Confession (Circus of the Spineless # 43)

I may as well face the truth. Just speak up and admit it; I'm addicted. Addicted to the squirmy, crawly, squishy, tentacled, shelled, chitined, variously-limbed, multi-hued majority of animals on this space pebble of ours. The spineless, in other words.

Lion's Mane jellyfish, in all its glorious, squishy colour.

Let me amend that; we're addicted. I have plenty of company, and a merry company it is.

And we must have our daily fix. We will go to any lengths to get it, too. Witness Doug, skulking around Magic Gas Stations in the dark. "Just getting gas," he says. We know better.

Some of us find it easy, even socially acceptable. Dave looks for wasps in his mother-in-law's garden. John photographs wasp mimics in his. The Ontario Wanderer takes advantage of the cool weather that slows down a bumblebee.

Lion's Mane, washing ashore. White Rock beach.

But that was yesterday's fix. Today, we need something new, something a bit harder to find. You may see a man tiptoeing slowly through the eelgrass bed, bent almost double; it's probably Dave again. Hear his triumphant cry at last, "Proliferating anemone!"

When our supply fails, we take measures into our own hands. I collect seaweeds, with their cargo of live critters, and settle them into my home aquarium, where I can indulge at my leisure. Elizabeth grows her own, Raising Monarchs in her kitchen.

For some, the addiction drives us to extremes. Ted and friends, intent on finding all 24 species of Missourian tiger beetles, sit with sheets and blacklights on a river bank at night, undeterred by swarms of aquatic insects flying down their shirts and getting in their hair. The pizza and Merlot helped, probably.

I would have been happy to join that crew, but here's the limit of my addiction; I don't think I'd lie on my belly in the muck, like Bobbie, to photograph a polychaete. Maybe not. Unless ... Her photos are amazing! I've changed my mind; mud flats, here I come!

Shapes and colours in a Lion's Mane jellyfish

Zen, more sedately, almost contemplatively, finds his spineless wonders at arms' length, in research journals. Do male moths prefer male flowers? If a crab waves at you, what does it mean? (Depends where he comes from, it seems.) Whatever it means, Zen thinks it looks cute.

I’d never heard of this species before this paper (not surprising, because they are an Asian species), but now I’d like to see them.

Careful, Zen; next thing you know, you'll be down in the mud with the rest of us.

This is no laughing matter. Do your friends and family shudder when you start to describe your latest discovery? Do their eyes glaze over? Does your favourite in-law take you aside during a family party to show you ... a spider in the bushes? Do you keep apple pieces around to lure fruit flies? Do you spend entire evenings Googling corals? This is serious ...

(Sorry; I got distracted. A green plant bug just showed up on my desk. He's gone now. So, where was I?)

The important question, I guess, is whether we can break this addiction. (Or do we even want to?) Let's look at some historical examples ...

Did you know good Doctor Freud started his career studying crayfish? And then, astoundingly, abandoned them for medical practice. However,

... Freud found that research didn’t pay enough for him to get married...

Since when was money a deciding factor? He must not have been a True Addict.

Try another one: Charles Darwin and his barnacles. He got involved with them in his 20s, went on to other things, rediscovered them while on the Beagle, put them aside until 1846, then spent 8 years in his study with them, watching, observing day and night, until his eyes burned with the poor light. The four books he wrote on them totalled a thousand pages.

Barnacle, combing the water for goodies.

That's obsession on a grand scale! I don't think we have to worry about a bit of lying around in the mud or a few bug bites.

I'm glad that's settled, because I found a few recent photos that you'll want to see:

• From the Georgia Depressionist, currently in Taiwan, a common flangetail and a red-bellied skimmer.
• A wonderful snail, eating an appple. Flickr photo by Cy Savino.
• In Macroinstantes, a blog from Spain, an interesting fly. Great wings!
• And, because it just wouldn't do to have the CotS without at least one spider, here's Cascade Exposures.

