Photo quiz, more intertidal mania, + new-to-me species

  
First, the photo quiz. How many animal species can you find and name in this photo? It's officially a photo of 2, but maybe you'll find even more. =)

So, I'm thinking. Maybe I can have Photo-quiz Phridays as a regular feature (pheature?). I may have enough of a bank of pics, be they obscure, or abstract, to try that out for a while. Thoughts? Please opinion-ify in comments.

More from the glorious days in the rocky intertidal at Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego. HEA-ven.

First, the setting in the southern-most part of the rocky intertidal. It's closed to the public (so SOME part of the intertidal gets a break from people trampling and flipping rocks, etc.) but as I was there to sample, me and my scientific friends got to explore. We also knew what stuff to try and avoid stepping on. =)

View of absolute southern tip of Point Loma, gazing east, beyond the study area, and into the San Diego bay. It's GORgeous out there. LOVE this place. There's a string of large boulder pointing south, upon which we have numerous plots to work, so it's a happy obligation to trek out here.

Zoomed in a bit more. You can see the Coronado Bridge on the left of the horizon.

Looking SSE (ish) at, among other things, Mexico. My friend who sampled with me said the whole time he was there (Point Loma rocky interitdal), his cell phone was convinced he was in Mexico, and thoroughly confused. The WHOLE time.

Looking (mostly) south. There you can see, if you look closely (and enlarge) in the foreground are snowy egrets, demonstrating the birds we wanna count in the shorebird count as they are predators which shape the intertidal. Actually, by eating species which compete with each other, they moderate this competition, which allows more species to exist. Nice! In the background are terns and gulls resting, staring into the breeze, occasionally squawking. They're so chill.

Here are two friends, one new, one old, sampling (finding and measuring longest dimension of) owl limpets (Lottia gigantia) on a boulder which is one of the permanent plots.

FYI, I am obsessed with doing Lottia plots. Obsessed.

The tiny person in the foreground was volunteering because her biology professor at Point Loma Nazarene, bless him, requires his students to GO OUT and DO BIOLOGY/ECOLOGY for part of their grade. What a delight. SO helpful to let folks know what it's actually LIKE. Genius.

The gentleman in the background was my study partner my entire last year of college (undergrad) and is why I got straight As. He's much more disciplined than I, so cracked the whip, and up my GPA went. Yay!

They are both great field people. Accurate, motivated, good communicators, relaxed and fun.

So, here's a closer shot of a plot with gorgeous mussels and actual Lottia and chalk marks, which help us track what limpets we've already measured.

I think these mussel beds are particularly handsome.

If you look closely, you can see the tell tale marks where the Lottia has grazed over the mussels, keeping them clean of algae, pesky barnacles, etc. Tough to describe, but they're definitely visible (again, if click on) on the mussel with the watermark. Seeing those grazing marks makes me inordinately happy. Above that central mussel, right above the watermark, is an actual Lottia, and clearly one that's already been measured.

Beneath the mussel mass are aggregating anemone. Also festooning mussels are thatched barnacles. Scientific names for all in last post.

Glamour shot:

sigh...

So beautiful.

Urf.

Oh, yeah. Waking back up from gorgeous mussel-induced dream state. Resume blog!

Here's the other species I saw that weekend for the FIRST time in those tidepools, despite YEARS of exploration of same.

SO charming. Here's a zoomed in view:

It's the ringed nudibranch, San Diego dorid, common names vary, but Diaulula sandiegensis, not so much. CHARM-ing creature. SO excited to see it.

I had to tell the person who pointed it out to me that it made my day, the next day, and the day after that.

Apparently these guys eat sponges. I seem to have noticed more and more sponges in the CABR rocky intertidal in the previous 5 years than before then, but maybe it's just me. Thanks to http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=diausand for the clues.

I love nudibranchs. Love.

I used to think that they are among the VERY few creatures I adore enough to study to get Ph.D., but need for Ph.D. never materialized. Plus, I'd probably go more toward landscape ecology, but these little creatures are so TEMPT-ing to study. Just to see and be with them.

It's probably me. Tho', if I remember correctly, my high school biology teacher, who was WONderful, LOVED nudibranchs.

Anyhow, that's enough for now.

In summary re: comments:
1. please guess what creatures are in photo quiz
2. what do you think about having Photo Quiz Phridays?
3. do you prefer photographs centered or flush left on this blog?
4. have you gotten out for any outdoor nature adventures of late?

xo biobabbler

Rocky intertidal splendor in the surfgrass

            
Had SUCH an amazing weekend. Got a big, fat dose of the ocean and it's creatures. And fellow bio-enthusiasts.

Basically drove all day Friday and Monday, but Saturday and Sunday participated in the 20th year of rocky intertidal sampling at Cabrillo National Monument.

I've spent a LOT of time, mostly on the clock (tho' now I volunteer), in the rocky intertidal. On Sunday I saw TWO species I've NEVER seen there. Shocked and excited.

Here's the setting. Rocky intertidal zone, tide decidedly OUT. Doesn't immediately make you think WOW, a biological wonderland!

If you look v. close (and click on pic, of course) you can see the Coronado Islands, property of Mexico.

I like the above photo 'cause the flying blonde hair nicely demonstrates the afternoon wind that gradually gets faster and faster. With ocean-drippy pants and shoes, it can get a wee bit cold, but we lucked out with very nice, warm weather.

The low was only about -0.8 feet, but the high pressure (very sunny, dry day) really helped push the water out so I think the effective low was much better (at least -1.0).

Here's a lovely boulder sporting California mussels (Mytilus californianus), owl limpets (Lottia gigantia),  aggregating anemone (Anthopleura elegantissima), thatched barnacles (Tetraclita rubescens), various algal species, plus many other things I can't see in this picture which are, nevertheless, tenaciously present.

Huge, old mussels, covered in thatched barnacles, acorn barnacles (Chthalamus spp.) and more. Awesome old brutes.

Knobby seastar (Pisaster giganteus). A pretty big one for this area, and the blue was fairly muted. I've seen some with more intense blue, but they are, nevertheless, pretty cool looking creatures.

Click on this to see the knobs more clearly. Interesting structures, and you can also see the little red thingies that look to me like the tiny finger-like projections in our intestines (villi) to increase surface area.

According to my genius marine biologist friend up at U Washington, Tacoma, Dr. Bonnie Becker, they are "Pedicellariae. Little pinchers on the surface." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedicellaria.

Best picture I EVER got of a giant keyhole limpet (Megathura crenulata). You can actually see the creature and his/her little face! Upside down, clinging to underside of intertidal rock; both rock and limpet festooned with algae.

The first of the two new-to-me species:

I believe this is a blind goby, Typhlogobius californiensis, but I have only found ONE picture on-line to confirm my on-the-spot guess, and that picture was from far, far away from San Diego. I do know someone from Scripps surveyed for them decades ago and found a lot, then another Scripps person (this a Ph.D. candidate) searched for same around the year 2000 and found close to, if not, none.

Anyhow, if I'm right, these creatures live comensally with ghost shrimp in burrows. Both species can tolerate very low dissolved oxygen. This is all stuff I learned through my contact with the aforementioned Scripps student.

Okay, I'm out of time, but next thing I'll post on this topic is a) the 2nd new-to-me species, and b) a photo quiz!

=)

biobabbler