Naturally, I have to talk about something from the state up North. Although there are Orcas–northern residents and transients–in Alaska, I am much more familiar with the humpbacks. Humpbacks, Megaptera novaeangliae, are pretty much the cutest thing on earth… if a fifty foot long whale can be cute. If these …
Until a week ago, I could not have told you the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin, and in fact, would have used the terms interchangeably. No longer, my friends! I have been learninated! At the Whale Museum last week I finally discovered the differences between these two types …
Undoubtedly the darlings of Pacific Northwest megafauna, whales have captured our imagination for centuries. Vicious killers, gentle grazers, awe-inspiring and reverent, whales have filled human culture with imagery and lore that persists to this day. But are whales truly the first and only ’monster-mammals’ of the Salish Sea? I undertook …
Whale lice. Who’da thunk it? At the Whale Museum last Thursday, most of you probably noticed the display case containing various parasitic invertebrates that can sometimes cause whales a lot of grief. One of the species displayed was the parasitic whale barnacle Coronula diadema. These barnacle infections occur frequently and …
It’s a MONSTER!! …well, that might be a bit extreme. But the hybridization between Dall’s (Phocoenoides dalli) and Harbour (Phocoena phocoena) porpoises struck me as both rare and strange. Dall’s and Harbour porpoise morphology. Few good images of Dall’s-Harbour hybrids are freely distributed. Natural hybridization between wild animals of different …
As I’ve said to several of you, you don’t have to decide between being an invert person or a mammal lover; you can be both! Just study whale falls. I find them absolutely amazing. Almost immediately upon sinking, hagfish to amphipods to sleeper sharks converge to this feast of …
Cetaceans break my heart. They are the fragile and failing embodiment of old earth intelligence and majesty. Ever floating, flying, falling within a deep blue salty matrix of emotional complexity: empathy, loyalty, compassion, delight, elation. Further reinforcing this mystique and sensitivity last week was the Whale Museum’s revelation of the cultural breadth and character of Orca matriline song clans and formal pod greeting ceremonies. It …
When people think of a bivalve organism, they should typically imagine a sessile animal with it’s shell partially or fully buried in the sand and feeding through its elongated siphon which filters out plankton in the water column. A scallop, the only migratory bivalve organism, seems to defy many stereotypical …
Now that Jessica has stolen my thunder by doing a great job of describing the crystalline sac and crystalline style, that fabulous organ in some mollusks that spins around in the sac, I none-the-less have to acknowledge her ability as an artist. How she took an ordinary mussel that looked …
Lab this Thursday was like a day in the life of a McCatchin, we got to murder and dissect things! My group was responsible for the death of two Mytilus edulis and a clam. The first mussle we cut open exploded with gonads and we had to cut up another …