our brightly colored slimy neighbors of the deepish

From the National Science Foundation

Sea slug species Elysia chlorotica feeding on Vaucheria litorea, a yellow-green algae. E. chlorotica sequesters chloroplasts from the algae into specialized cells lining the digestive diverticulum, and the chloroplasts are photosynthetically functional for 9 to 11 months. Nuclear-encoded, algal chloroplast genes necessary to the function of the sequestered chloroplasts have been horizontally transferred and integrated into the slug genome. (Date of Image: 2009)

Nudibranchs are SO COOL.

They poop poison if they don't ingest it as defense. They dress up as poisonous critters.

And many people don't even know they exist.
















Click through for image credit,
all are some form of creative commons licensed or otherwise allowed appropriate to this venue.

death by clam?

That's a horrible and fascinating phrase.

I have no idea when this short National Geographic web exclusive on Hulu.com will last, but it's here now:





I'm a big fan of molluscs, I find them endlessly fascinating. (I also find them occasionally tasty. I'm about 99% vegetarian, but small bivalves rock my culinary world.)

I didn't really know much about giant clams. I guess I assumed that they lived in the deep sea (they don't), and that they were a lot like large versions of normal clam species. But they have nifty skin not unlike a squid's (less shiftingly chromatophoric*), and I had no idea about their relationship with algae!

Also, let it be said that the diver at the end of this clip is a doofus. Don't go messing with sea animals or coral reefs, Doofus Diver.

*It's amazing what blogger labels as incorrectly spelled. What, that's not a word?

so much left to explore

(as usual, there's more to the comic if you click through and mouseover for the alt text.)

The Mimic Octopus

Mimic Octopus
Originally uploaded by Daniel, Daniel Kwok.

Like everyone, I sometimes have days on which I do little but watch octopus videos:



This species, the Indonesian mimic octopus, was just discovered twelve years ago. It is fabulous.



It's known to mimic at least 13 different animals or corals, some of them deadly poisonous, though scientists admit they don't always know what they're seeing.





They're lost due to habitat degradation, fishing bycatch, recently even the pet industry.



It saddens and sometimes horrifies me that we can be doing such damage to species that weren't identified by scientists until our current crop of high school students was first learning to read.



I don't eat octopus, and I do what I can to help protect its habitat and the creatures in it. Biodiversity is essential, no species is completely expendable, but octopuses are just too damned cool to lose.

"oh AWESOME"

I've never been tidepooling at night. This makes me think I should definitely try it.



I love hearing grownups, especially teachers, say "OH AWESOME."

ocean's edge processes - I was transfixed

Typically, I don't much care for the slideshow variety of presenting this sort of information. But something about the way the titles worked in this, and the music -- I might always be a sucker for Mark Knopfler and Dire Straits -- pulled me in, and I watched it until the end.



That said, I'm not sure it helped my understanding of the ocean's edge. I had to poke around on the web afterwards to figure out what a tombolo is.

sharing the wealth

FIVE SEA LIONS
Originally uploaded by SparkyLeigh.

"A sea lion was picked up by Oakland police Monday morning after it wandered onto northbound Interstate Highway 880, a California Highway Patrol officer said.
The sea lion was spotted around 5:45 a.m. as it walked south in the center divide of northbound I-880, just south of Park Street, the CHP reported. "

The CBS blog goes on to say that there have been more malnourished babies coming up out of the bay lately, and that their prey is decreasing locally.

Protecting fisheries and choosing sustainable seafood protects sea lion food, too.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch program offers printable sustainable seafood guides and lists of good alternatives for non-sustainable favorites.

We're sharing that big ocean full of meat (and vegetables now, too) with lots of other creatures. We need to find a way to share it fairly, and to save it for the future as well.