We are still about a few days away from the vernal equinox, but it is impossible to mistake the signs of spring: Trees are blooming (gesundheit!), bees are buzzing, and birds are singing. In our canyon, the California quail have disbanded their large winter covey and are foraging in male-female pairs. In the past few…
Author: Allison J. Gong
Albatrosses
Sometimes even a naturalist gets to go on vacation, and I was fortunate enough to get to spend a week in Kaua’i. My favorite spot on the island was the Kilauea Point National Wildlife Refuge on the north shore of the island, where I got to see albatrosses, frigatebirds, and boobies in flight, as well as…
Caught in the act
I was making my usual feeding and checking rounds at the marine lab last Wednesday, when I saw this: This crab is a kelp crab, Pugettia producta. It is one of the common crab species on the California coast; you can find them in the low intertidal clinging to algae. Many of them are this…
Zombeeees!
Just in time for Hallowe’en! I have photographic evidence that some of our bees have been taken over by parasitic phorid flies. These flies are a group of diverse animals, including wasps and nematode worms, described as “parasitoids.” These are not your average parasites, which generally do not cause lethal damage to their host, although as…
Immaculate conception
I’ve shown you how sea urchin eggs are fertilized in the lab, and you’ve watched the fertilization membrane develop in real-time. One day a few years ago, my colleague, Betsy, and I set up shop to spawn urchins. We do this just about every year because it is super fun and we both enjoy watching…
Let there be life!
One of the all-around coolest things I do with my students is spawn sea urchins to show them fertilization. We can actually watch fertilization occur under the microscope. And since the early stages of development are the same in sea urchins and humans the students get to see how their own lives started–not in dishes…
The mother of all allergic reactions
Yesterday I went in for my allergy shots. I’ve been doing this immunotherapy for several years now, after innumerable yearly bouts of debilitating bronchitis that lasts for 6-8 weeks. Silly me. If I had done the allergy shots back in my 20s, I wouldn’t have had to suffer all these years. My allergy scratch test…
Easy come, easy go
As I suspected, the little Dendronotus veligers didn’t last very long. On Wednesday the very last survivors had kicked the proverbial bucket. All that was left in the jar was some debris and scum from leftover food. They lasted nine days post-hatching, which is about the norm for me when I’ve tried to raise nudibranch…
Backyard birdwatching
The best thing about where we live is that all we have to do is walk to the edge of the back deck and we’re looking down into wild-ish nature. I say “wild-ish” because while it is one of the natural arroyos common on the central California coast, there is a utilities access road at…
The problem with shells
The Dendronotus veligers are still alive. I’ve been running into the same difficulties I’ve always had when trying to rear nudibranch larvae: hydrophobic shells that tend to get stuck in the surface tension of the water. Larvae that are trapped at the surface can neither swim nor feed. We can pretty easily rear sea urchin…