![Point-of-Rocks, Sarasota, FL [240x180, 25K]](http://farm1.static.flickr.com/78/216538512_a1c04734ba_m.jpg "Point-of-Rocks, Sarasota, FL")
[via bioephemera]
ATTENTION!
Sunday is the first annual International Rock-Flipping Day.
The point is simply to have fun, and hopefully learn something at the same time. We don’t want to over-determine what that something should be: those of a more scientific frame of mind might focus on i.d.s or ecological interactions, while those of an artistic or poetic bent could go in a different direction entirely. Pictures alone would suffice, of course. But whatever you do, please be sure to replace all rocks that you flip as soon as possible, so as not to disrupt the natives’ lives unduly.
![IRFD web badge [200x200, 45K]](http://cephalopodcast.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/pic-irfd2007c.jpg)
Here at Cephalopodcast HQ we are making plans to visit our favorite rock flipping site. You can share your results via Flickr or email your efforts to the organizers below.
UPDATE: I made a couple of optional and complimentary web badges to accompany any IRFD events. Available in various sizes and with or without a grass border.
![Cassiopea xamachana, gulfspecimen.org [431x288, 57K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070809_gulfspec02.gif "Cassiopea xamachana, gulfspecimen.org")
Last summer we started noticing upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopeia sp.) appearing in abundance in Sarasota Bay, Florida. These are typically saucer-sized animals that are content to pulse upside-down (hence the name) on the bay bottom, exposing their frilly, weed-like tentacles to the sun. They aren’t supposed to have much of a sting, but apparently some people do get an allergic reaction to touching them.
These creatures have a symbiotic relationship with the algae that packs their tentacles. It is similar to the relationship between reef-forming, stony corals and their algae partners. These partners are called zooxanthellae (zoe-zan-thelly), or as we like to tell the kids, they are the green jelly in the belly of the corals. Not strictly accurate, but catchier than saying the dinoflagellate symbionts in the endoderm of hermatypic cnidarians. The algae photosynthesizes, producing oxygen and sugars that the animals use. In return, the animals give the algae a protective matrix to grow in, carbon dioxide and other waste products that act like fertilizers.
Typically you find these jellies further south in Florida and it’s unsual to see them this far north. This story just recently got some mainstream press coverage and by coincidence the inkspot blog posted some beautiful pictures and video of upside-down jellies nearly the same day.
It’s interesting to note that this article by Karla C. Garcia states that the upside-down jellies tend to expel their zooxanthellae under stressful conditions, like extreme water temperatures and changes in salilnity. In coral reefs, this process is commonly referred to as bleaching. Presumably the conditions in Sarasota Bay have change now in favor of recruitment by Cassiopeia larvae and their algae. Sarasota Bay has also been affected by several seasons of serious red tide outbreaks. It is interesting to speculate if this may have influenced the natural predators of the planktonic larvae.
And here’s the obligatory disclaimer. These animals are not fish, of course, and some people object to calling them jellyfish. They are an ancient lineage of animals that predate any finny creatures with backbones. Instead, simply call them sea jellies and you should be okay.
![BioJar [400x300, 38K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070805_BioJar.jpg "The BioJar, tabletop biosphere project from Make magazine")
Make magazine has instructions on building your own miniature aquatic biosphere. I took the weekend challenge and made my own using specimens from a retention pond near work. There were snails and crustaceans in abundance, including grass shrimp (Palaemonetes sp.), amphipods (aka, scuds) and copepods.
![Make:Biosphere - completed project [100x75, 6.5K]](http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1412/1021494584_e93a2d2a6b_t.jpg "Make:Biosphere - completed project")
The instructions call for the use of a sea shell to help with buffering. I thought I would be smart and use a small deer antler instead. It looked good at first, but I never properly degreased the thing, so the set up went south pretty quickly. I removed the antler and restarted with a little crushed coral gravel. I also added the iconic econaut refuge (orange diver) and a little bit of hornwort purchased from the pet store.
