![Transparent mesoglea (tissue) of a sea jelly held up to the camera between two fingers [240x180, 14K]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2311/2078252973_ab814b4322_m.jpg "Me So Gleeful")
Mesoglea (tissue) from a sea jelly, © Jason RobertshawWhat the Shell Is That? is my series on beachcombing and tidal life. Living on the west coast of Florida, it is mostly about shells, but can also be about other flotsam, fauna and even flora.
Note: I spent a lot of the last week traveling, so did not get a chance to hit the sand. So this is a WSIT encounter from a couple of months ago.
Sea Jelly Mesoglea
Date: 1 December 2007
Location: Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
All along the surf.
Report:
Back around Thanksgiving of last year there were reports of increased numbers of sea jellies in Sarasota Bay. On several occasions I witnessed New Pass awash with numerous drifting moon jellies and sea nettles. Local reports suggested there might be some connection with the extended drought that we were/are experiencing and that an increase in the salinity of the bay contributed to the presence of the jellies.
What I actually found on my walk that day was the eroded remains of some of these creatures. I can’t be sure which ones because there was not much left. The more delicate tentacles and tissue wear away in the intertidal, leaving the denser mesoglea in the surf. Mesoglea is the gelatinous material between the outer and inner cell layers of the sea jellies. It is made of collagen-like connective fibers and tissues. The material is actually pretty resilient, feeling more like a contact lens than like jello.
Coincidentally, the Beachhunter also has a gelatinous post up today. Check out David’s entry Man-of-War Jellyfish Video Clip & Photos.
Also, if there are any budding biologists out there who would like to answer this question, you have a few days left: Why is the mesoglea really thick in medusa and really thin in polyps?
References
Additional Links
The National Science Teachers Association conference is in Beantown this week (March 27-30). I have some familial priorities which kept me from even considering attendance. But I can follow along remotely via the NSTA conference blog.
I have an odd job that is a hybrid of edtech and science education. And yet, as an informal science educator, I am kind of not officially part of either. But there are still lots of talented and passionate people in both worlds and I am glad I can follow along virtually.
Anyone know of any personal blogs from NSTA attendees? I’d be curious if anyone is live blogging (or dare I hope, twittering?) these events.
UPDATE: Doh! I posted this quickly before dashing off to diner tonight. Turns out there is some new media coverage of NSTA in the form of the Lab Out Loud podcast. This looks like a great resource and is definitely going into rotation.
![Pucker and Blat web comic by Jason Robertshaw [425x291, 64K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/puckerandbloat-02-080325.jpg)
Pucker and Bloat #2, Outvertebrates. © Jason Robertshaw
Well, with any luck, I’ll be able to bring you a regular toon each Tuesday. At least, as long as the ideas keep surfacing. If you have any suggestions, let me know.
This one goes out to Kevin Z. and his unremitting quest against the use of paraphyletic nomenclature. Of course, what folks refer to when they say jellyfish are really cnidarians and starfish are echinoderms. There is really nothing fishy about them. A more proper term would be sea jellies and sea stars.
Next week: Evisceration!
![Dead Sea Urchins (wide) [240x180, 40K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3258/2338811253_f57246985f_m.jpg "Dead Sea Urchins (wide)")
![Dead Sea Urchins (medium) [240x180, 40K]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3194/2338811407_5787cda7c0_m.jpg "Dead Sea Urchins (wide)")
![Dead Sea Urchins (close) [240x180, 40K]](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2037/2339646020_94df859d99_m.jpg "Dead Sea Urchins (close)")
Parchment tube from Chaetopterus mixed with thousands of dead urchins, © Jason RobertshawWhat the Shell Is That? is my semi-irregular series on beachcombing and tidal life. Living on the west coast of Florida, it is mostly about shells, but can also be about other flotsam, fauna and even flora.
Parchment Tube Worms (Chaetopterus sp.)
Date: 12 March 2008
Location: Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
All along the wrack line.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Annelida
Class: Polychaeta
Order: Spionida
Family: Chaetopteridae
Parchment Tube Worm (Chaetopterus sp.)
Report:
We had some storms roll through recently that managed to dislodge quite a number of benthic invertebrates. All kinds of critters were washed up on the beach, some in the thousands. There were worms, sea urchins, sea shells and seaweeds of all different kinds and colors. It was good pickings for the beachcombers but even better pickings for the shore birds.
One of the castoffs that piled up in the wrack line were the casings from parchment tube worm (Chaetopterus veriopedatus). Normally these worms burrow into the sand with either end of the tube poking out (see illustration here). The worm itself has several highly modified, bell-like paddles that they beat inside the tube to maintain water circulation. One of the neatest aquarium exhibits I’ve seen was a live Chaetopterus placed inside some clear vinyl tubing. It was thereby possible to watch the rhythmic beating of its paddles. Here’s a photo of a similar set-up.