Note: some of these fellow addicts sent me their links. For the rest, I followed Matthew's example; he tracked down our posts himself to put together The Moth and Me #5. Thanks, Matt.

The next Circus of the Spineless will be hosted by the team at Quiche Moraine. Get your submissions to them before the end of September.

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It's warm, it's dry, it's protected: it's perfect!

A local store has taken steps to keep birds away ...

... without much success.

The next edition of Circus of the Spineless will be up here tomorrow night. And let's extend the deadline for submissions; how about sometime around 9 PM, my time (Pacific) tomorrow. Just e-mail me with a link at wanderinweeta AT gmail DOT com. Join the fun!

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Mountaineer

Scaling the heights of my little fingernail.*

Beetle, Campbell River

*And I have tiny, child-sized fingernails.

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Three in a nest

Barn swallow chicks, wondering about these strange visitors with three eyes:

Click on the photo to see the cute stripy feet clutching the edge of the nest.

"Come back in a week and watch us fly!"

Alaksen Wildlife Research Centre, main building. Every possible ledge and pipe held a nest.

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Weekend sampler

Every day, no matter how hectic, has its little moment of delight. These are some from this week, in no particular order.

He was inside, and I carried him out. He clutched his dinner tightly all the way.

The legs are bristly, but the abdomen is soft and furry, almost pettable.

Checkered periwinkle on rockweed.

Wasp nest, with young. At Alaksen National Wildlife Research Centre.

Digger wasp. The roadside at Alasken was riddled with little holes, the nests of these green-eyed wasps.

They dig down and are lost to sight in a few seconds.

Yes, it was an Orange-striped green anemone. It's grown up a bit, in just a few days.

I see a pug-nosed dog on this stone. What do you see?

And this one's for Hugh's collection. The family pet, abandoned in the park. Strathcona.

Painted ship upon a painted ocean. Semiahmoo Bay, from White Rock beach.

A Skywatch post. Since I'm naming memes, it's also a Friday Ark post.

And, don't forget; the next Circus of the Spineless is coming up this weekend, here. Send your submissions to me by Sunday, please. (wanderinweeta AT gmail DOT com)

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Destroyer of cities

The tide was coming in on the White Rock beach, and we were wading through the shallows, to see what treasures the waves were washing ashore. Mostly, last Sunday, we were dodging Lion's Mane jellyfish (of which more, later), but a long strip of bull kelp tickled my ankles, and I noticed these circles on it.

Membranipora serrilamella, Kelp-encrusting bryozoan

Bryozoans. At least I recognize them now. Tiny colonies, each animal in its own separate calcium "box", in this case, spreading out to form a crust on the kelp. I brought the whole strip home to photograph it at leisure.

Bird's-eye view of the walls.

Where the colonies don't compete with others, they form almost perfect circles. If you look closely, you can see the bump of the tentacles at one end of each "brick".

In the water, the rolled edge of the kelp allows a side view of the tentacles, one tube with a spray of tentacles per case.

As always, I looked up my find in "Marine Life ..." and Kozloff. "Marine Life" had a decent photo and a brief description, but in Kozloff, I found,

Some colonies of Membranipora, after being taken out of the water, have what look like little lumps of jelly of about the same color as the colony. If the colony is submerged in clean sea water and examined with a strong hand lens ... the little blobs may prove to be one of the marine zoologist's delights, Doridella steinbergae.

The accompanying photo showed Doridella and its half-circle egg masses. And I remembered seeing tiny white semi-circles among the bryozoans; I should have been paying attention, but I was looking for unblemished colonies.

The kelp was in my aquarium. I fished it out and spread it full length in shallow water. Oh!

Egg masses of Doridella steinbergi, Cryptic nudibranch.

Another cluster of egg masses.

Where there are eggs, there should be egg layers. But where? With reason, the sea slug is called "Cryptic"; they're a miniature blob of translucent jelly, with white lines to match the walls of the bryozoan. I looked directly at several without seeing them, thinking they were small colonies of Membranipora, until I noticed the pattern of white lines, squiggly rather than rectangular.

