Mollusk Discovery

Chiton

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/69011_chitons-colorful-and-unique-sea-creatures

Above is a picture is a Butterfly Chiton. It's Scientific name is Cryptoconchus Porosus.

Characteristics:
-It has Eight shells.
-Has very strong suction
-Can roll into a ball to protect itself.
-Scrapes algae and eats detritus.

Taxonomy:
Kingdom-Animalia
Phylum- Mollusca
Class- Polyplacophora
Order- Neoloricata
Family- Acanothochitonidae
Genus- Cryptoconchus
Species- Porosus
http://s701.photobucket.com/albums/ww14/LamboAM/Album%202/?action=view&current=StomaVid.mp4Chiton

Above is a video of a chiton in someone's fsh tank. I could not find a video of a Butterfly Chiton, so I had to get a video of a regular Chiton.

Crustaceans and Echinoderms

Differences in Crustaceans and Echinoderms:
-Echinoderms have a spiky skin with an endoskeleton, while Crustaceans have a hard outer skeleton, Exoskeleton.
-Crustaceans molt, which means when they grow and when their about to shed their exoskeleton they reatian extra water to break the old exoskelton for the new one to harden. Since Endoskeletons, have their skeleton grow with them you often find 'tests' left on the beach when they die.
-Echinoderms have radial symmetry, while Crustations have Bilateral symmetry.

Simularities in Crustaceans and Echinoderms:
- The only simularity is that the Echinoderm's larvae has Bilateral symmetry, just like the Crustaceans.

Pictures of Echinoderms:
http://www.sciencephoto.com/images/download_lo_res.html?id=670054840

Above is a picture of Bilateral symmetry of a Echinoderm's Larvae.

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/common-starfish-jessica-winder.html


Above is a Starfish.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Class: Asteroidea
Order: Forcipulatida
Family: Asteriidae
Genus: Asterias
Species: Asterias Rubens



Above is a Sea Cucumber.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Class: Holothuroidea
Order: Aspidochirotida
Family: Holothuriidae
Genus: Holothuria
Species: Holothuria Pardalis
Pictures of Crustaceans:

http://www.dpughphoto.com/crustaceans,_mollusks.htm

Above is a picture of a Ghost Crab.
 Kingdom: Animaliahttp://thehumorlessfeminist.tumblr.com/post/1145876585/today-is-brought-to-you-by-the-peacock-mantis
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Family: Ocypodidae
Genus: Ocypode
Species: Cancer Ceratophthalmus


Above is a Peacock Matis Shrimp.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Stomatopoda
Family: Odontodactylidae
Genus: Odontodactylus
Species: Odontodactylas Scyllarushttp://www.sealordphotography.net/Food/seafood/European-shellfish/3659967_GS7e8/1/103527860_ou2sh


 Above is a Eurupean Clawed Lobster.
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Malacostraca
Order: Decapoda
Family: Nephropidae
Genus: Homarus
Species: Homarus Gammarus

Cool Video: Check it out!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5219672612991804355#docid=7933887031585756957
Matis Shrimp Vs. Crab! See who wins! http://www.starfish.ch/c-invertebrates/seewalzen.html

Signs of Spring

Signs of Spring!

The picture above I found at site one. After searching a while I found these cute little berries. I'm sure an animal would love to eat these, if they're not poisonous I saw more green around me then in the winter months. I could hear birds off in the distance, the wind blowing through the trees. I could feel the breeze and the sun peeking out from behind the trees and hitting my face.

Above are Alder catkins. If you squeeze them a little they puff out pollen. It was pretty interesting. I could see the pond water, and beams of sun shining down on the pond. I could hear crows in the distance and the wind blowing. I felt cold, and the wind blowing so hard!

In the above picture you see an acorn sprouting in time for spring to come. This is a sure sign that Spring is coming. I could see the sun and the water current in the pond; feel the sun warming me up, and hear the wind through the tress with the birds chirping in the distance.