Cephalovlog #2: 60 Seconds of Green Pond Scum
I made a little video featuring some of the critters. I used a jeweler’s loupe held next to my Canon ZR500 and Powershot A95 (movie setting) to get close-up shots of them in action. It was edited with iMovie and scored in Garageband.
Blip.tv | YouTube
Lessons Learned
Needless to say, this is a great lesson in ecosystem management. Unlike an aquarium, the tabletop biosphere is a closed system. All nutrients must cycle from the plants (producers) to the animals (consumers) and back again (via decomposers/bacteria). A well balanced biosphere can last a couple of years, with some commercial manufacturers claiming systems that have run for ten years or more.
In addition to the articles from Make, there are several lesson plans out there for starting biospheres in the classroom. It might be interesting to get students started with these at the beginning of the year and see which ones last the longest. See the links below for more ideas.
Tendrils
I also wanted to highlight another sources of inspiration for this project. It is an aquascaping photoblog simply called Green. I encourage you to marvel at the beautiful macro photography of Marcus Wallinder’s miniature worlds. And if its zen-like, award-winning design inspires you, then here are more than 130 palettes to “help you get your green on” too.
Susan Scott writes a weekly column for the Honolulu Star-Bulletin called Ocean Watch. She started the column in 1987. You can search the online archives back to 1996. Below are a couple selections.
LiveScience reports on new research by Dr Roger Hanlon which suggests that squid are oblivious to the ultrasonics of whales. It was theorized that whales might use ultrasonic blasts to stun their prey. Instead, it may be that whales capture thier prey by creating a super suction by flexing their bodies.
The researchers played recorded ultrasound whale clicks to several long-finned squid (Loligo pealeii) swimming in a water tank.
The ultrasound clicks were broadcast at up to 226 decibels, which is about the most intense whale echolocation click a squid would be exposed to in the wild. If the clicks were at a frequency humans could hear, they would be as loud as a rifle shot heard from three feet in front of the muzzle.
But not only were the squid not knocked senseless, they did not react at all to the ultrasound bursts, and actually swam in front of the speaker as if nothing were happening.
Hanlon is also the scientist who filmed the disappearing octopus video.
There is a new inky link for cephalopod enthusiasts: The Cephalopod Centerfold. It is a blog by Jessica from Massachusetts.
I live in Massachusetts. I like squids, octopus, nautiluses, cuttlefish-anything with at least eight underwater arms. Uh, drowning spiders don’t count.
Guess the last bit means that ear spiders are out of the consideration. But highlights so far include: baconopod, sink cephalopods and octopus papercraft.
The weird news making headlines recently is the true story of a Oregonian boy who had a pair of spiders living in his ear. But this got my own spider-sense tingling, because that is a pretty tight space for even the tiniest chelicerates to co-habitate. Rather, I suspected that there was only one spider that had molted while in the boy’s head. And sure enough, if you watch the video at CNN, it certainly seems that way. The actual spider is denser, and sitting at the bottom of the jar. The shed skin is lighter and floating. So instead of two spiders in his ear, he had just one that was growing bigger. Not sure which is worse.
But how did the critter get in there? Well, I once heard an interesting anecdote from an arachnologist. He postulated that we are never more than eight feet away from a spider at any given time, even in the cleanest of buildings. They are just all around us.
UPDATE: Seems that Straight Dope agrees with me.
[via Reddit]
Steve Weast has a custom, ~900 gallon (~4000 L) Fiji reef tank. He was dismayed to find a 7 foot polychaete eating his +$25 coral polyps.
I staked out the tank one evening with a red lens flashlight in an attempt to catch the suspected villainous shrimp or crab. What I saw caused many sleepless nights. Through an opening in the live rock, I spied what looked like a worm with a diameter of about ¾”. This worm was passing through this live rock opening…and passing…and passing…and then passing some more…just how long was this thing? Suddenly, the worm stopped…and way over on the other side of the tank…
More details and pictures of the extraction at OregonReef.com.