Two sea slugs, and the edge of a colony of membranipora.

Another Doridella, with egg masses.

I poked this one with a plastic toothpick, and it woke up and started to crawl over the kelp. It's about as fast as a land-based slug. Here it is, crawling onto a bryozoan colony:

The two white ear-like protrusions on the front end are sense organs, the rhinopores.

Most nudibranches have prominent gills at the back, but as part of this one's camouflage, the gills are hidden underneath a flap of skin. Another nudibranch, the Corambe pacifica, also feeds on the kelp bryozoan; it is almost identical to Doridella, except that its gills show through a small notch at the tail. Photos for comparison: Doridella, (They call it Corambe steinbergae here.) and Corambe pacifica. The C. pacifica lays its eggs in a spiral, which helps with the identification.

In my search for information, I came across a great blog, Biological Tales from the Brine Queen. In her post on this sea slug, she writes,

They feed on Membranipora by creating a suction seal, using their rasping tongue (called a radula) to cut through the outer membrane, then they suck out the insides.

And they leave the bryozoan colony with bare patches and irregular edges. Which is why I missed them on the first photo shoot.

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City of glass

This delicate beauty showed up in my aquarium. It probably hitchhiked on a piece of seaweed I brought home from the White Rock beach.

Glass animal

It's about an inch long, fully stretched out. I can't find it in my books nor on the web, but I think it is possibly some variety of hydroid, a Plumularia, maybe.

A hydroid is a community. Each circle of tentacles belongs to a separate animal. Looking at this one closely, I can distinguish several structures: segmented "feather" stalks with rows of zooids along the side, each brandishing its little spray of tentacles; a wrapped stem beneath, a few individuals consisting of a stem and a funnel shape, topped with tentacles.

Detail.

I found tons of interesting photos of Cnidaria (the hydroids' home phylum) on Google; what variety there is in this obscure "rock fuzz"!

• A diver's photo album includes tiny hydroids.
• Pearson College guide to ecosystems. Scroll 'way down to "Underwater at Race Rocks". One of the hydroids.
• Elasmodiver. Cnidaria. The glassy plume hydroid.
• SeaNet, Stanford. Phylum Cnidaria ...
• RaceRocks.com Several hydroid species on a scallop shell.
• A UK site with great photos. Keep clicking on "Next species".

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Spotted in passing

Check out those dotted eyes!

Fly on goldenrod.

Zooming in.

Spotted wings.

Spotted leafhopper. On my fridge door.

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Why does an anemone have knees?

New additions to my aquarium:

Mussel (1/2 inch) and anemone.

There is a small jellyfish, the clinging jellyfish, that has those "knees" on the tentacles; sticky pads there enable it to hold onto rocks and seaweed. I can't find a kneed anemone, though.

Otherwise, looking at the column, it looks like a small orange-striped green anemone, Diadumene lineata.

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A long, slow sunset

The further north you go, the later and more drawn out the sunsets. These were taken between 9:00 and 9:35 PM from our motel yard in Campbell River.

Fiery clouds.

The evening light plays strange games. The sea becomes pink, deepening to purple; objects close at hand pick up an orangey tint.

The ferry, wending its way south in the twilight.

A palette of oranges and blues.

A Skywatch post

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As long as the cameras stay dry ...

(Edgewater beach series, cont...)

It's a good thing the water was so clear. What we would have missed, otherwise!

Under an inch or two of water, visibility was even better than out in the air where the sunlight faded the colours and dazzled our poor cameras.

Purple shore crab, Hemigrapsus nudus, half-submerged. Love the purple-spotted pincers!

Laurie, in pursuit of a swimming nudibranch.

Above the water level, the anemones wait for the tide to come in curled in upon themselves. Some are barely visible under the sand, others have burrowed themselves into deep holes in the rock. Underwater, they blossom out.