The picture above is a tree bud. This definitely shows that the trees are ready to grow and the conditions are right! I could see Lydia coming through the drain pipe and hear the running water, a plane and rocks hitting against each other. I could feel the breeze and my feet getting a little wet. At the end of site four Mrs. Richardson and I ran down a Hawk and she got some great pictures of it. I wasn't able to because my phone wouldn't zoom in that fair. Check out her blog for the pretty hawk!

Biofilm Simulation at the G.C. Marine Reserve

#1

#2

Dear family, we did a quick experiment on last Friday. This represents a biofilm Which is what Marine Scientists use to collect data about plankton and barnacles. The difference in the first and second picture is the baby barnacles grew up into big barnacles. We got to eat this afterwords. I must say i enjoyed this lab very much!

Plankton Wars / Algae in the Cupboard

Plankton Wars!

 Above is Sabrina and I with our plankton. When we finished it ended up looking like a sattelite instead of plankton so we took a picture of it revolving around the earth.

 (The two pictures above were taken by Mrs. Richardson) 
In this picture above we had just finished our plankton and were very hopeful for a win! At the beginning we were worried it would be to heavy, but when we set it in the water we knew that that was the least of our problems. There was nothing we could do to get ours to even sink and stay under the water unless we held it down with our finger. We definitely should have added some washers to our satellite. Ha

 I lucked out and looked at my Dad's Slim-Fast and found out that it contained Carrageenan. I'm assuming this might help keep it creamy or something of that nature.

(The two pictures above were taken by my brother Drew)
Above is a picture of Ranch Dressing I found in my refrigerator. It contains alginates which is a type of algae. I think Mrs. Richardson made us find algae in things we use everyday to open our eyes up to the different uses algae has and how dependent we really are on it. It was fun looking for the algae, even if I could only find two; Alginate and Carrageenan.

( The picture above was taken by Christa Thomas)
 These Jimmy Dean Sausage Biscuits contain Beta-Carotene. I wasn't able to find anything at my house that contained this, but Christa was nice enough to lend me this picture.

Observation Site Five

Observation Site Five

It was a nice sunny day. The wind was blowing but didn't ruin how pretty it was outside. I looked down when we were about to head back to the school and I saw this light colored moss. It was lighter then the normal moss around the base of trees.

(Picture above taken by Sabrina)  This picture was taken right before I took the picture of the moss. This cute little guy was found under a tree that had fallen and started to rott. I think we should call him Fred. :)

(Picture above taken by Mrs. Richardson) At our first site we sat down by the pong and had five minutes of scilence. In this scilence the geese came out onto the pond and Mrs. Richardson got a great picture of them.

(Picture above taken by: Mrs. Richardson)This Chickadee Was sitting on a tree limb enjoying the beautiful day while we were walking around. Mrs. Richardson snapped a great shot of him/her. I think he should be called George or Gorgena :)

Observation Site Four

  Site One

  When we finally got down to the pond, I was very excited about what we were going to get to do. It was gorgeous outside. I could hear a train, the wind blowing and birds above. Feeling the breeze and the sun on my face was very refreshing. seeing Autumn Wood crushing pine cones and Katelynn falling made the trip even better. The picture above was taken right off the edge of the pond. This phytoplankton looks like a large plant under the water. 

Site Two

This picture is supposed to be in the center but this annoying blog isn't working correctly. I could hear the kids talking and wind when we got here. The wind and sun rays on my face felt amazing. The picture above is right off the shore line. There is some nice Algae   on the leaves and stick in the pond. it's definitely phytoplankton. specifically Cyanobacteria.

 Site Three

This site I found a lot of great things. I could feel the sun shining and the wind blowing. listening to the water running from the pond into the creek and a plane overhead. Above i found more algae in the creek. it was attached to the bottom I believe. This is another example of phytoplankton, specifically Cyanobacteria once again.

 
 Sadly as you can see there is pollution in our creek. Most likely the runoff from the football field or the bus garage gets into the pond then when the pond feeds out to the creek it gets caught on branches and this is what it causes. Pretty gross looking, i couldn't imagine being an animal having to drink that.

 Later down the creek there was a little puddle to the side. I noticed small brown/yellow colored Algae on the leaves in this little puddle. It looked to be slippery if touched.