You never know what you might see walking along the tidepools. On a recent excursion I got lucky and spotted a California brown sea hare (Aplysia californica) in a little pool of water tucked amongst the rocks. My first sighting of one in the wild! I watched it eat for several minutes. It was easy… [read more]
Meet the stunning Spanish shawl nudibranch
The Spanish shawl nudibranch or Flabellina iodinea is another ocean beauty! This sea slug grows to be about 38 mm (close to 1.5 inches), but what it lacks for in size the Spanish shawl makes up for with brilliant coloring that knocks your socks off. It’s body is a rich shade of purple offset by… [read more]
Introducing an exquisite nudibranch
Beauty comes in all shapes and sizes and that’s true for the ocean too. Some of the most stunning creatures are nudibranchs, which are commonly referred to as sea slugs or naked snails because they are a type of mollusc without a shell. According to the book Eastern Pacific Nudibranchs: A Guide to the Opisthobranchs… [read more]
Use extreme caution when buying shell jewelry
At first, the title of this post was going to be “Don’t buy shell jewelry,” but that seemed a bit too dramatic, so I settled on “Use extreme caution when buying shell jewelry.” What’s the big deal you ask? Here’s the situation: A lot of shells are homes for animals, even tiny, tiny shells often… [read more]
Spawning endangered white abalone
Tomorrow, July 12th from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Cabrillo Marine Aquarium (CMA) will attempt to spawn white abalone and members of the public are invited to watch! Why is this exciting? Because in the wild, white abalone are considered to be reproductively extinct; meaning there are too few living too far apart in the… [read more]
Check out this giant sea hare!
A quick timeout from discussing ocean science and sea level rise so I can post a photo of a massive sea hare! I met this sea hare on the Catalina Above and Below trip hosted by Cabrillo Marine Aquarium on June 11th. This is my favorite trip of all time because you get to see… [read more]
7 cool sea hare facts
As a follow-up to my first post about sea hares, here are seven cool sea hare facts: 1. Large wing-like flaps protect the gills and some species of sea hares use these flaps for swimming, duo-purpose wing-like flaps in those cases. 2. The two tentacle-like extensions on the top of the head that stick up… [read more]
This is your chance to create a crazy scientific name!
In honor of World Oceans Day on June 8th, Birch Aquarium is hosting a contest to name two recently identified species of deep-sea worms. This is your chance to come up with a crazy scientific name! The general public gets to name one worm and the other deep-sea worm will be named by a K-12… [read more]
Introducing the sea hare
The sea hare is not a rabbit, not even close, it’s actually a sea slug. But thanks to two tentacle-like extensions on the top of its head that stick up like rabbit ears, it was dubbed the sea hare. This photo features the California brown sea hare or Aplysia californica. Up-close, sea hares look like… [read more]
Sea elephant
Well, it turns out there is a common name for the gnarly marine snail featured in my last post. It’s called a sea elephant. So I stand corrected. There is a common name for Carinaria japonica, not necessarily one that makes any sense, but a common name all the same. Revealing the common name is… [read more]