Morning light

  

Morning light and Black-tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus californicus), 30 April 2024

A long way to grow!

  

Close-up of barnacles on a Californa Mussel (Mytilus californianus) shell, photographed on 29 April 2024.

There are at least two age classes of barnacles here — the larger Little Brown Barnacle (Chthamalus dalli) adults and the very tiny newly-settled recruits.  The recruits were so small they were actually hard to see in the field — just small specks scattered across the mussel shell.  They have a long way to grow!  :)

Holding fast?

 

 

We were doing surveys during the low tide this morning (27 April 2024) when Eric spotted this unusual interaction.  The holdfast of a small Sea Palm (Postelsia palmaeformis) had grown over and appeared to be attached to a chiton, Nuttallina californica!

 

Chitons are mobile grazers, moving over the surface of the rock and feeding on algae.  Perhaps they take breaks and stay in place for a while, which allowed the kelp to attach to it?

 

We didn't actually pull on the chiton to see if the haptera (root-like outgrowths) were definitely attached to the chiton, but it sure looks like it:

 

 

 

We'll be back in this area and can check on the kelp and chiton again to see how things turn out.

Pool of light

  

 Morning light in a tidepool with sea urchins (purple) and sea anemones (green).

Slender spur

  

Blue Toadflax (Nuttallanthus texanus) in the Bodega Dunes on 19 April 2024.

P.S.  The "spur" is the long slender part of the flower (to the left of the petals) that's curving downward.

Happy Earth Day!

  

Happy Earth Day!

Most of our recent photos our from Hawai'i, so here's one from the north shore of O'ahu to help celebrate our amazing planet.

Light-eyed?

  

I was checking on some wildflowers in the dunes earlier this week and was noticing it seems to be a good year for many of the annuals, including Dark-eyed Gilia (Gilia millefoliata). 

I had seen hundreds of Dark-eyed Gilias, all with typical purplish petals, when I came across one with all white flower parts:

 

 

I looked around and found eight more plants with white flowers in the same area, but no other white-petaled Gilia flowers elsewhere.  

We've seen this phenomenon of white variants in other species, but I hadn't noticed it in Dark-eyed Gilia before, so I thought it was worth documenting.

The Jepson Manual says that Gilia millefoliata petals can be purple or "colorless," so perhaps this variant appears occasionally and we just hadn't seen it in the Bodega Dunes yet.

P.S.  Should we call the variant Light-eyed Gilia?  ;)