Pink-tipped green anemone, opening up.

Pink and green anemones, looking for dinner.

Close-up of the wall of the anemone's column. Frilled all the way down.

Another column.

If the water had not been clear, I would have missed these, in ankle-deep water. I was walking out to a distant rock, on sand. I looked down to check my footing where I had to cross a few rocks, and saw that I had been walking on a living carpet. Sorry about that.

I think these are aggregating anemones. They are smaller than the pink and green ones, no taller than the pile of a shag rug. (Remember those? These would have made a good 1960s pattern.)

If the water had been any less transparent, we would have missed this:

Melibe leonina, the hooded nudibranch, swimming. Her shadow stands out more than she does.

The wide-open, traslucent mouth of a Melibe, with body and cerata following along behind. The yellowish green floater is one of those seaweed "blobs".

I saw one of these, and Laurie got two. They're the first live ones we've found since we first discovered one in Maplewood Flats, five years ago.

Yay! for clear water!

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Water garden

(Edgewater beach series, cont...)

Down near the water's edge, where the rocks never dry out, even on hot days like these, the beach takes on a different character. Here, a little bay forms, shielded by an outcropping of rocks on the north ...

Layers of sandstone and a big rock fallen, long ago, off the cliff side. And a "lawn" of fine algae, a slippery coating of green scum on the rock.

... and to the south, a herd of sea lions turned to stone. Medusa lives!

In the bay, a jumble of large, irregular rocks forms the base for a garden of seaweeds.

"Zone 5". Rockweed and sea lettuce.

Rockweed, barnacles and an oyster.

No monoculture in this sea garden; every few steps brought a new seaweed. Some were old favourites, like the Turkish towel; others I couldn't identify. Still can't, even back home with my handy "Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest". There is a tiny, reddish-black, hairy plant that covers the bottom of the shallow pools, fine hairs tangled around the base of rockweed, a red "tar" on rocks. Some of the rockweed has enlarged, distorted, blistered branches; whether this is sunburn or an infestation of some kind, I don't know.

Blistered rockweed.

A small Turkish towel, and rockweed. The rockweed seems to be smaller than our Lower Mainland variety.

A feathery, yellowish frond floating in the shade of a boulder.

Red algae. The white part has been sunburnt. The shaded bottom is a deep burgundy. With sea lettuce.

And bull kelp. I am always intrigued by these giant plants, so soft and elastic, so alluringly coloured. A smallish one was floating close to shore; I waded out and dragged it in.

I stretched it across the beach, to see how far it reached. See that yellowish spot 'way at the top of the photo? That's the holdfast. The fronds still reach a couple of metres behind me into the water.

I love the holdfasts; fist-sized grabbers, as tough as wire. They feel and look like molded plastic; they don't bend easily, and I can't break them with my hands.

Kekp holdfast, entangling a large, feathery green seaweed, unidentified.

Holdfast close-up.

Two holdfasts, intertwined. We pulled at these, Laurie and I; we couldn't separate them.

We've seen these little "blobs" (we have no better name for them)* at Boundary Bay. There were large patches on this beach. They are up to about two inches across, shiny, have no stems. A few were broken, showing an empty centre space. Some were floating in the water.

There are a few similar seaweeds in the Encyclopedia, but nothing quite matches.

Mystery blobs.

*Update: tentatively identified as Leathesia difformis, the sea potato or sea cauliflower. (See comments.)

One other thing; stand still and look at any patch of seaweed. It's moving. Not the underwater plants, which move with the water; the ones out in the air, too. They vibrate, jerk, bend. Look closely; they're alive with tiny animals. Snails, isopods, crabs (some so tiny we don't see them until we enlarge a photograph), hermits, worms; all in busy motion.

The jumble of rocks peters out; the ones remaining become islands in a shallow basin with a flat, sandy bottom. The water is cool and transparent. We wade out to see those rocks the seagulls were sitting on.

But I'll leave that for tomorow.

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