Snorkeling in a hard-bottom gulf community...

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...

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!

Catalina Above and Below

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.

I have eyes!

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.

Things to watch...

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...

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.

Bug Fair

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!

Photohunter: advertisement

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.

Bats!

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: Hats

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?)

Photohunter: Ruined

I was going to post something else, but a quick look outside my window changed my mind. This was taken at 2:30 pm. Right now, Southern CA is being hammered by wildfires. A little to the north of me, there are some major fires going on and many people are being evacuated. Needless to say, our air quality is ruined as well.

Photohunter: Together

(No on prop 8 post-election rally)

I was going to do a post on colonial organisms for this week's together post, but given what has been happening here in my home state, I thought I'd hijack my own blog and talk about something more political this week.

As you all know, three states have passed bans on gay marriage this election cycle. I am most disappointed in California, which recently allowed gay marriages, and where I have been listening to very weak arguments for this ban. First off, why is this an issue? CA does have a very good civil union package which offers most of the rights and responsibilities that married have, but these unions are not recognized in many of the other states or by the federal government. A marriage performed in one state is recognized in other states. "Marriage" as a secular term does not (or did not) include a religious aspect, people can get their marriage officiated by whoever they want, but cannot force someone (or a church) to officiate. So offering marriage to same-sex couples does not change anything for different-sex couples, but does allow same-sex couples to stay married if they move and paves the way for federal benefits/taxes to be given to same-sex couples.

(Parents of gay children show support in a gay pride parade)

Protecting "traditional marriage" is a poor excuse to refuse same-sex marriages. Just because something has "always" been done this way does not make it right to continue to deny a minority's rights. Of course, marriage has NOT "always" been done this way. Marriage was about transfer of property (cows/land for women to establish bloodlines), which meant it could be between one man and several women. Currently, marriage is about two people deciding to pool their financial and physical resources to set up a household together, and formalizing that agreement through governmental records.

(Me and my spouse after our civil wedding)

I am very ashamed for this state, in which the narrow majority has decided to strip a minority of legal rights, and codify that bigotry in the state's constitution. Saying it's the will of the people does not excuse it. An unpopular minority cannot expect that the majority will look after its rights. Until a short while ago (1958), the majority disavowed marrying people of differing races. I hope that soon, I will be able to express the same disbelief that marrying people of the same gender was ever an issue.

Drive by posting

Another super cute baby octopus picture! They seem to be pretty healthy looking, and have the strength/ cunning to escape their enclosures. So far, I've returned two to their tanks after they have escaped to the wet table. One of them even caught its first meal the other day. (We fed it a small grass shrimp) Hopefully, they will survive to adulthood.

Photohunter: Blue

"Blue you sit so pretty west of the one"

-- Red Hot Chili Peppers

Road Trippin'

(Hanauma Bay, Hawaii)

For me there is only one blue... the endless blue of the ocean. It is so fascinating words cannot describe it. Even if you only get to visit the edge, it's amazing; and if you get the chance to immerse yourself, it's like stepping into another world.

( Los_Cat at Blue Pearl Bay, Australia)

I can't remember a time when I was not fascinated by the ocean.

Fun ocean facts:

• 70% of the world's oxygen is produced by organisms in the ocean
• 70% of the world's surface living space is provided by oceans, and 95% of the world's living space by volume.
• 20-50% of the world's species are found in the ocean (this number is skewed towards the terrestrial as more species have been identified on land, and the large number of insect species)

And there is still so much to learn!

Life photo meme: Misunderstood animal

Which of these is a misunderstood animal?

Sharks have a undeserved reputation of vicious man-eaters, who'd bite your arm off as soon as look at you, and go through the sea eating everything in there path. However, I would bet that more people would agree with the statement that sharks are animals, then would agree with the statement that humans are animals. But in what kingdom would we be placed?

• Plantae: Multi-cellular, non-motile, and autotrophic. We do move, and don't photosythesize so that leaves us out.
• Fungi: Multi-cellular, non-motile, and heterotrophic. Again, no, because we move.
• Protozoa: Generally unicellular, generally motile, can be heterotrophic or autotropic. While this is a grab-bag category, most are unicellular and live in an aquatic environment. That leaves us out.
• Monera: Unicellular (but lacks many membrane-bound organelles), can be motile or non-motile, can be heterotrophic or autotropic. I don't think anybody would try to insist that we are bacteria (at least in the literal sense).
• Animalia: Multicellular, motile, heterotrophic. Bingo! We do walk around, eat things, and we are multicellular.

That was a short list (just three characteristics), but you can see that the animal kingdom is where we fit. So for those of you who missed it, the complete classification of humans:

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Primates
Family: Hominidae
Genus: Homo
Species: sapiens

Note: the shark in the picture is my favorite shark, the zebra shark (Stegostoma fasciatum). They can grow 11 feet long, and eat crabs, clams, and fish they suck out of the sand. As an adult, they look like a potato with spots, and a very long tail.

Photohunter: Funny, but sad...

Signs like this always make me laugh and then shake my head. It's always sad that signs like this are needed. Sometimes people just need to use a little courtesy and common sense. What's really sad is that I know that even with the sign, there is a very good chance that stuff is still being tossed at the alligator.

Mark your calenders!

Mark your calenders for September the 20th for the international coastal clean-up day! On this day, people from around the world will gather and clean up their waterways. Don't live by an ocean? There are clean-ups hosted for creeks, streams, ponds... basically any body of water!

If you want to register online to find out where the clean up closest to you is being held, click here. If you want to contact the clean-up coordinators on your own, there is a list of them here for the US and here for the rest of the world. If there is no clean-up in your area, you can become the host for a clean-up.

This is a great opportunity to help clean-up an area which we all love and cherish, as well as take part in collecting important data on the types and number of trash found around our waterways.

Weekend work

This is particularly appropriate for my weekend... For more PhD fun, click link!