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Croak! Says the Sea Robin
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Searobin

     by Johann Heupel

One of Grandpa’s pictures of zebras sold and will be on its way to Germany once the show is over! If you’re in the vicinity, please go and take a look. This set of photographs is amazing (no bias there at all!) and you’ll be glad you went! If you can’t make it, we’ll be posting another entry when his new website goes live, and watch here for a few more samples of his work from Antarctica.

Johann: I got a picture of some trees along the entry to the woods. Someone has been busy!

We all needed a family outing where we felt like we were getting away, at least for a few hours. We decided to go to Pequot Woods Park and check out the trails there. Johann and I had just gone there with some friends from the homeschooling group, but our trip there was cut short when the boy fell into the pond. We followed them home so he could change clothes and did something else together, which was a nice afternoon, but we still wanted to go back to the woods.

Eric: Tammy at the end of the path, except it wasn’t the end of the path just two days before, when the pond was still covered in ice. Unfortunately none of us had on waterproof hiking boots (since none of us own them) so, crossing would be a bit more challenging this time.

We also wanted the opportunity to walk the trails at a slower pace, so we could see signs of animals, maybe even spot some, and have time to notice things like moss, lichen, fungus, interesting tree roots or rock formations. Too many people rush through and don’t notice anything.

Johann: In the shadows there was a lot of fuzzy moss carpets.

Johann: I thought the blanket of moss on these tree roots looked like a moss sandwich.

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Johann: I’ve been studying about molluscs a lot lately, and I have found a new one – the tree clam. Ha ha.
I liked how these fungi looked like clam shells and Mommy thought they look like a fairy ladder going up the tree. I agree.

Eric: In this area that is so marked by the glacial processes that formed the coast of Long Island Sound, a sight like this is not unusual, but it still makes me stop.

Eric: Johann shooting the fungi growing under a fallen tree.

Johann: These fungi reminded me of chips or conch shells from the color and the way they rolled up.

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Johann:Whooo, Whooo, Whooooo is there with that big camera?

Eric: With the melt-off and the beaver’s industry the low spot along the pond edge became the new brook course. I love the power of water. It finds its way always. You can see from the left and right edges of the image that it is moving pretty swiftly too.

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If we could have gotten further away from civilization, I think it would have been more relaxing. The background noise of cars speeding by on the highway made it hard for me to completely relax, but I did feel more rejuvenated when we got home. We decided we need to invest in good hiking boots for the whole family so that we can do a lot of hiking while we are still here.

Eric: Interestingly, this beaver lodge is not in the middle of the pond, but hard up against the shore.

Eric: This was the best we could get of the beaver. At this point it was really too dark to get a good shot of it, but I figured a grainy shot was better than nothing!

Skull of the adult female and the fetus (colored baby blue)

Even though this ancestral whale has many adaptations, such seal-like bodies and a very powerful swimming tail, maybe even with flukes, and is well on the way to becoming a modern whale, they were still heavy boned and thus not for the open ocean. With the head first birthing position they would have returned to the shore to rest, mate, and give birth. But, like the modern sea lions and their relatives, the maiacetus body was no longer well adapted to life on land. As Ed put it, rather depressingly considering my talents and the economy, maiacetus innus was a jack-of-all-trades and master of none, fully adapted to neither environment.

Artist’s conception of a male Maiacetus innus as it would have appeared in life, with skeleton reconstruction overlaid.
Credit: John Klausmeyer and Bonnie Miljour University of Michigan Museums of Natural History

Read more about this awesome find at: Not Exactly Rocket Science, The Loom, Laelaps and A Blog Around The Clock. This is such a wonderful discovery that each of the aforementioned blogs highlights a slightly different aspect of the discovery.

Here is a National Geographic Channel short video about the Rodhocetus balochistanensis, another protocetecean possibly a contemporary of maiacetus, discovered by the same team.

Of course along with ancient whales I have the opportunity to present another of my father’s images from Antarctica:

A pair of humpback whales feeding on krill in the Antarctic. I love the throat pleats visible in the whale that is feeding on it’s side.

Come a long way from maiacetus innus haven’t they? Amazing animals, even more so when you consider their evolutionary journey.

The humpback feeding picture above was taken where the northern most of the camera icons in this new Google Earth 5.0 (complete with ocean data!) screen shot. The other two camera icons are from the pictures in the previous post.

First up though is One of the Channels north of the circle. From the time stamp on the photo and the ships GPS track this should be Lamaire Channel.

In the Lamaire Channel

Screen shot from Google Earth of the Lamaire Channel and the photo location. Inset shows entire Antarctic Peninsula with main image area selected in yellow circle.

Along with the beautiful landscape Dad sent along a few animal photos including this beauty:

A pair of Humpback Whales feeding in the waters south of Anverse Island

The previous Lamaire Channel photo is the camera icon in the lower left corner, the humpback whales are the upper icon.

More to come later this week!

Well, it may be a stretch to call it misunderstood, but…

Brown morph red-footed boobie,
originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Tammy and I recently gave Johann his own Flickr account. He’s been wanting one for a while and now that he is taking pictures regularly with me, there was a new reason to consider it. At the same time we are encouraging his use of Flickr as an opportunity to learn, as we do in most things. One thing is that I have taken to making a detective/research game out of each of his requests to add someone as a contact. (almost all are from my own contacts so I am familiar with their work). For Flickr member Aleutian Fox I gave Johann 9 short answer questions about the Aleutian Islands which ranged from fairly easy (What European Nation first settled and claimed the islands) to reasonably hard (how were the islands formed). Encouraging him to continue to use books and cite sources, he also had to use only books for the answers and provide me a list of the books. Once he answered all the questions he could add Aleutian Fox as his contact.

