You know how the saying goes. I just wanted to share how beautiful this larva is. I have nothing to add. More on Friday, probably.
Tag: marine invertebrates
17 days old
What a difference a week makes! The Pisaster larvae have grown and developed quite a bit since I looked at them a week ago. Here they are as little space ships again. Since they are getting so big, Scott and I decided to redistribute the larvae from four jars into six. This will give them…
Growing fast
Today my Pisaster ochraceus larvae are 10 days old. Although they seemed to be developing slowly, compared to the urchins that I’m more used to, in the past several days they have changed quite a bit. They’ve also been growing quickly, which makes me think that they’re off to a strong start. Of course, there’s…
Feeling blue?
This spring and summer the local beaches have at times been covered by what appear to be small, desiccated, blue or white potato chips. They would typically be seen in windrows at and just below the high-tide line, or blown into piles. The most recently washed up ones are a dark blue-violet color, while the…
Slow and steady (I think)
Today the Pisaster larvae that Scott and I are following are a week old. Happy birthday, little dudes! Yesterday we did the twice-weekly water change and looked at them. They’re getting big fast since we started feeding them on Saturday when their mouths finally broke through. At this stage they are sort of jellybean-shaped and extremely flexible–they don’t…
Questions and answers
I’ve been fielding questions about my recent sea star spawning work from people I’ve shared this blog with, which is a lot of fun! To streamline things and make the info available to anybody who might be following, I decided to put together a very brief FAQ-like post to address the most recent questions. Question: Can you…
Strangeness abounds
Wow, they weren’t kidding about “early developmental asynchrony” in sea stars! This morning I looked at the embryos that I had started almost 24 hours earlier, and noticed two things right off the bat: Thing #1: Within the F1 x M1 (Purple female x Purple male) mating , developmental rates among full siblings were all over…
From zero to cleavage in. . . nine hours
A recent college graduate and fellow marine lab denizen (Scott) and I are collaborating on a project to quantify growth rates in juvenile Pisaster orchraceus stars. This is one of the intertidal species whose populations in the field and in the lab were decimated by the most recent outbreak of sea star wasting syndrome (SSWS)….
Sea urchins have no manners
On Monday of this week (today is Thursday) I was transferring my baby urchins into clean bowls as I always do on Mondays, and for some crazy reason decided that I needed to measure all 300+ of them. I don’t remember how the details of how this decision came about, but it probably went something like…
When is a tube worm not a tube worm?
Answer: When it’s a snail! Yes, there are snails that secrete and live in white calcareous tubes that look very similar to those of serpulid polychaete worms. Here, see for yourself: The worms secrete calcareous tubes that snake over whatever surface they’re attached to. When the worm is relaxed, it extends its delicate pinnate feeding…