I have now settled in to my shifts on the Marine Mammal Physiology Project.
I am learning so much and so far it has been very amazing!
I did have to sign some papers saying I wouldn't take or post any photos. Sorry I can't show you any pictures of what I have been doing. I am hoping to get permission to maybe share some stories in the future!
As you can see from their website, I work with dolphins, otters, birds, and a Hawaiian monk seal. It has been amazing getting to see and care for these animals up close and personal. I get to watch a lot training sessions. I am learning how to do food and enrichment prep. And I do lots of cleaning and data keeping.
At the end of the day my clothes are wet, my muscles are sore, there is a slight fish smell coming from my hands, and there is always a smile on my face!
Baby number four hatched sometime in the night. The fourth egg always hatches a day after the rest so this is no surprise. There are now four hungry mouths for Clara and Fernando to feed!
I just got accepted into the Marine Mammal Physiology Project down at the Long Marine Lab in Santa Cruz. I will be learning about marine mammal training, diet, behavior, and what it takes to keep them happy and healthy in captivity.
This means that it is official, I will not be going back to Guide Dogs for the Blind this summer. :( :( :(
I am more than sad about this fact but i absolutely cannot pass up this fantastic opportunity.
I will hopefully be able to share everything that I do down at the lab on here. I will absolutely miss all of my smiling guide dog faces and all the friends I have made in the kennels but I look forward to this new adventure!!
Orientation is next week and then my shifts start. Wish me luck!!
My school is on the quarter system which means we only get 10 weeks of instruction per class. This is finals week and I just took my last final this afternoon! I can now put Invertebrate Zoology + Lab, Exercise Physiology + Lab, and Peregrine Falcons behind me. I'm so excited to move on to a new set of classes.
Bring on spring break!
The UCSC Squiggle
I walked by this every night I had my peregrine falcon's class. It was always a beautiful view of the ocean at sunset.
A name has been given to the new tiercel who is now calling San Jose city hall home. Fernando has been performing all of his partnerly duties for Clara. He brings her food twice a day and has performed all of the courtship rituals and has even begun to figure out his share of the incubating. After checking out the eggs several times trying to figure out what to do with them, he has finally succeeded in sitting on them. Even though it was only for a very short time it is still a big step.
Now here was my initial reaction to this:
Clara is currently sitting on EC's eggs and Fernando gets no genetic or fitness benefit for raising EC's young. But, after thinking about it, perhaps what matters most to peregrines is the territory and potential for future offspring. But still, why isn't it instinctively ingrained in their genetics to not care for young that they know isn't theirs? And then I started thinking, if the chances of them abandoning their own young accidentally was too high, than evolution would have caused them develop into birds that care for any eggs and any babies inside their nesting area. The fitness benefit for their own young is increased when their parents are guaranteed to care for them. In the end, Fernando helping to raise EC's babies benefit him in the long run.
Being an Ecology and Evolution major involves trying to answer one big circle of questions all of the time. It's fun trying to figure things out though.
This lab was pretty fun, I have always wondered what is going on underneath all those spines!
The aboral side, this is how they look when you see them in the ocean. Their anus is right in the center there.
This is a view of the underside. That is the mouth right in the middle. They have 5 teeth.
A close up of their spines and tube feet. You can see how the tube feet have lines down the middle. Water enters the foot high in waste and low in oxygen and leaves the foot to reenter the body high in oxygen and low in waste,
Couldn't get a good picture of this, but those little white dots in the center are called pedicellariae. They are three sided pincher like structures sitting on stalks. They would open and close and grab around and looked like hungry little baby dinosaur mouths. These guys prevent anything from settling in or growing on the urchin.
If you want to see them in action, watch the video below and look at the tiny stalks in the center. You can see them grabbing around, it's really cool.
The first view into my urchin after I cut out a window (which was not easy to do!) That big orange thing is the gonad or gamete producer. They have 5 gonads.
I quickly found out my urchin was a male. It was spewing sperm which can be seen in the picture above. This led me to change my water every ten minutes... Not fun.
One gonad removed, here is what the insides looked like.
A view after I cut along the equator and the whole aboral side was removed
A view after all reproductive and digestive organs were removed
A close up of Aristotle's Lantern
This was the last lab of the quarter! I'm excited not to spend four hours drawing things but also sad because it was really interesting and fun to share. Lab practical is next week, wish me luck!