![Claire Nouvian, The Deep, University of Chicago Press [200x150, 4.4K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070415_UCdeepsea.jpg "Claire Nouvian, The Deep, University of Chicago Press")
[via TONMO]
The companion website to Claire Nouvian’s book has a gallery of deep sea critters that you can glance through. Note especially the Dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis sp.), Glowing sucker octopus (Stauroteuthis syrtensis), Telescope octopus (Amphitretus pelagicus) and an egg-bearing Black-eyed squid (Gonatus onyx). All very well photographed and tentacley. Splash page includes ethereal, mysterious music too so you know you are underwater.
The Deep
The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
By Claire Nouvian
Featuring 220 color photographs of deep ocean species, some photographed for the first time.
More tentacle tinglage coming up from PBS. Sadly, no lesson plans or prepared companion guides for educators. Originally aired December, 2005.
ENCOUNTERING SEA MONSTERS
Airs April 8, 2007 at 8pm on PBS
NATURE follows Bob Cranston in his quest to film and understand the world’s most mysterious cephalopods.
Continue reading ‘PBS Special: Encountering Sea Monsters’
A couple of Flickr groups for folks who like all things tentacular:
![Asperoteuthis acanthoderma, squid [200x150, 8K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070227_Mote_Asperoteuth.jpg "Asperoteuthis acanthoderma squid, courtesy of Mote Marine Laboratory")
A Mote scientist received an unidentified floating object (U-FL-O?) last week. It was a squid found at the surface by a sharp-eyed fishing captain southwest of Key West last Tuesday. The story made the news and now there are some updates. There is still a chance it is a new species but all the major characteristics point towards Asperoteuthis acanthoderma.
A. acanthoderma reaches a rather large size. The largest specimen known has a mantle length of 78 cm and long, slender tentacles. In one squid (45 cm ML) the tentacles were over 12 times longer than the mantle (i.e., about 5.5 m) (Tsuchiya and Okutani, 1993). The most distinctive feature of this species is the presence of very small, pointed cartilagenous tubercules over the surface of the head, mantle and arms.
The really interesting thing is that if this is A. acanthoderma, then it may be the first time it has been documented in the Atlantic Ocean. Up until now, all specimens have been found deep in the Pacific. So where has this one been hiding? How did it get here? Many mysteries remain.
Available now from the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum in Sanibel, FL, in VHS format ($19.95) or DVD ($22.00). Quicktime snippets on their website.
Mollusks In Action is a nature video that features living mollusks found on the beaches and tidal pools of Sanibel Island, Florida. It was filmed and produced by Shell Museum education docent Joyce Matthys. The 30-minute video covers, in an easy-to-understand approach, different aspects of molluscan biology such as feeding, locomotion, anatomy, defense strategies, and reproduction.
We’ve witnessed the appearance of large cephalopods in our parking lots before. Now it appears other sea creatures are coming ashore to take our spaces.
Stumbled upon the Glass Jellyfish, a photo album over at PangalacticTrading.com. They are pictures of the works of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. It reminds me a of the delicate glass rotifer sculptures at the American Museum of Natural History.
The second half of the 19th century was a time of great scientific discovery. New museums were being built throughout the world and many existing private museums were opening to the public. New galleries were designed to display the expanding array of known living plants and animals. For many groups of animals this was easily done…But what about soft bodied animals such as jellyfish and sea anemones? Examples of these animals could be pickled in spirit to preserve them, but this in no way reflected their extraordinary appearance in life. Their colours quickly faded and their shapes became distorted as the tissues shrank. Papier-mâché and wax models could not capture their translucence and transparency. Leopold Blaschka, a brilliant glassworker and amateur naturalist, devised a solution to this problem - vividly recreating these life forms modelling them in glass.
Jason Robertshaw
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