Cephalopodcast

It’s Deep-Sea Coral Week over at the Deep-Sea News blog, from April 27-May 3. It’s worth a look, with many interesting posts already up and many more to come each day.

Coral Reefs and Creatures of the Deep Sea

One of the podcasts I enjoy listening to is the Naked Scientists. Back on 23rd April 2006 they did a show featuring not only deep sea corals but giant squid too. It’s two great tastes that go great together, and you can check it out yourself. Skip the boring stuffastrophysics at the beginning and forward the transport controls to minute 32:00 to hear the interesting stuff.

Delving into the dark depths of science this week is Dr Ron Douglas from City University in London, who describes the fascinating world of deep sea fish, bioluminescence and the sights from a deep sea sub, Dr Jason Hall-Spencer from the University of Plymouth talks about cold water corals and the threats posed by fishermen, and from slightly warmer waters Dr David Kline from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama reveals how Caribbean corals are suffering due to sugar pollution. Also in the show, Fran Beckerleg interviews John Ablett at the Natural History Museum in London about a giant squid called Archie, and getting the low down on the high seas, Derek Thorne finds out how a submarine works in Kitchen Science.

• Naked Scientists Podcast: Coral Reefs and Creatures of the Deep Sea

“It appears to be confined to the Mediterranean Sea, where it grows, especially on the southern coast, attached to rocks at considerable depths in the sea. It is fished up from the deep by means of nets and other instruments. The manufacture of ornaments of this coral at Naples is of great extent.” — Goodrich, 1859
Source: S. G. Goodrich Animal Kingdom Illustrated Vol 2 (New York: Derby & Jackson, 1859)

It’s Deep-Sea Coral Week over at the Deep-Sea News blog, from April 27-May 3. It’s worth a look, with many interesting posts already up and many more to come each day.

Coral Clipart

The Florida Center for Instructional Technology
has made a number of antique woodcuts and engravings available online for educational use. Many of these include things zoological, including several anthozoan images.

While the license is generous, this collection could really benefit from an updated treatment with Creative Commons. Also, like most clipart collection, many of the specimens are mis-classified. For instance, larval arthropods are generously mixed in with the annelids. But those vermiform organisms were vexatious even for Linneaus (say that fast seven times).

In no particular taxonomic order

• Clipart ETC: Corals and Sea Anemone
• Clipart ETC: Sponges
• Clipart ETC: Squid and Octopus
• Clipart ETC: Worms (and caterpillars)
• Clipart ETC: Zoology A
• Clipart ETC: Sea Urchins and Sea Stars
• Clipart ETC: Sea Cucumbers
• Clipart ETC: Mollusk M - Z
• Clipart ETC: Fish S - Z
• Clipart ETC: Crustaceans

April 27 is World Tapir Day. So go hug your nearest perissodactylid.

Today is World Tapir Day. I know, it’s the kind of celebration that can just sneak up on you out of the woods without you even knowing it. Which is the same kind of problem facing these creatures. They are disappearing from the forest without enough people noticing it.

I met a tapir once. It was at the Belize Zoo, and the tapir was kind of famous, if mostly locally. Her name was April. And profits from the sale of merchandise from the first Tapir Day celebration are going towards the Belize Zoo’s tapir conservation and education programs.

So what is a tapir? They are odd-looking herbivorous mammals that inhabit Central and South America and South-East Asia. In Belize they call them mountain cows, which seems apt if not exact. There are four species left in the world and all face threats from shrinking natural range.

As large herbivores, tapirs are invariably the first species affected by human encroachment into their territory, and amongst the last to return to regrowth forest. They require substantial tracts of undisturbed land to maintain a genetically-diverse population. Tapirs inhabit jungles, grasslands, swamps and cloud forests, yet each is threatened by human activity - be that mining, palm oil plantations, roads or settlements. They form an important part of the ecosystem as seed dispersers, and form one of the oldest surviving genera in the animal kingdom.

Despite their size, history and ecological importance, tapirs remain one of the least recognised species of animals. In comparison with other animals, tapirs feature little in the collective consciousness and are frequently misidentified by zoo visitors. Even in their home ranges, tapirs receive little attention, with exotic species featuring more prominently in zoos, children’s books and the media.