Another critter that my wife found was one that has long been on my life-list but is so obscure I did not recognize it at the time (hence the poor picture). It was a Polyonyx sp., or a commensal porcelain crab that lives almost exclusively in the tubes of parchment worms. It is rare to find them anywhere else and this one presumably was dislodged from one of the many casings on the beach. You might note how it’s claw seems oddly bent. It wasn’t broken but appeared to be shaped that way.
There were also casings from another type of worm called the decorator or plumed worm (family Onuphidae). You may have heard about the recent debunking of bug eyespots as being mimicry. Well there is a similar amazing story underwater with these creatures. Recent research from Sarah K. Berke and Sarah A. Woodin (University of South Carolina) suggests that the Onuphid’s tube decoration may not be for camouflage after all.
References
Additional Links
Siesta Key self-portrait, © Jason RobertshawI listen to a lot of podcasts. Most are pretty much topical ephemera. I would expect them to enter into my brain and depart as quickly as a joke on late night television. But there is this weird phenomenon whereby I remember segments from certain podcasts as I am walking through my day. It is as if the memory of the audio is stimulated by being in the place where I first heard it. For instance, here I am in the condiment aisle of my local grocer, deciding on which brand of mayo to buy and vividly recalling Robert X. Cringely talking about how Cisco reinvents the mainframe. Or back in 2006, here at this spot on the nature boardwalk, I remember listening to Richard Vobes mentioning his trip to Arundel Castle. Or a few steps later, recently hearing Ira Glass talking about getting his Testosterone checked. But if I try to recall them later, at a different place than where I first heard them, it is not nearly so clear or intense.
To me it is a sensation akin to Déjà Vu. Or is it Jamais Vu? Or something? Anyway, I need a name for this experience and for lack of a better appellation, I am calling it Déjà Entendu (not to be confused with the band).
And I am curious if anyone else has experienced this too. I also wonder if there is anything neurologically interesting about it that is worth considering. There is already plenty of evidence for the linkage between smell and memory. Can the same be true for audio?
![Pucker and Blat web comic by Jason Robertshaw [325x250, 40K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/puckerandbloat-pg-080321.jpg)
Pucker and Bloat #1A, PG version. Click here for profanity. © Jason Robertshaw
When we last left Pucker, we were missing the other star on the marquee of my nascent Web comic. But given the recent kerfuffle over on the Science Blogs over the merits of molluscs versus echinoderms, it seemed natural to settle on a sea cucumber as the best choice to play the sparring role. So there you have it folks, it’s decided: Pucker is an octopus and Bloat will be a sea cucumber.
But what’s the real separation in this spineless schism? What pulls these two poles apart? Why can’t we all swim along? As it turns out, the differences are primordial and profound.
In the very beginning, all animal embryos look very much the same, whether they are snails or sea stars. But once they get around a hundred cells thick, the hollow blob starts to split, forming a hole at one end. This opening, called a blastopore, is important and will ultimately form part of the digestive system of the animal. In a group called the protostomes, this opening forms the mouth. Molluscs and many other invertebrates start life out this way, mouth first. However, in a group called the deuterostomes, this first opening forms the anus. Sea stars, sea cucumbers and sea urchins do it this way, as well as vertebrates, including humans. We start life out butt first.
So it should now be obvious which end these two spatting sides are speaking out of. And my first comic is a tribute to these fundamental differences. It’s a little rough and rude (there are two versions, PG and PG-13). But now that I have these two characters to play with, I need something more for them to say. So if you have a bio joke or aquatic anecdote that lends itself to illustration, let me know. I need ideas. Feed me.
Team Sticky, for the Echinoderms
Team Mucky, for the Molluscs
![Jello in petri dishes that looks like bacteria cultures []](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/pic-080320-rehorst.jpg)
culture.jpg © Mark Rehorst[via Make:]
Oh, this is clever. I might try making some of these to go with the cat litter cake. There seems to be a blog idea in this, in food that looks like science. Paging Dr. Kiki.
I’ve had a few microbiology classes and cultured many different types of bacteria on different media, and I happened to have a case of pyrex Petri dishes from an old surplus buy (relax, they were unused) so I thought it would be fun to make dessert that looked like bacterial cultures served in Petri dishes! I prepared the media (jello, tapioca pudding, and lemon pie filling) and Alex did most of the decorating. This should be good for a Halloween party or a creepy movie night with friends. They might go well with bowls of gummy worms served on ground-up Oreo cookie dirt.
Eggcase from a skate. © J. RobertshawThe Great Eggcase Hunt
With the coming of spring in the northern hemisphere also comes a time to hunt for eggs. But it’s not just about birds anymore. The folks over at the Shark Trust also want people to head to the beach to look out for the fecundity of fish.
Colloquially known as mermaid’s purses, eggcases are the protective capsules laid by skates and some rays**. Inside is a tiny baby skate and a big yolk sac. Typically the capsules have odd keels and horns to help them remain tangled in seaweed and camouflaged on the bottom. The young develop for several months before hatching out as miniature adults. But after hatching, the horny cases begin to breakdown and may come loose, washing up on the shore. Storms might also dislodge living ones from the bottom. If you find a lot of eggcases in an area, it may indicate that a skate nursery is located nearby. This kind of information is valuable to conservationist who are trying to protect these species.
