia

Order: Carnivora

Family: Felidae

The lion (Panthera leo) has long been know as the king of the jungle. It is the second largest cat, with males weighing in at 250 kg (550 lbs) and about 2 m (6 ft) in length. However, this is nothing compared to the ancient American lion, the largest lions ever to have existed at 300 kg (660 lbs) and 2.5 m (8 ft).

Most people know about the superb hunting skills that the lionesses practice, and that the males basically do nothing but defend their pride from other male lions. Lions are the only cat to have sexual dimorphism, as the males have a distinctive mane. Some relatively recent research had some interesting things to say about the mane, in terms of selection and possible purpose. They found that males with darker longer manes were more likely to win male competitions, and be successful at mating. So, males may be able to size up their competition by comparing manes. But, males with darker manes had more difficulties in hotter weather conditions, to the extreme that their sperm can be come deformed. Of course, there is the idea that having a handicap to over come means that you are very healthy, and would make a good mate (think peacock tails). The original study can be found here.

Life Photo Meme: Glassy

2008-12-15T18:04:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Cnidaria

Class: Hydrozoa

Order: Leptothecatae

Family: Aequoreidae

How can you not think of jellies, when given the word glassy? This a crystal jelly (Aequorea sp.), one of the clearest jellies I can think of. I think this jelly is pretty neat because it is the jelly that GFP (green fluorescent protein) was isolated from.

I also really dig the way these guys eat. The batch of tentacles in the center surrounds the mouth. Unlike other jellies, the mouth can open really, really wide so that it can swallow and eat other jellies that are up to half its size. I've never seen another jelly that could open its mouth this wide, or even open its mouth at all. And they look pretty neat all full of food, too.

Whales with scale

2008-12-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

Here are two whale skulls, with my spouse kindly standing in for scale...The first is a gray whale skull. The grays are doing their yearly migration down from Alaska to Baja, where the mothers will give birth to their calves.

The second is a fin whale skull. They are the second largest whale and second largest animal, after the blue whale.

Photohunter: Breakfast

2008-12-06T13:52:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of Kellet's whelk, Kelletia kelletii, snacking on some fish for breakfast. Kellet's whelks are one of the larger gastropods (snails) found on the California coast. They generally tend to scavenge on dead or dying animals, but have also been know to eat crabs and lobsters caught in traps. They use their long, prehensile proboscis to reach into the traps, or in this case holes on top of the plexiglass container, and use the radula at the tip to scrap off flesh or drill through shells.

Life Photo Meme: Inverts

2008-12-04T21:53:00.001-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Mollusca

Class: Cephalopoda

Order: Teuthida

Family: Loliginidae

The above is a picture of market squid, Loligo opalescens, eggs. The eggs are laid in capsules by the female in clusters on the bottom of shallow sandy areas. Each egg capsule can hold about 300 eggs, and the female can lay 20-30 capsules in a breeding event. Eggs hatch in 3 to 5 weeks, depending on the water temperatures. The hatchlings, called paralarvae, are about 6mm (1/4 in) in length at hatching.

Here is a cropped part of the above picture, so you can better see the little squids developing in their eggs. They didn't have any pigment yet, and were about 4-6 days from hatching.

Life Photo Meme: Edible

2008-11-28T22:17:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Protista

Phylum: Phaeophyta

Class: Phaeophyceae

Order: Laminariales

Family: Lessoniaceae

Here we have some giant kelp, Macrocystis pyrifera. While not very tasty by itself (to my mind), brown alga such as the giant kelp contain algin. Algin is often used as a thickening agent in many foods such as puddings, ice cream, icing, candies, as well as some beauty products. If you have a thick and creamy food item, check the ingredients and chances are algin or carrageenan (from red algae) is present. While algin may help add to our waistline by being in such yummy foods, a second compound, fucoxanthin may promote weight loss [1, 2].

Cloning mammoths?!

2008-11-23T11:37:00.000-08:00

There's a really interesting article in November's issue of Nature. The author Henry Nicholls answers the question what would it take to clone a mammoth. This is more of an intellectual exercise than an actual doable process at the moment, but only because they don't have the entire genome of the mammoth sequenced yet.

I was very impressed with the detail and clarity of the article, it brought up questions that I never considered. When making a mammoth, figuring out the genome is a relatively easy task. It's fairly easy to read the genes, but which genes go on which chromosomes? How do you then turn that huge library of letters into a set number of chromosomes, when you have no idea what that number is? And what about mitochondria? Those organelles are not built by instructions contained in the nucleus, but are transferred from mother to offspring (in rare cases, the fathers contribute some too). Nicholls does a wonderful job of laying out the problems and suggesting solutions based on research techniques that are currently being used for other (but similar) purposes.

So if you want to know what would be involved in building a mammoth, or you are just interested in learning about some cutting-edge research in cellular biology, check out this article.

Uber-cute!

2008-11-23T11:16:00.000-08:00

I love walking into my workplace and seeing stuff like this. This baby pacific seahorse is just three days old and about a centimeter long. The male gave birth to a batch of babies after a 9 day gestation period. Normally, they can hold 2-3,000 eggs in their pouch, but this particular daddy gave birth to only 75. That could be because the female dropped the eggs when she was transferring them to the male, or because she just did not make that many eggs. I am looking forward to seeing these little cuties grow up.

BTW, those dots you see around the seahorse are rotifers, which are the current food source for our babies (and only ~0.5mm long!).

Photohunter: Reflection of my inner geekyness

2008-11-22T16:22:00.000-08:00

This is a picture of a collection of artifacts I have in my house. The collection is often a surprise to most visitors, but give who we generally hang out with, it ends up being a fascinating conversation piece. Not only does our collection offer a glimpse at our inner geekyness to visitors, but they are often used as educational tools for the various classes and fairs that we teach. Most of these items were gotten from the various institutions that me and my husband have worked at or volunteered for over the years. Often, when departments have to move their collections, things get stuck in a cardboard box in the back halls with a sign saying "free, take me home!".

Some of my favorite pieces are:

A 60 million year old sperm whale fossil tooth bought from the Bone Room (a super awesome place), the elongate, black fossil in the front center right.
A paper nautilus 'shell', in the open box in front of the true nautilus shell.
A copy of an archaeopteryx skull, in the clear black bottomed box in the center.
A fossil of an open brachiopod, showing the fossilized internal structures (mainly the brachidium, which supports the lophophore)

It's a good thing my spouse and I both like biology!

Life Photo Meme: Unloved

2008-11-22T08:09:00.000-08:00

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Reptilia
Order: Squamata
Family: Viperidea

This rattlesnake is definitely an unloved animal. Most live in fear of encountering it due to its poisonous nature and rapid strike abilities. It has the ability to strike without pulling its body back first, and can reach 1/3 to 1/2 their body length. The rattle on the tail is added to every time the snake sheds its skin. However, there is one species of rattlesnake which does not have a rattle, the tree-climbing Santa Catalina Island rattlesnake. Since this rattlesnake sneaks up and eats birds, it lost its rattle.

Rattlesnakes are ovoviviparous, retaining eggs within their body and giving birth to live young after 90 days. They are also the newest snake group, with an interesting heat sensitive organ located on the sides of their heads. According to the San Diego zoo, when rattlers hibernate for the winter, they use the same den that they were born in. It has been reported that some dens have been used for 100 years [1].