Resources

• Official World Tapir Day Web Site
• Tapir Day: Facebook Group
• Tapir Day forums: Help Name the Tapir Day mascot
• Tapir Day: eStore and Tshirts. Proceeds benefit the Belize Zoo.
• Teacher’s Guide to Tapirs: Tapirs of the World (PDF)
• The Belize Zoo also has a podcast.
• Flickr: skoop102’s all Tapir photoset, including cross-stitch and gingerbread tapir cookies.
• The Tapir Blog
• TAPIRS: The Tapir Preservation Fund (TPF) Blog
• The Tapir Gallery

Tapir Books

• The Tapir’s Morning Bath: Solving the Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest (Paperback) by Elizabeth Royte.
• Jungle Song (Hardcover) by Miriam Moss (Author), Adrienne Kennaway (Illustrator). A story set in a South American tropical rain forest for PreSchool-Grade 3.

The Florida Marine Science Educators Association celebrates its 40th year anniversary. Don’t miss the 2008 Annual Conference: A Wonder-Water Discovery

I’ll be giving a presentation tomorrow during the Florida Marine Science Educators Association 2008 Annual Conference. Presentation materials will be posted here.

Presentation description:

From the depths of the oceans to the tops of the waves, scientist, teachers and students are using blogs, podcasts and other new media to raise awareness of ocean issues. Unlike static Web-based content, this new media revolution allows for real-time conversations and discovery. This session explores the emerging environment of ocean blogging and shows how you can get on board.  Case studies of building understanding through new media at the intersection of science, education, and conservation will be examined. Join us for a lively and interactive session and explore the new virtual frontier of ocean education.

Cephalopodcast - The Ocean Podcast

 

 Cephalopodcast #8: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (599)

24 April 2008, The Ocean Hour

On 22 April 2008 I hosted one hour out of a 24-hour long Earth Day webcastathon. My program was about ocean conservation and I was joined by two fellow ocean enthusiasts and science bloggers. First is Dr. Karen James, director of science for the The HMS Beagle Project. The Beagle Project is an international effort to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday by building a sailing replica of his ship and then retracing the 1831-1836 Voyage of the Beagle with an international crew of researchers, aspiring scientists and science communicators. Also joining me was Rick MacPherson, Director of Conservation Programs with the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) and author of the Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets. CORAL is a member-supported, non-profit organization, dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs by integrating ecosystem management, sustainable tourism, and community partnerships.

Tune of Fish

Rounding out the program was a musical contribution from Kevin Zelnio. Kevin could not make it live for the program, but he had a very good excuse.

Kevin Zelnio, What Did the Deep Sea Say [3:50]

Listener Feedback

My thanks again to the EdTechTalk.com community for hosting and organizing Earthcast 2008. My thanks also to Peter Etnoyer and the other live participants in the ETT chat room. And to the guests, Karen and Rick.

Also, thanks to you for listening. If you have ideas for future programs or feedback, please send me a message at cephalopodcast [at] gmail [dot] com, or call the Cephalo-Hotline at 1-941-256-0097.

The NY Times recently did an article on soniferous fishes. These are animals like drums and toadfish that produce, and presumably communicate, with sound. In some circumstances, these noises can be heard by home owners living on canals or live-aboard boats.

However, there is a quote in the article from Professor Philip Lobel from Boston University that annoys (a noise?) me:

Yet of the 30,000 species out there, only about 1,200 sound producers have been cataloged, and far fewer have been recorded. Even common goldfish have merited just two scientific publications. In fact, said Philip Lobel, a professor of biology at Boston University, “Most aquarium fish are sonic. Keeping fish in an aquarium is like keeping a canary in a soundproof cage.”

Have you ever pressed your ear against a home aquarium? It’s typically a din of bubblers and impellers that are anything but noiseless. I’ve wondered what kind of effect that has on the captive fish. And now doubly so if it turns out the creatures are trying to communicate with each other over the racket.

Dolphin Diner Bell

The article also makes mention of how dolphins listen for soniferous fish. Researchers at my work have noted the prevalence of soniferous fish in the diet of area dolphins. It appears that the dolphins studied do not actively and energetically echolocate all the time. Instead, they passively listen for the calls of their prey to locate them generally. Then when they are closer, they use echolocation to home in for the kill. This also suggests that there is an evolutionary interplay between sound detecting dolphins and sound producing fish. A similar relationship has been demonstrated between calling frogs and frog-eating bats. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some similar acoustic aposematism going on underwater too.

• NY Times: What’s Making That Awful Racket? Surprisingly, It May Be Fish
• NY Times: Run Noisy, Run Deep, and interactive piece that lets you listen to the noise of soniferous fish, including the fast repetitive ticks (FaRTs) of herring.

