Journal of Jean Cousteau
February 24, 2010
It's good to be able to relax sometimes, isn't it?
After last week's globe-trotting marathon, I was finally given the chance to concentrate on my reason for being out here in the first place. Today the senior staff at L&L were actually around so they took care of their own clients, while I headed off first thing in the morning to survey some of the atoll's smallest denizens.
Like these gobies clustered near the edge of one of the reef's many gorgeous corals.
Or this clown fish hovering within the refuge of an anemone's stinging arms.
Chordates, especially ray-finned fish fill the waters so this time around I made a special effort to record invertebrates. I was hoping to get a few nice pictures of the colorful sea slugs native to the atoll but no luck. I did see my first red-streaked box crab though.
It was just hanging out in the shallows. I gave it a piece of bait fish, which it happily chowed down on. There were also quite a few of these:
Crystal jellyfish. Jellyfish look so incredibly delicate, and yet they're amazing predators: paper thin bowls of specialized cells and water, trailing an armada of harpoons.
The last invertebrate I spotted was this sea star.
It was gliding along on its battery of tube feet, traveling from one coral island to the next. When I was a little kid, starfish were always my favorite things to find on the beach.
My luckiest sighting of the day, however, was this:
This strange object is the egg case of a Japanese bullhead shark. Shark egg cases come in an amazing variety of bizarre shapes. Colloquially, they're called mermaid's purses.
By the time I finished up my survey for the day it was edging towards evening. Still, I made it back to the island just in time to catch the end of some really exciting work being done with the local wild dolphins. A marine biologist from Japan has been working with L&L on a project that involved training wild dolphins to perform behaviors on command. Here are a couple of the participants:
This is Painter, a short-beaked common dolphin,
and Gamble, a spectacled porpoise. Gamble treated me to a show of one of my favorite behaviors:
the tail walk! They may look cuddly, but dolphins are solid muscle and this "trick" is nothing short of a display of strength and skill.
It really was a lovely day today. I recorded a lot of data for my research, talked to a well respected senior marine biologist, and got to meet a charming pair of finny performers.
I think I'll tune up my guitar and just take it easy for the rest of the evening.
February 24, 2010
It's good to be able to relax sometimes, isn't it?
After last week's globe-trotting marathon, I was finally given the chance to concentrate on my reason for being out here in the first place. Today the senior staff at L&L were actually around so they took care of their own clients, while I headed off first thing in the morning to survey some of the atoll's smallest denizens.
Like these gobies clustered near the edge of one of the reef's many gorgeous corals.
Or this clown fish hovering within the refuge of an anemone's stinging arms.
Chordates, especially ray-finned fish fill the waters so this time around I made a special effort to record invertebrates. I was hoping to get a few nice pictures of the colorful sea slugs native to the atoll but no luck. I did see my first red-streaked box crab though.
It was just hanging out in the shallows. I gave it a piece of bait fish, which it happily chowed down on. There were also quite a few of these:
Crystal jellyfish. Jellyfish look so incredibly delicate, and yet they're amazing predators: paper thin bowls of specialized cells and water, trailing an armada of harpoons.
The last invertebrate I spotted was this sea star.
It was gliding along on its battery of tube feet, traveling from one coral island to the next. When I was a little kid, starfish were always my favorite things to find on the beach.
My luckiest sighting of the day, however, was this:
This strange object is the egg case of a Japanese bullhead shark. Shark egg cases come in an amazing variety of bizarre shapes. Colloquially, they're called mermaid's purses.
By the time I finished up my survey for the day it was edging towards evening. Still, I made it back to the island just in time to catch the end of some really exciting work being done with the local wild dolphins. A marine biologist from Japan has been working with L&L on a project that involved training wild dolphins to perform behaviors on command. Here are a couple of the participants:
This is Painter, a short-beaked common dolphin,
and Gamble, a spectacled porpoise. Gamble treated me to a show of one of my favorite behaviors:
the tail walk! They may look cuddly, but dolphins are solid muscle and this "trick" is nothing short of a display of strength and skill.
It really was a lovely day today. I recorded a lot of data for my research, talked to a well respected senior marine biologist, and got to meet a charming pair of finny performers.
I think I'll tune up my guitar and just take it easy for the rest of the evening.