In the surf zone

I caught up with a few surfing California Sea Lions (Zalophus californianus) tonight (31 July 2018):

 

 

 

 

Also looked like quite a bit of bird activity near shore — perhaps there's some bait fish around?

 

Branching out

 

Close-up of the beautiful tentacles of a local peanut worm (Themiste sp.).  

Here's a view of all of the tentacles:

 

I wrote about a similar peanut worm in 2014, so if you'd like to learn more about them, review the post called "Peanuts with chocolate chips" on 20 July 2014.

P.S.  Also — I have an update about the Bottlenose Dolphins photographed on 5 July 2018.  Bill wrote to say that he had identified one of them — an older female named "Sakura" that's been known to researchers since 1989!  For more information, you can read Bill's comment on that post (see link above).  Thanks, Bill!

View from the top

 

A quick shot of a White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) at the top of a redwood tree in our neighborhood tonight (29 July 2018).

Sharing some sushi

I've gone for very long periods without seeing a River Otter (Lontra canadensis), so I've been somewhat surprised this summer to encounter several families in a few different places.

The most recent observation involved a mother and pup.  Luckily, I had a large zoom lens on my camera so I could watch and take pictures from far away without disturbing them, and then I cropped the photos for close-up views.

Here's the adult eating a long, slender fish:

 

Then the pup came along and took the tail end of the fish from the mother:

 

The mother left the little one to feed on its own while she continued fishing nearby: 

 

P.S.  If you can tell what type of fish the otters were eating, I'd love to know.  Could it be a prickleback?

What did the limpet say to the chiton?

 

"Wow, I didn't know Big Foot was so pink!"

Okay, I'll admit this is a stretch (and that I might be overtired).  I was playing the "caption game" with this photo, trying to come up with an interesting caption describing what was going on in the picture.  What would the little brown limpet on the left say when it encountered the larger pink chiton?  [Remember that a chiton has a large foot to hold on to the rock.]

When I thought of the caption above, I couldn't stop laughing.  (Seriously!)  I'm not sure why...maybe because it's funny to imagine the real Big Foot (the woodland creature that most people think of) as being bright pink instead of brown?

Do you want to play the caption game?  Can you think of a fun caption for the photo above?  Let me know!

P.S.  Here's another one — "Hey, dude — nice striped pajamas!" 

Nope, no Red Rock Crab here! (just kidding)

 

 

Although you might be familiar with adult Red Rock Crabs (Cancer productus) that are primarily red, juvenile Red Rock Crabs come in a variety of color forms (see below).  We don't see the form shown above (mostly white with a large brown spot) as often, so I thought it would be fun to document.

Here are some of the color patterns that are possible in juvenile Red Rock Crabs (below).  [As they grow, after several molts, the crabs will become uniform red.]

 

Figure from Krause-Nehring, J., J.M. Starck, and A.R. Palmer.  2010.  Juvenile colour polymorphism in the red rock crab, Cancer productus: patterns, causes, and possible adaptive significance.  Zoology 113: 131-139.

This is a fascinating story.  The basic hypothesis that's been proposed for why there are so many juvenile color patterns involves natural selection imposed by visual predators (e.g., fish) that form search images.  As rare color patterns evolve, they avoid detection by visual predators and are successful.  Eventually predators might catch on to the new color pattern if it becomes common, but new patterns that arise will again enjoy an advantage.  Over long periods of time, more and more color patterns may accumulate through these processes.

If you encounter juvenile Red Rock Crabs when you're tidepooling, it's fun to see how many different color patterns you can find!

Velvet aboveground

 

Thanks to Peter, I'm excited to share a velvet ant (Dasymutilla sp.) photo with you.  We were walking in the Bodega Dunes last weekend when this small orange and black insect went racing by us.  We caught up with it and I managed one photo for the record.

Velvet ants aren't really ants.  Although they look hairy and have an ant-like appearance, they're actually wasps!  The females (as above) don't have wings.  They run over the sand in search of an underground bee or wasp nest to parasitize.  (If you encounter a velvet ant, beware, their sting is very painful.)

P.S.  For more information about velvet ants, check out this story from the BBC.

Skimming the surface

This morning I heard that Rick had spotted a Black Skimmer (Rynchops niger) in Bodega Harbor.  Black Skimmers are rare in Sonoma County (they're more common in southern California), so this afternoon I decided to see if it was still around.

