Mullusk Discovery, Chiton

Chitons have a dorsal shell which is composed of eight separate shell plates. These plates overlap somewhat at the front and back edges. The chiton can curl up into a bug like a roly poly bug when it's in danger.the shell of the chiton is really hard so it protects it from enemies above it. The chiton looks like a rock while sitting still and blends in with it's enviroment well it could be lost in a second.

http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/149682/chiton-on-rock.html - Vid

the scientific name for this is Cyclobranchians and the common name is chiton. Chitons live on hard surfaces like on rocks or under rocks.

Crustaceans and Echinoderms

Crustaceans are arthropods, creatures that have biolateral semetry, includes lobster, shrimp, crabs and barnacles. Echinoderms have spiky skin, includes the sea star, sea cucmber, brittle stars and sea urchins. The difference between them is that the crustaceans have an exoskeleton and the echinoderms have an endoskeleton. Similarities between them are they all start off as small as plankton.

              Crustaceans

Cleaner shrimp

 Hermit Crab

Echinoderms

Sea Urchin

Sea Buscuit

Brittle Star

 

Biofilm simulation at the G.C. Marine Reserve

During the biofilm experiment, I made a madel (out of grahm crackers) of what a biofilm disk looks like when sitting in the water for multiple weeks or months. Different sprinkles I've used symbelizes different organisms tthat show up on an object that sits for a long time. Red sugar crystals were red coralline algae, Brown long johns were diatoms, rainbow sprinkles and marshmellows were barnacles, rainbow longjohns were coral, blue or green dots were oysters, depending on how many organisms we had added up to the ammount of marshmellows (barnacles) were added. The frosting was used as a sticky substance.

Signs of spring 3/2/2011

On March 2, we were looking for signs of spring. The first sign i saw was the honey-suckle and more birds are showing up. While listening hard enough, you could hear up to 5 - 7 diffrent birds. The things I felt was the cold breeze from being in the shade which made it even colder. This was located beside the baseball field.

On the second site beside the pond there were a couple birds and even more signs of spring. Some plants were starting to bud, but some had really small flowers. I've only heard the a crows and the wind blowing through the trees and feel a little warmer from the sun shinning in the area. There were also pollen all over the place getting ready to fly away to make new plants. I've felt the smooth pine leaves on the new little pine tree.

Third site was still beside the pond but on the other side of it and almost to the creek near the bus garage. There were more pollen seeds and buds on trees, also some buds were looking like they had almost fully bloomed. Heard different birds and crows plus of course the wind in the trees. Felt the warm sun and the soft evergreens.

Site four i did not really see anything for signs of spring, unless if i did not look hard enough.i saw a couple small birds, some crows and a hawk flying around. Could feel warmth and cool air. The area where this was was at the creek beside the bus garage.