Listen to the Earthcast 08 PSA (mp3)
Watch the Earthcast 08 PSA (YoutTube)

This is just a quick reminder about the upcoming Earth Day webcast on 22 April 2008. My hour of programming will be about ocean conservation and starts at 10:00 p.m. GMT (that’s 6:00 p.m. Eastern, 3:00 p.m. Pacific).

I will be joined by three fellow ocean enthusiasts and science bloggers, including Dr. Karen James, director of science for the The HMS Beagle Project. The Beagle Project is an international effort to celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday by building a sailing replica of his ship and retracing his 1831-1836 voyage of discovery. Also joining me will be Kevin Zelnio, author of The Other 95% Web site and co-blogger at Deep-Sea News. Kevin’s scientific training is in invertebrate zoology and marine ecology at Penn State University where he studies the ecology of deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities. And rounding out the panel will be Rick MacPherson, Director of Conservation Programs with the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) and author of the Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets blog. CORAL is a member-supported, non-profit organization, dedicated to protecting the health of coral reefs by integrating ecosystem management, sustainable tourism, and community partnerships.

I hope you can join us in the discussion. And my thanks go out to worldbridges.net for hosting and coordinating these events.

• More info: edtechtalk.com/earthcast08
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Dr. Karen James
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Kevin Zelnio
• Blog Around the Clock: Interview with Rick MacPherson

YouTube | TeacherTube

Earthcast 2008 PSA (video) by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

It can be a challenge for environmental non-profits and educational outfits to produce original multimedia content. On a tight budget it can be tough to produce compelling content in-house, so at some point, the question of using stock images or video comes up. This has a cost too in the form of licensing, clearances and properly managing the rights to the media. Fortunately, there are some low cost (and free) resources available.

Reef Vid

A resource of free coral reef video clips for educational use

Professor Peter Mumby from the University of Exeter has made available a number of coral reef video clips. The database has over 500 clips which are free for educational and research use. The clips on the Web site are suitable for use in a PowerPoint presentation. Full-quality footage is available on mini-DV tapes, DVD, or DVD-ROM (recorded in PAL) by contacting them.

Environmental Video from the Feds

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also maintains a library of public domain video footage. The only cost is for reproduction, there are no other licenses or clearances required. All they ask is that you credit them as the source. In particular, I’ve found the Year of the Ocean, Turtle Excluder Device (TED) and Commercial Fishing to be useful stock footage for many projects. They also have a photo library of royalty-free still images.

Quality at a Price

Finally, there are also exceptional stock libraries available for a fee. The quality of these is incredible and the staff are available to help you find just the right image for your message. Some of the more marine-themed ones are listed below.

Have you used any other video resources for ocean conservation? Let me know.

• Reef Vid
• NOAA B-Roll
• Stock Photo: Image Quest 3-D
• Stock Video: Ocean Footage
• Stock Video: BioMedia Associates. Bacteria, Protozoans and more.
• Stock Video: Al Giddings Images
• Previously: Vintage Ocean and Science Fair Footage
• Previously : Free fish pics: NOAA updates online photo library
• Previously: Free undersea images from Coral Reef Alliance

I’ll be heading up to St. Petersburg sometime tomorrow to the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute*. They are having their annual open house, called MarineQuest, and their should be a lot of events and activities for anyone interested in marine biology.

I also got my little Belkin TuneTalk working again, so I hope to record a little sound-seeing tour along the way to share later.

MARINEQUEST 2008
Saturday, April 19, 2008
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

FWC Fish and Wildlife Research Institute
100 Eighth Avenue Southeast
St. Petersburg, Florida [Map and Directions]

• MarineQuest 2008

*What is now the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute used to be called the Florida Marine Research Institute when it was part of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection. But back in 1999, an amendment to the state’s constitution merged the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission, the Marine Fisheries Commission and other elements, forming the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Flickr photo: dead horseshoe crab by Epsilon289
Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Horseshoe crabs are not really crabs at all, being more closely allied to spiders and scorpions. There are only four species in the world, but they have a fossil record dating back more than 400 million years. Their annual spawning along the east coast of the United States serves as a vital food resource for migrating birds.

At work we do a program on invertebrates for the little guys (K-2nd grade). When we hold up a horseshoe crab and ask them what it is, some invariably identify it as a stingray. When we flip the carapace over they are surprised to see the pinchers and legs. So presumably, the ray is a more familiar animal to many children. If you are a teacher interested in rectifying this matter, I encourage you to check out the many lesson plans and resources over at horseshoecrab.org.

