Blog Post #9 Shanon Point

This is a small eel we found while examining specimens on the boat. It was fairly inactive like most of the specimens in the bucket, but a few of them made an effort to wriggle away. I assume the role they play is that of a bottom feeder and food source for much larger fish. 

This Graceful Crab (bottom left), was one of the larger and more interesting specimens we found while on the boat (being that it was actually moving around). It's hard to tell in the lighting but it had a sort of purplish pink hue to it. I assume this crab is more of a predator in it's environment because it was considerably larger than the other organisms we observed. 

This is the giant sea-cucumber that was in the lab. While I was taking the picture it was peeling itself off the side of the bin and twisting around. I had no clue what kind of purpose they served so I looked it up and found out they're scavengers! Makes sense given that they don't swim and are very slow. 

This little guy is the Nudibrach that was in the lab. It was quite active, both twisting around and waving its little feelers around. Given the it's similar structure to the sea cucumber I'm going to say that it's also a scavenger. 

Overall, my favorite part was definitely going out on the boat. However, the most interesting thing I saw was the plankton we observed in the lab. The zooplankton in particular were just so odd looking, almost like a virus. Although this trip didn't change my opinions on the PNW, it was very refreshing to have a perspective that was so much closer to marine life than I'm used to. Actually having hands on interactions with the creatures gives you a great reminder of how real they are. The one question I had was: how is the shrimp population we encountered on the boat possible? I know it's a factor of food, predators, and ability to reproduce, but they outnumbered the other specimens we caught by a great deal.