I found it in several locations within Bodega Harbor.  Most of the time it was a little too distant for my camera lens, but I thought it would still be fun to share a few photos for the record.

Two pictures of the skimmer sitting on the mudflats (in the second image, the bird has its bill tucked underneath its feathers):

 

 

Two pictures in flight:

 

 

 One highlighting the long wings and tail pattern:

 

And one picture of the skimmer skimming (below).  Black Skimmers are named after their distinctive feeding behavior.  They don't plunge dive like terns.  Instead, the skimmer drops its lower mandible into the water and skims along at the surface trying to make contact with small fish.  (Note that the skimmer's lower mandible is much longer than the upper mandible.)

 

Although there have been several Black Skimmer sightings in Bodega Harbor during the last decade or so, this is the first I've seen locally.  The wind was calm enough today that at times you could hear the skimmer calling.  Fun! 

P.S.  If you decide to try to find this bird, the easiest place to see it today was on the harbor side of Doran Beach, near the Rich Stallcup Viewing Platform (opposite the Cypress Day Use parking lot).  

Together again

 

Al reminded me to share this photo of the Moon and Venus.  [Click on the image for a larger version.]  Photographed from Cotati on 15 July 2018.

P.S.  Thanks, Al!

 

Ocean eyes

 

Sometimes I'm a little hesitant about posting photos when I'm uncertain of the identity of the species.  At the same time, it's hard to resist when something is so beautiful!  And maybe someday someone will be able to help with the identification.

This is another sculpin from the low intertidal zone.  The entire fish is shown below:

 

I'm also including a close-up of the area surrounding the eye.  You can click on the image for a larger version. It's fascinating to look at the details of the color patterns!

 

Handed down

I was thinking about Cadet and Wini Hand this past weekend.  (Cadet was the founding director of the Bodega Marine Laboratory.)  And then something fun happened.  We were in the field on Sunday morning (15 July 2018) when Eric noticed a small sea anemone that he didn't recognize:

 

The anemone was only ~7 mm across.  It had lots of tentacles, and the tentacles were narrow and tapered to a point.  We could also see that the tentacles were banded with white.

From the side you could see the translucent orange column:

 

We spent some time researching the identity of this little anemone and it turned out to be Metridium exilis, a species that Cadet Hand described in 1955!

Here's a close-up of the oral disc and tentacles (below).  Note this species often has 96 tentacles!

 

A few facts about Metridium exilis:

- It's distributed from British Columbia to Carmel, California.

- It's usually found on the outer coast (in contrast to its more common relative, Metridium senile, that's found in bays).

- It's small — the largest specimens are ~12 mm in diameter.

- It reproduces asexually via longitudinal fission.  (In the field, we saw a cluster of several small individuals that were presumably clone mates.)

We had a hard time finding photographs of Metridium exilis, so here's another beautiful image that Eric took:

 

Thanks, Cadet, for noticing and describing this wonderful local sea anemone! 

Scavenging

Sometimes you hear about mammalian scavengers feeding on marine mammal carcasses washed ashore, but I hadn't seen it myself until this past weekend.  

Joe stopped by to mention that he had just seen a coyote feeding on a seal.  Luckily, I had my large zoom lens on my camera at the time.  

I managed a few distant photographs, so here's one for the record:

 

Coyote (Canis latrans) feeding on a Harbor Seal (Phoca vitulina) carcass, 15 July 2018

P.S.  Many thanks to Joe for the wildlife alert! 

ADDENDUM (18 July 2018): KB asked if the coyote was hit by any waves.  Since you asked, the answer is:

Yes!

 

Although the coyote didn't seem to mind slightly wet feet:

 

Retro mystery -- Part 2

Okay, here's a partial answer to last night's mystery photo.  I'm going to reveal the identity of this animal quickly, so if you want another chance to guess, here's the close-up image:

 

And now here's the entire animal:

 

This is an intertidal sculpin photographed in the low intertidal zone on 15 July 2018.  (The fish is resting on a bed of sea squirts.)  Sadly, I'm not sure which species of sculpin it is, so if you are familiar with it, please let me know.  Thanks!

 

Retro mystery

A close-up mystery photo.  Can you guess what type of animal this is?

 

What an amazing pattern!  What beautiful colors!  

I'll reveal more about it tomorrow night.

Summer meander?

