Archivos de diario de octubre 2021

08 de octubre de 2021

Oh, Buoy!

Hi everyone, we now have 100 people in our project!!! I want to thank all of you for helping us reach this milestone. It was great to talk to the people who came to the meeting last week, and it’d be great to hear from more of you as well! Feedback and questions are always welcome and appreciated. You all are helping us vicariously live our beach fantasies through your amazing observations, keep it up!

This week I want to highlight the buoy barnacle. The buoy barnacle (Dosima fascicularis) is a very special barnacle because it is the only one that creates its own float! The buoy barnacles can float alone or in clusters, and they sometimes attach to foreign objects. Buoy barnacles are filter feeders and eat mostly small crustaceans. Much like the other floating surface animals, they can be found washed ashore in various quantities.

Happy hunting!
Ari Puentes

Publicado el octubre 8, 2021 05:49 TARDE por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

16 de octubre de 2021

Violet snails

Last week we talked about the buoy barnacle and how it makes its own float, so this week I wanted to talk about the violet snails, another animal that makes its own float. Violet snails, or purple snails, (Janthina janthina) are brilliant creatures with beautiful purple shells that often have bubbles attached to them. These bubbles function as a raft or a float for the snails. They create their bubble floats by trapping air bubbles in their bodies, then wrapping the air bubbles in sticky mucus. Recently beached violet snails can often be seen with their floats still attached because the bubbles have this mucus covering. Violet snails eat many surface animals including By-the-wind Sailors, Blue Buttons, and Portuguese Man-o-Wars!

Happy beach walking!
Ari Puentes

Publicado el octubre 16, 2021 03:18 MAÑANA por goseascience goseascience | 0 comentarios | Deja un comentario

29 de octubre de 2021

Floating Anemones

Hey everyone, over the past month our iNaturalist contributors have more than tripled! We are all so grateful and excited to see what you find!

This week I wanted to talk about one of the less well-known creatures that live at the ocean’s surface, the floating sea anemones. These anemones are in the genus Actinecta and they don’t have a common name, they are only referred to as their scientific names. These creatures have a float at their base that allows them to live at the surface of the ocean, hanging upside down and catching prey with their tentacles. They are a pretty rare find but sometimes they can be found in the open ocean or washed ashore.

Happy Halloween weekend!
-Ari Puentes

Publicado el octubre 29, 2021 06:51 TARDE por goseascience goseascience | 2 comentarios | Deja un comentario