July 2-Honor an invert

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Arthropoda

Class: Malacostraca

Order: Decapoda

Family: Pandalidae

This are newly settled spot prawns (Pandalus platyceros). They are only a month old in this picture and about 1/4 of an inch (4 mm) in size. The adult spot prawn get to be 10.5 in (27 cm) long and are considered to be the largest shrimp on the west coast of the US. Spot prawns start out their lives as male, then switch to females as they get older. They can live for about 6 years in California and up to 11 years in Alaska.

They are on the Monterey Bay's Seafood Watch best choice list as spot prawns are often caught in traps, rather than nets like normal-sized shrimp. Dragging nets along the bottom of the sea floor often causes damage to the habitat and produces a lot of by-catch, as many other animals are caught along with the shrimp. Using traps minimizes by-catch and damage to the surrounding habitat.

June 25- Soiled

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Class: Myxini

Order: Myxiniformes

Family: Myxinidae

This is a close-up picture of a hagfish's slime. The hagfish can produce vasts amounts of slime, enough to fill a bucket that they happen to be captured in. This slime consists of fibrous protein threads, mucus, and seawater. You can see the threads in this picture, if you look carefully.

Recent research suggests that the bulk of the mucus is actually seawater that is trapped in the mucus-coated threads [1]. This makes a certain amount of sense, given that the mucus expands rapidly when in contact with water (much like a sponge). It may also explain how these hagfish can produce such vast quantities of slime...basically, they are just puffing up a little bit of slime with water.

What hagfish use this slime for is still under debate. Most seem to be leaning towards the idea that the slime can clog the gills of potential predators.

June 18- Airy

Kingdom: Plantae

Division: Magnoliophyta

Class: Liliopsida

Order: Arales

Family: Araceae

This is the bud of a corpse flower, Amorphophallus titanum. At the time that the photo was taken, the blossom was 5 ft and 7 in (5.6 m), and expected to reach over 6 ft (3 m). When open the corpse plant smells of rotting meat, to attract their fly and bee pollinators. The flower has a purplish color (like rotting meat) and heats up the air around it, so that the scent diffuses farther.

These plant produce only one flower or one leaf at a time. The flower itself is not a single large flower, but is made up of smaller male and female flowers. The leaf can reach 20 ft (6 m) tall and 16 ft (5 m) across. They are closely related to calla lilies.

June 11- Travel

Kingdom: Animalia

Phylum: Chordata

Subphylum: Vertebrata

Class: Aves

Order: Anseriformes

Family: Anatidae

These Canadian geese represent travel in so many different ways. I took a picture of these geese on a recent trip to New Mexico. Of course the geese themselves are highly migratory; flying from northern Canada to the southern US.

There are 11 subspecies of Canadian goose found in the northern hemisphere, and their body size decreases with increasing latitude. This split in sizes may be due to the fact that Canadian geese practice assortative mating. In this case, the birds choose their mates based on size; they prefer to mate with a goose that is the same size as them.

In my childhood, seeing geese flying south was a regular feature of the fall season. It seems very odd to me to see these birds flying about in the winter, now that I live in the southern areas.