It's been foggy and a bit humid lately, but I was still surprised to see this little salamander approaching our front steps this morning:

 

It was early (~5 a.m.), so perhaps it was wrapping up a nighttime excursion?

I think this is a juvenile Arboreal Salamander (Aneides lugubris), but it's paler than most of the individuals I've seen, so let me know if you think it's something different. 

Kite in the clouds

I was sitting inside last night when I thought I heard a White-tailed Kite (Elanus leucurus) calling outside.  I stepped out to confirm that it was a kite, and sure enough, a kite was displaying in the sky above our house — calling and fluttering its wings with its legs lowered.  And there was a bonus — the clouds were amazing!  Perhaps you saw some of these clouds, too?

 

Photographed in Cotati on 12 July 2018

 

Local jellies

A few nights ago, I promised to show a few more examples of the gelatinous animals that might wash ashore on local beaches at this time of year.  So...here you go!

Two jellyfish:

 

Pacific Sea Nettle (Chrysaora fuscescens) — note the golden brown color (beware, sea nettles can cause painful stings)

 

Moon Jelly (Aurelia sp.) — note the pale purple color

Now, two different hydromedusae:

 

Giant Bell Jelly (Scrippsia pacifica) — note the red eye spots

 

Aglauropsis aeora — note the faint pink and blue coloration

And the swimming bell of a siphonophore:

 

Probably Praya sp. — note that in this species the "jelly" material retains its form, and overall this swimming bell has a shape somewhat like a large tooth, i.e., squared off at one end and with two pointed tips at the opposite end.

P.S.  I think I've written a little bit about all of these species before, so if you'd like to learn more about them, scroll to the bottom of the NHBH web page and use the "Search This blog" function.

B & B

 

Whew, it's been a busy week, but here's a bee on a buckwheat for you!  Not sure which species of bee yet, but it's sipping nectar and acquiring pollen from Seaside Wild Buckwheat (Eriogonum latifolium).  Photographed on Bodega Head on 11 July 2018.  [Click on the image for a larger version.]

Glowing green

When the winds let up during the summer, sometimes you can find gelatinous animals washed up on the beach — e.g., jellyfish, hydromedusae, siphonophores, ctenophores (also known as comb jellies), and salps.  (I'll show some examples of these animals during the next week.)  

Several days ago I noticed quite a few gelatinous animals, and I was especially curious about some of the comb jellies.  This particular comb jelly (Beroe sp.) doesn't look like much once it ends up on the beach.  It could even just look like a thin patch of slime with a pinkish hue:

 

But if you look closely, you can see long parallel lines running from one end to the other — that's your first clue that it's a comb jelly (rather than a jellyfish).

I was looking at these lines (called comb rows) when I thought I saw some green coloration:

 

In my experience, it's unusual for the comb rows to appear green, so I zoomed in for a closer view:

 

Definitely green!  So what's going on?

Most (but not all) species of comb jellies are bioluminescent.  That means they can emit light via an internal chemical reaction.  Bioluminescence is often more visible in the dark, so I was a little confused about what I was seeing...and I still am.

On this web page about bioluminescence, I read that "there are strong antioxidant properties to luminescent reactions (i.e., they mop up oxygen radicals) so there may be light produced internally during protective reactions."

Could this be what has happening with the comb jellies washed up on the beach?  I'll have to ask around, but I thought you might like to see the photos, and perhaps you have some ideas about the green color in these comb jellies:

 

P.S.  Several years ago I showed pictures of this species of comb jelly swimming.  If you'd like to see those pictures, check out the post called "The Pink Predator — Part 2" from 3 November 2014.

 

Urchin flower?

 

Doesn't this flower look like a tiny purple sea urchin?

Here's a zoomed-out view:

 

This is an arrow-grass (Triglochin sp.), a species that grows in our local salt marshes.  I didn't have much time, and I was so focused on the flowers that I didn't confirm which species of arrow-grass, so I'll have to double-check and report back. 

P.S.  I showed Seaside Arrow-grass (Triglochin maritima) in flower last year — see "Sparkling, frilly edges" on 26 June 2017.

 

Bears in flight?

 

Ranchman's Tiger Moths (Platyprepia virginialis) have been very active on Bodega Head recently.  Have you seen them around?

Here's one perched:

 

Some people might be more familiar with this moth in its caterpillar stage — they're the local caterpillars known as woolly bears.  For a photo of the caterpillar, check the post called "On the rocks" from 28 March 2012.