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 …
Question: What is worm-like in flexibility, orange and textured, and feeds off deposits on the bottom of the sea floor? Echinodermata – Parastichopus californicus is exactly that… and more! In our dissection of this unfortunate sea cucumber Ross and I were able to explore the surprisingly simple inner workings of …
Cattle Point’s obvious biogeographic zones as well as the many species-level interactions framing these organic equilibrium states combine to highlight (for me anyway) a significant focal tension in biological and environmental sciences. At the macro scale, astute longterm observations of rocky North Pacific shores loan themselves to teaching lessons that …