Why does the Shark Trust want you to record eggcases? In recent decades several species of skate and ray around the…coast have dramatically declined in numbers…The identification of these critical areas will enable the Shark Trust to propose conservation measures, in order to reverse the decline of these charismatic animals.
So now’s your chance to contribute to skate and ray conservation and have a lot of fun at the same time.
They have a lot of resources for citizen scientists and for educators who want to organize a local eggcase hunt. And if you don’t live near the coast, you can still take some time this spring to create your own giant eggcases (PDF link) out of balloons and papier-mâché. Or better yet, make some chocolate ones that you can send to me!
Rabbitfish Helping to Save the Reef
Continuing with my aquatic version of things vernal, there is news that rabbitfish might be helping to save the Great Barrier Reef. Many herbivorous reef fish species like parrotfish and tangs regularly graze on the fast-growing algae of the reefs. But apparently they only like to eat it when it’s young and not too weedy. This is where the rabbitfish comes in.
“Then, to our even greater surprise a fish we had never seen in this area before was observed grazing on the weed. The rabbitfish (Siganus canaliculatus), came out of nowhere and began to clear-fell the weed placed on the reef crest.”
The rabbitfish were caught on underwater videocams, in schools of up to 15 fish, grazing the crest, slopes and outer flats of the reef, and chomping away at more than ten times the rate of other weed-eaters.
sƎʇɐʞs ɹƎɥ :ɐ*
![Pucker, the Cephalopodcas mascot [png, 200x225, 104K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/cutiepus1.png)
I’d like to introduce you to the Cephalopodcast mascot. His name is Pucker. He’s got suckers.I am starting a new series on this blog called Pucker and Bloat. It’s named after one of the distortion filters available in Adobe Illustrator and I think it sounds pretty funny. It will feature postings based on my dawdling doodles made with this new tool. And since Illustrator is vector-based*, it should be possible for me to later animate the images in another program I want to work with, namely Flash.
Pucker and Bloat also sounds like a good name for a cartoon, don’t you think? So I am going to use that as a springboard to guide my studies. And with that in mind, I’d like to introduce you to the first character, Pucker. He might look familiar. In fact, it’s sketched from the Cephalopodcast mascot, who now officially has a name. This is not the final version. I am going to keep working on it. But in the meantime, I have to come up with a second character called Bloat. That sure sounds like the name of a blowfish to me. But what do you think? What marine creature would be friends with Pucker and have a name like Bloat?
Besides making learning fun for me and amusing for you (I hope), my other goal is to end up with a series of marine life clipart images. If this works, I’ll make them available under a Creative Commons license for use by educators.
So are any of you illustrators? Any one using Illustrator? What resources are your favorites? I am looking for tutorials and sources of inspiration. Here’s some of my favorites:
*Graphics programs basically come in two varieties, raster- or vector-based. Raster programs like Photoshop represent an image pixel by pixel. Because of this, they can produce painterly effects but the images are difficult to scale. Vector programs create images as a series of lines and polygons that can easily be scaled because they are fundamentally just mathematical expressions. It’s always reminded me of the wave/particle duality of physics.
![Humboldt squid on the ground [300x199, 26K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/quest080318.jpg "source: www.kqed.org/quest/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/squid1.jpg")
QUEST is a savvy multimedia (TV, radio, web) series by KQED that explores the science, environment and nature of Northern California. On April 1st they start their second TV season with a feature on Humboldt squid and an interview with humble squid expert Professor Bill Gilly (Stanford University’s Hopkins Marine Station).
If you can’t tune into Channel 9 in the San Francisco area, then head over to iTunes to pick up the podcast.
Also, if you have a story idea germane to their series, they’d like to hear about it. Personally, I think it’d be neat if they did something on the recent (and rare) wolverine sighting in north California. Or better yet, it’d be neat if they did an animal face-off between a wolverine and a Diablo Rojo. Talk about compelling television! 
But I guess that’s the fare of a different kind of network.
Also, a quibble: they include the scientific name of the Humboldt squid (Dosidicus gigas) on the sneak peek Web site. They get the capitalization correct, which is exceptional, but not the italicization. Why is this matter of styling binomial classification always handled so poorly by journalist and editors?
UPDATE: Something mysterious is stirring in the waters of Half-Moon Bay. It’s a “web-exclusive premiere” and additional photos of the new KQED program.
Just testing the connection between MarsEdit and my updated Wordpress blog.
Please standby. I am updating my Wordpress blog to a new version today, Sunday, 3/9/2008. Some services may not be restored until after 5:00 p.m. (EDT)
![Pucker and Blat web comic by Jason Robertshaw [425x291, 64K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/puckerandbloat-02-080325.png)
![Pucker and Blat web comic by Jason Robertshaw [325x250, 40K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/puckerandbloat_pg_080321.png)
![Pucker, the Cephalopodcas mascot [png, 200x225, 104K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/cutiepus.png)
by Mordy Golding, because I’ve got a lot to learn.
Jason Robertshaw
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