Saturday, July 5, 2008

the crow walk

I've turned super nerd...

1. I heart seaweed and really want to take a phycology course. This was taken at about 7am at middle cove right about when the sun was breaking through the clouds. There are at least 10 species of seaweed here.
2. I also really enjoy pressing seaweed. I've made some very pretty stuff so far.

3. I love my xtratufs as usual.

4. I like waking up early on my day off to go tidepooling. Here are some leafy hornmouth carnivorous snails we found yesterday. Annie and I had read papers on them earlier that week. It was a rather exciting moment.

5. I enjoy surveying quadrats early early in the morning. Here are some Onchodella (small sea slugs) we found them after some serious searching.
6. I've mastered a mean crow impression. And if you are lucky you can bear witness to it at some point.

My friend and I are doing a project comparing the leg length to body width ratio of Pisaster at Middle cove and on the boat docks to see if they develop differently based on wave exposure and their ability to hold on.

Here is a shag rug nudibranch. hehe! They ingest anemone stinging cells called nematocysts to protect their soft bodies from hungry predators.

Here is an example of succession in a empty patch of mussle bed. I am going to do field work on these patches at South sunset and various other locations looking at patch size and the species that settle shortly after they mussles are ripped off the rocks (usually by wave action).