InVERSEabrates

April is National Poetry Month and the oceans provide a lot of inspiration for verse. And one outlet for that creativity comes each year with the annual arts competition from Horseshoecrab.org.

[Horesehoecrab.org] invites students from around the world to submit poems, tales and images in appreciation and celebration of the remarkable horseshoe crab. Through the arts, our future environmental stewards have a voice which is heard globally.

The competition is open to all grade levels pre-K – 12. Students may enter through their school or can enter individually. Each year 30-50 student visual/language artworks are selected to appear in our annual anthology, “Horseshoe Crabs & the Arts.” Each of the young artists as well as their teacher receives a copy of this limited edition artist’s book. All selected works are posted on our web site in the “Poems, Tales and Images” category. In addition the works are reproduced for exhibit in our traveling art exhibition, which has been hosted in art and nature centers throughout the United States and Japan. International entrants are encouraged to help us identify art centers in their countries that may also be interested in hosting the exhibition. We welcome invitations for international display of these outstanding student works!

The competition begins each September and the deadline for entry is today. Selected artists are notified in the beginning of June.

• Horseshoecrab.org: Horseshoe Crabs & the Arts Competition
• Horseshoecrab.org: Previous competition winners (poems, art and more)
• Horseshoecrab.org: lovely anatomy of a horseshoecrab poster (34″ x 22″, $18.00 each)
• University of Delaware Sea Grant College Program: Horseshoe crabs
• PBS Nature: Crash: A Tale of Two Species. This is a video program about the horseshoe crab and the red knot. There is also an Educator’s Guide
• Windracer: Horseshoecrab Transformers
• Andrea Koupal: Anthropomorphic Horseshoecrab
• More Ocean Art Contests: Our Ocean and Coastal Ecosystems Art Competition

Just like Sony to use intellectual property without attribution

The term Cephalopodcast was used on the April 14th episode of the popular television game show Jeopardy!™. No producers or researchers from the program contacted me.

Apparently there is quite an enthusiastic fan-base for the show, and they have meticulously documented nearly every nuance of the program, from the order of questions picked to the contestants’ point spread throughout the game. You can check it out at J! Archive. Because of their effort, you can see all the tentacly questions and answers for the Cephalopodcast topic here.

If anyone has a screen grab or a video sequence from this episode, please let me know. It would be nice to have for archival purposes. Can one order individual episodes of this program?

• J! Archive: Show #5441 - Monday, April 14, 2008

Tip of the tentacle to Eric for the lead.

Florida Surf Clams (aka, Coquina, Donax variabilis), © Jason Robertshaw

What 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:
This is a bonus, double-feature entry. You get the WSIT #5 and Cephalovlog #4 combined in one.

Florida Surf Clams (aka, Coquina, Donax variabilis)

Date: 6 April 2008
Location: Siesta Key, Sarasota, Florida, U.S.A.
All along the surf.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Mollusca
Class: Bivalvia
Order: Veneroida
Family: Donacidae
Genus: Donax
Coquina Clams (Donax variablis)

Report:
Surf clams, also called Coquina, are bean-sized (2 cm), colorful bivalves that make their living in one of the most challenging habitats, the surf zone. They are filter feeders, extending their siphons into the water as it washes over them. As the wave pulls back out, they are often exposed at the surface and have to quickly put their muscular foot down to scoot back beneath the sand. It seems like a very energetically expensive way to make a living and it’s surprising they get enough nutrients from just filtering bacteria and algae out of the water (but still further proof that even the tiniest mollusks are tough enough to whip any echinoderm’s hiney).

The clams, in turn, are an important food source for shorebirds. People seem to like them too, but personally I have never eaten them before. The shells of these animals also accumulate over time and mix with other sediment to form a consolidate material called Coquina rock. It is used as a building material throughout Florida.

Something else that was remarkable, and requires more investigation, was the presences of hundreds of small marine worms. You can see a close up in the video about half way through. These worms would suddenly appear in the hundreds, wriggling after a wave wash, only to disappear instantaneously beneath the sand.

Cephalovlog #4: 60 Second Surf

I borrowed the Sanyo Xacti E1 from work for a field test. This little camera is immersible to 5 meters. I did not need to send it that far down to video these little guys, as they are in the wash zone of the beach. Video was edited in iMovie and scored in Garageband. Note, this is not time-lapse footage. The clams really do dig that fast.

Donax me

References

• Ruppert, Edward and Richard Fox. Seashore Animals of the Southeast. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. pp. 158.
• Witherington, E., Blair and Dawn Witherington. Florida’s Living Beaches. City: Pineapple Press (FL), 2007. pp. 109.

