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,

Cabbage White
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

A Small Cabbage White (Pieris rapae) from our garden. These little beauties are often overlooked because of their plain coloration, but they are among my favorites. I see the adults most often enjoying Queen Anne’s Lace, but the caterpillars feed mostly on plants of the Brassicaceae (cabbage or mustard family). Next year we plan to plant some horseradish in the garden, which will hopefully attract more of these little beauties and let me capture the entire life cycle for Larval Images.

There is a chance to capture some of that life cycle now as the small white will continue to be found here until the hard freeze comes. They hibernate in pupae form and will be the first butters we see in the late winter or early spring.

Of course, this is also one of my favorites, because it’s the N.American cousin of the Large Cabbage White (Pieris brassicae) of Eurasia. P. brassicae is the species that I blogged about at The Other 95%. Some recent research showed it is in the middle of a three way evolutionary arms race with its host plant and a parasitic wasp, because the male’s ejaculate attracts parasites both direct and indirectly.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Arthropoda

Class

Insecta

Order

Lepidoptera

Family

Pieridae

Genus

Pieris

Species

Pieris rapae

Life Photo Meme

Johann’s Great White Egret
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

At the same spot I managed to catch the egret in mid mummichog flip…

Gulp!
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Classification

Kingdom

Animalia

Phylum

Chordata

Class

Aves

Order

Ciconiiformes

Family

Ardeidae

Genus

Ardea

Species

Ardea alba

Life Photo Meme

Recycling
Originally uploaded by eclectic echoes.

Life Photo Meme