I took off to my evening class after giving him the list and the plan that he and Tammy would visit the library tomorrow. By the time I got home from class he had only two questions left, and he was working on those! Within another 15 minutes he had them all done. All of the answers had come from books in our own private library, three of my books (The Sea Floor, Whales, Whaling and the Ocean Ecosystem, and An Introduction to the World’s Oceans) and two of his own (How People Live and Our Country’s Presidents). So much for going to the town library.

GANSO PATOLA, originally uploaded by sparkyfaisca.

The next Flickr Challenge was Sparky Faisca. I wanted Johann to grab 5 pictures from his stream that represent 5 different orders within the class Aves and provide the complete classification for each (Sparky provides common name and species). Pretty easy, except Johann discovered a problem. Sparky has some wonderful images of a Northern Gannet. He listed the scientific name as Sula bassana, and one of Johann’s books, Smithsonian Institution: Animal, had it as Morus bassana. Johann pointed this genus confusion out to me, so I showed him how to use the ITIS website to verify the current classification. Problem solved!

Ooops! ITIS reports both as being confirmed valid species names. There seems to be a bit of confusion or misunderstanding there…

Ok. The Gannets and Boobies together make up the Sulidae. I remember that much from my trip to Belize… Why? Because for organized conservation in Belize it all began with the boobies. Sula is the genus of the boobies such as the Red-footed boobie Sula sula while Morus is the genus of the Gannets such as the Australasian gannet Morus serrator, and Papasula is the genus for Abbot’s boobie Papasula abbotti which appears to be much older branch than the Sula and may be intermediate to the gannet and boobie genus’. So why is the Northern Gannet in both Morus and Sula at ITIS? For that matter why is the Abbot’s Boobie in both Papasula and Sula?

Northern Gannet in Flight ©Jim Heupel

Johann suggested that the Northern Gannet, being a true gannet, must be in genus Morus with the other true gannets. I had to concur. Just before bed Johann sent me the following classification for the Northern Gannet:

Classification for Norther Gannet

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Sulidae

Genus

Morus

Species

Morus bassanus(Linnaeus, 1758)

And just to be complete… here is the classification for the Red-footed boobie I captured in Belize…

Classification for Red-footed Boobie

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Sulidae

Genus

Sula

Species

Sula sula(Linnaeus, 1766)

Life Photo Meme,

(Update: Dad just sent us a photo of a Northern Gannet in flight from his trip to Iceland. Three shots of Sulidae!! Thanks Dad!!)

Snail Chain ©Creative Commons BY-NC-ND, Eric Heupel 2008

One small section of a BUNCH of Lymnia sp. snail eggs pulled from our fresh water aquarium. They like to lay their egg clutches on the underside of larger broad leaved aquatic plants.
These snails are reproductive powerhouses! Not only are they simultaneous hermaphrodites which practice sperm sequestration and/or self fertilization, but they reach reproductive maturity and begin egg laying only a month after hatching or “eclosion.” Combine that with the 20-40 eggs per clutch they lay, and one can see how they can quickly grow the population.

Lymnaea sp. snail eggs ©Creative Commons BY-NC-ND, Eric Heupel 2008

This shot was lit by the microscopes flourescent base light from below and a pair of remote flashes from above, giving pretty good definition to the individual eggs and inside the invisible gelatinous mass. The following shot was with the base CFL illuminator only.

Bottom lit Lymnaea snail eggs ©Creative Commons BY-NC-ND, Eric Heupel 2008

Did I mention they were prolific breeders? Every six months to a year we break down one of our two freshwater aquariums and rebuid it. The last time we made sure there are no eggs on the plants. After a full month of no snails we introduced one small adult snail. Two months later there were nover 50 snails in the tank. This time no adult snails. We have a single egg mass with 13 eggs in it. We’ll see how far we let those go.

As long as I’m not subjected to further displays of their extreme hermaphroditic proscuousity!

PZ Myers has a great post realted to these snails that shows the early development of the Lymnaea zygote, especially focussed on the 3rd division from four cells to eight, which begins the pattern of molluscan spiral cleavage. The details of that division have profound effects on the organism, including whether they are sinestral or dextral.

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Mollusca

Class

Gastropoda

Order

Pulmonata

Family

Lymnaeidae

Genus

Lymnaeas

Tags: mollusk, mollusc, gastropod, lifephotomeme

Juvenile
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Among my favorites to photograph are swallows and terns. These are the acrobats, the sleek highly maneuverable species which remind me of the Thunderbirds flying precision high G passes. This juvenile tern for example is still being fed by the adults, but here it is carving a path through the air, twisting and turning with great control. Later in the same session I watched one of the adults approach and hand off a herring to the juvenile smoothly without landing. It hovered for a minute as it put the fish in the juveniles mouth then took of again like a rocket.

Watching a tern fish, alternately scouting, hovering and diving head first into the water is a great way to pass an hour or even two.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Charadriiformes

Family

Sternidae

Genus

Sterna

Species

Sterna hirundo

Life Photo Meme,