Additional Links

• YouTube: Cephalovlog #5
• Wikipedia: Donax
• Wikipedia: Coquina rock
• SeashellGuide.com: Coquina: Catching “Butterflies”
• FL Fish and Wildlife Research Institute: Coquina Clams

The latest Carnival of the Blue is up at Zooillogix. Plenty of “hot, mollusk action” in this one. Sad to say, I completely missed the deadline (again), so no entries from me. Instead, enjoy apophallatic hermaphrodites from the Oyster’s Garter, plastinated squids from the Bleiman Brothers, or even suicidal pelagics from Rick.

And next month remind me to send a link to Mark before it’s too late.

Earthcast 2008 Web badge by Jason Robertshaw is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Webcast Around the Earth Day 2008

Earth Day is coming up on April 22 and the fine folks over at the Worldbridges.net community are celebrating by hosting a 24 hour webcast focused on the environment. Earthcast 2008 will feature live, interactive programs from educators, students and other citizens of the planet starting at midnight GMT.

The Other 71%

I am planning on covering one of the hours with a program focused on the other 71% of our planet’s surface. Guests for the program include Dr. Karen James from the Beagle Project and Kevin Zelnio of Deep-Sea News and The Other 95%. I also have feelers out to a few other ocean bloggers. If you know of anyone else who would like to join the conversation, let me know. More details on how to participate will be posted here in the coming days. Stay tuned.

What: This is intended to be a 24 hour long conversation about the health of our planet. We hope to have participants from around the world moderate an day long conversation. Potential guests could include local leaders, student environmental advocates, scientists/engineers, politicians, grassroots leaders, etc.

When: Tuesday, April 22nd 2008. We will follow the 24 hour GMT day (we’ll use the time in Greenwich, England as the standard for planning the time blocks).

Why: The goal is to help our participants (both listeners and moderators) form a more global perspective on the issue of sustainability and the health of the earth.

• Enviroscims: Earth Day 2008 24 Hour Webcastathon!
• Earthcast 2008 flyer (PDF)
• Dr. Karen James, The Beagle Project
• Kevin Zelnio, Deep-Sea News and The Other 95%

UPDATE: Rick MacPherson from Malaria, Bedbugs, Sea Lice and Sunsets is now also on the ticket.

Here’s a couple more amusing items for your consideration today.

• Cloaca Classic Thong
• Avenging Narwhal Play Set
• Explorer 420 Windup Submarine
• Gummy Tapeworm
• Frogmen vs. Radioactive Octopus
• Missing Cat Poster
• Bill Nye Bobblehead

Hello Arthropodcast

This is a difficult decision, but I’ve been thinking about making some serious changes to the focus of this Web site. As you may have noticed, I have not been especially productive in the output of actual podcasts. I finally realized the problem was with the name. For whatever reason, I settled on cephalopods as a mascot and icon for this site. I thought the name was clever. I thought cephalopods were cool. It was a mistake. As my buddy Lirpa Sloof said, crustaceans are really the coolest creatures in the sea (and by extension, so are all arthropods). So I am officially changing the name of the site to the Arthropodcast. This will have several advantages.

First, the recent Invertebrate Wars have made me realize that neither group of organisms (echinoderms or molluscs) really captures the imagination and hearts of ocean enthusiasts. I think people are much more excited and interested in the arthropods, especially terrestrial ones like insects and spiders. This name change will also make it easier for folks to get the pun in the title (i.e., it’s a podcast about arthropods).

Second, arthropods are more abundant and diverse than both molluscs and echinoderms combined. As I mentioned, they are also masters of both land and sea. Compare this to the other two groups. There are no living examples of terrestrial echinoderms. There is only a rare fossil specimen of an arboreal urchin, but that species died out with the tree ferns. Also, the few examples of terrestrial mollusks are pretty pathetic, consisting of only a hand full of thin-shelled snails. True, there are rumors of an arboreal cephalopod, but most of those sightings can be ascribed to Bigfoot chasers high on mescaline and urchin envy.

So there you have it. My rationale for changing this Web site. It will take me a little while to make all the necessary changes. But I hope you will agree it’s for the better.

*I also briefly considered calling it the Isopodcast, but quickly realize that was in fact too obscure.

UPDATE: This compelling argument from Craig helped me come back to my senses and restore the original mascot and moniker to the Web site. But for historical purposes, here’s a screenshot.