And we’re all starting to feel that 6hrs sleep. The general bleariness in the morning and the inability to get any kind of buzz from coffee. But they’re feeding us well, which is awesome, although it is rather leading to the occasional exploding stomach (there is a little bit too much food occasionally..). So, we had the usual things like update meetings and then our group headed off to try and identify small squiggly things, really really really really slowly. Because it’s a slow thing. In the “real” world of science they would just be collecting the samples and then we would do identification back at home, over a year or so, instead we are doing it over 72 hour period. As the group leader said, doing the impossible. But we are gradually learning some of the creatures, so it gradually gets a bit quicker. It's always nice to try doing the impossible, no real way of failing.
So, some of the things we have, see below:
So, some of the things we have, see below:
And theres a lot of sitting around and doing this:
We had a great lady join us today though, she’s an isopod ninja not to mention incredibly patient which is essential in this particular environment.
The good thing about identifying species is that at the moment it is something everyone is equally bad at. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been studying marine biology for 6 years, its still unlikely you’ve seen this particular species before, so I’m not so far behind.. at least in this. Although I’m not sure about my ability to memorise the names of the creatures, in latin, I can barely pronounce them let alone spell them. So it's going to be an interesting few weeks. That said, some of the creatures we have been seeing are incredibly amazing.
The good thing about identifying species is that at the moment it is something everyone is equally bad at. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been studying marine biology for 6 years, its still unlikely you’ve seen this particular species before, so I’m not so far behind.. at least in this. Although I’m not sure about my ability to memorise the names of the creatures, in latin, I can barely pronounce them let alone spell them. So it's going to be an interesting few weeks. That said, some of the creatures we have been seeing are incredibly amazing.
A lot of the creatures were VERY alive when we put them on the petri dish. I had a few very spirited bids for freedom, and got covered with more than my fair share of sea water. I do feel we should probably kill them before putting them under a hot lamp, but maybe that’s just me. It does seem funny to me that people protest to eating whale because we can’t kill them quickly, and yet the same people will happily have a thrashing dying isopod on their petri dish and not blink. Win one for the whale for being a cute mammal.
Oh! So the goss of lunch time is that apparently we were fed whale for dinner last night, and no one knew! Not everyone is particularly happy about this fact. We are after all a cruise of mostly marine biologists (with me the pretend biologist who’s really a geographer/aspiring science communicator, shhhhh!), and most people have got into it because they have a thing for pretty sea creatures. But hey, when in Rome.
Oh! So the goss of lunch time is that apparently we were fed whale for dinner last night, and no one knew! Not everyone is particularly happy about this fact. We are after all a cruise of mostly marine biologists (with me the pretend biologist who’s really a geographer/aspiring science communicator, shhhhh!), and most people have got into it because they have a thing for pretty sea creatures. But hey, when in Rome.
The things I learnt today. A shrimp must have a carapace, that’s the bit of a prawn you pull off that has the head inside it. Shrimp also have eyes on stalks. Mycids also have a carapace and the stalk eyes. Amphipods are squished dorsolly (ie. They are narrow in the same direction that we are) and all their legs point in the same way whilst isopods are squished laterally (ie. If someone came along and squished us along our shoulders) and they have legs that point in different directions. In an attempt to contribute I asked a few questions today, such as, why do the legs point in different directions? I had thought this would be REALLY obvious and easy to answer and would make me feel smart. Not so much, apparently no one knows, there’s an outside chance they used to cling to things and it’s easier to cling with a pincer movement. Most of the questions I asked about the difference between different species was met with a similar *shrug*. The differences are really important for the identification but no one seems to be able to tell me why they are different. I would have thought that would be kinda important.. maybe not. It just goes to show there is a lot of stuff we still don't know. I think that's pretty exciting.
Also, I really don’t like picking up little sea creatures, I’m absolutely adamant that a) they are going to bite b) they are going to bite and be poisonous c) they are going to secrete poisonous slime that makes you hallucinate about pink rhinoceroses and then die a terrible slow death. To be fair, in most tropical water of Australia they would be perfectly rational fears. But apparently up here the more fearsome looking the creature the less likely to be problematic and picking things up with un-gloved hands is a perfectly normal activity. Well.. for people who can get their hands to do it. My fingers have developed an amazing ability to retreat rapidly at the last minute when going to grab a critter. Natural survival technique!
And we have another day of it tomorrow, then we’re off and rotated into another group to start trying to identify new things all together.
It's awesome to actually be learning new things, hands on, so much of my time at University has been spent filling time with fluff, but there's no doubt about it, this is real. The people teaching us know their stuff, and there's no wriggle room for "I don't know".
And we have another day of it tomorrow, then we’re off and rotated into another group to start trying to identify new things all together.
It's awesome to actually be learning new things, hands on, so much of my time at University has been spent filling time with fluff, but there's no doubt about it, this is real. The people teaching us know their stuff, and there's no wriggle room for "I don't know".