Marine Field Trip 2012

Tuesday was Marine Science Field Trip day, so here come the annual critter pictures ...

 Juvenile crabs and shrimp of all kinds came up in the net, a small dredge, that we towed briefly behind the boat. The main point of this trip is to bring home the importance of the seagrass community to sea life populations and the grass never fails to do this.

 Here's a sample of what lies beneath. The actual seagrasses are rooted pretty securely in the bottom, but the algae is not, so a lot of it comes on board. We hoist the net on board, dump the contents, and then the students pick through it looking for animals.

We have a priority system and constantly tell the kids,  "Fish First!" ... meaning pick out and toss back the fish immediately. We lose a few, but most make it back in the water alive. A few go to an aerated bucket for a trip back to the classroom aquarium.
Those will be released in a week or two, since the school year is winding down.
("Winding down" is misleading, because it's really a time of frenetic activity as teachers try to get to enriching projects that had to wait until all of the required state mandated testing was over)

A young stone crab raises a defiant claw to the giant human.

Here is a young scallop who will grow rapidly and be full size and delectable by August. I noticed far more young scallops this year than in previous years. Florida's bay scallop season runs from July to September. You can search Pure Florida for a scalloping post from last summer if you want to learn how that is done.

This crown conch is actually a voracious predator. My daughter Emma has one in her classroom aquarium that ate all of the periwinkle snails in the tank ... except for the one who figured out that the only safe place was the back of the crown conch's shell.

The lone periwinkle spends his day condemned to riding atop  his jail snail where one misstep means a death sentence. If he can watch his step for another week, he and his aquarium mates will be released.

The shoreline collectors found lots of hermit crabs of all sizes. Hermits prowl the shallows and if you just stand still and watch, you are bound to see one waddling your way. They're really popular with the students since they are very docile. 

 Anchovy sans can or pizza.

This is the amazing face of a batfish. I post one of these every year around this time. The batfish is a bottom creeper with a body plan that doesn't make you think of fish immediately.
The batfish we captured this year were smaller than our usual catch. I never have much luck with these odd fish in the aquarium, so we only bring them back for a week or so and then let them go.

See what I mean?
If you didn't already know, would you really suspect this was a fish? 

This trip was a joint trip between the school ( my old school) where my daughter Emma teaches and my school. It was her first field trip as a professional and she teaches marine science too, so we combined our kids and had a great day.

Watching her interacting and managing her students, it was clear that she would have been just fine without me along.

She's a natural.