DIVE DRY WITH DR. BILL #731: TOO DEEP FOR ME
No, I'm not going to bore you with my deep philosophical ramblings this week. I'll wait until you least expect that. Today I'll stick with a critter from the deep... one that I've never seen diving (at least not that I can remember).
I learned long ago that many biologists spend much of their time "locked" in laboratories and much less time out at or under the sea. I can think of a number of them who were specialists in their field... but had little field knowledge of the species they studied. After all, how much can you really learn from a pickled museum specimen? I found that the people who spent a lot of time in Planet Ocean knew a lot more. Some of these, like my marine biologist icon Edward F. "Doc" Ricketts of Cannery Row fame had in-depth knowledge of the ecological relationships, and others such as our local anglers and boat crews had many interesting stories to tell.
I had a student at the old Toyon School named Barry Aires. Barry was my 'go to' guy when it came to the ocean, not to mention collecting rattlesnakes for my lab. He had some of the best eyes for seeing what was going on in the waters around the island. Later he became a salmon fisherman up in Fort Bragg and I was a partner in his endeavor. Sadly, like many boat captains, the profits ended up in the local bar but Barry was a great friend and companion out on the water.
Today when I get a new Facebook friend, one of the first things I do is check their photo albums to see what marine critters they may contain. Obviously I expect to see a lot of interesting images when a new friend is a SCUBA diver, but have also been pleasantly surprised when friends who enjoy boating and fishing offer images of "cool stuff."
I recently became FB friends with Cassandra Burch. I knew her years ago from the bank, although just in passing. As I went through her albums, especially the ones with images from boat trips she had been on, I was amused to see her reference how "tasty that yellowtail was" on pictures of fish that included bonito and lingcod in addition to yellowtail. Fortunately I didn't see any giant sea bass images labeled that way!
One image really caught my attention. It was a sea star (aka starfish for those of us who are traditionalists and know neither starfish nor jellyfish are really fish). I had known this species from pictures in field guides but had never seen it while diving. It tends to occupy deeper water, from about 50 to 1,650 feet. Even on my deepest dives to 200 ft I had never seen it. Its geographic range is from northern Alaska to southern California and northern Baja, which probably explains why it is found in deeper, colder water here but in shallow water way up north.
I'm referring to the red or vermillion starfish, Mediaster aequalis (but formerly known as Prince... er, Ophidiaster aequalis). This bright red to orange star usually has the typical five arms, with four or six occasionally observed, and a large central disc. It may reach a diameter of about eight inches, although smaller ones are more common.
These stars have an interesting diet. I'm quite sure I could never survive on sponges, brachiopods, bryozoans. tunicates, sea pens and by scavenging on dead critters. No thanks! Feeding on dead matter and attached organisms is probably necessitated by their maximum speed, about 10 to 16 inches per minute... certainly not "fast and furious" by a long shot, but not bad for a sea star. Their diet may change with the seasons.
This species is reported to breed in the spring up in British Columbia (ah, yes, in springtime a seastar's fancy turns to...). Red seastars are sexually mature at about four years (how precocious). The eggs are a bright orange in color and may number in the thousands. They hatch into planktonic larvae.
So thank you, Cassandra. With the weather turning warm and boaters going out more often, I hope my readers will feel free to e-mail me (bushing@post.harvard.edu) with any unusual sightings you make. Include pictures if you have them.
© 2017 Dr. Bill Bushing. For the entire archived set of over 700 "Dive Dry" columns, visit my website Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Home Page
Image caption: The red (or vermilion) seastar Mediaster aequalis (image courtesy of Cassandra)
No, I'm not going to bore you with my deep philosophical ramblings this week. I'll wait until you least expect that. Today I'll stick with a critter from the deep... one that I've never seen diving (at least not that I can remember).
I learned long ago that many biologists spend much of their time "locked" in laboratories and much less time out at or under the sea. I can think of a number of them who were specialists in their field... but had little field knowledge of the species they studied. After all, how much can you really learn from a pickled museum specimen? I found that the people who spent a lot of time in Planet Ocean knew a lot more. Some of these, like my marine biologist icon Edward F. "Doc" Ricketts of Cannery Row fame had in-depth knowledge of the ecological relationships, and others such as our local anglers and boat crews had many interesting stories to tell.
I had a student at the old Toyon School named Barry Aires. Barry was my 'go to' guy when it came to the ocean, not to mention collecting rattlesnakes for my lab. He had some of the best eyes for seeing what was going on in the waters around the island. Later he became a salmon fisherman up in Fort Bragg and I was a partner in his endeavor. Sadly, like many boat captains, the profits ended up in the local bar but Barry was a great friend and companion out on the water.
Today when I get a new Facebook friend, one of the first things I do is check their photo albums to see what marine critters they may contain. Obviously I expect to see a lot of interesting images when a new friend is a SCUBA diver, but have also been pleasantly surprised when friends who enjoy boating and fishing offer images of "cool stuff."
I recently became FB friends with Cassandra Burch. I knew her years ago from the bank, although just in passing. As I went through her albums, especially the ones with images from boat trips she had been on, I was amused to see her reference how "tasty that yellowtail was" on pictures of fish that included bonito and lingcod in addition to yellowtail. Fortunately I didn't see any giant sea bass images labeled that way!
One image really caught my attention. It was a sea star (aka starfish for those of us who are traditionalists and know neither starfish nor jellyfish are really fish). I had known this species from pictures in field guides but had never seen it while diving. It tends to occupy deeper water, from about 50 to 1,650 feet. Even on my deepest dives to 200 ft I had never seen it. Its geographic range is from northern Alaska to southern California and northern Baja, which probably explains why it is found in deeper, colder water here but in shallow water way up north.
I'm referring to the red or vermillion starfish, Mediaster aequalis (but formerly known as Prince... er, Ophidiaster aequalis). This bright red to orange star usually has the typical five arms, with four or six occasionally observed, and a large central disc. It may reach a diameter of about eight inches, although smaller ones are more common.
These stars have an interesting diet. I'm quite sure I could never survive on sponges, brachiopods, bryozoans. tunicates, sea pens and by scavenging on dead critters. No thanks! Feeding on dead matter and attached organisms is probably necessitated by their maximum speed, about 10 to 16 inches per minute... certainly not "fast and furious" by a long shot, but not bad for a sea star. Their diet may change with the seasons.
This species is reported to breed in the spring up in British Columbia (ah, yes, in springtime a seastar's fancy turns to...). Red seastars are sexually mature at about four years (how precocious). The eggs are a bright orange in color and may number in the thousands. They hatch into planktonic larvae.
So thank you, Cassandra. With the weather turning warm and boaters going out more often, I hope my readers will feel free to e-mail me (bushing@post.harvard.edu) with any unusual sightings you make. Include pictures if you have them.
© 2017 Dr. Bill Bushing. For the entire archived set of over 700 "Dive Dry" columns, visit my website Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Home Page
Image caption: The red (or vermilion) seastar Mediaster aequalis (image courtesy of Cassandra)
