July 11, 2014

Along with all the wonderful creatures of the sea, there are a few terrestrial and avian creatures that are fun to watch, or watch out for.  We have tarantulas all over, seeing lots of holes in the hillside where they hide.  We have scorpions that love to come out of the holes in the stairs at night.  There are many varieties of hummingbirds flitting all over and hanging out at the birdfeeders for them as well as crows, and frigate birds soaring on the winds.

                      I found a dead snapper in the sea grass beds and brought it back for Rob to use with his Mantis shrimp research but he decided against using it so I tossed it back in the water and the frigate birds decided to scoop it up, fighting over it in the air, dropping it, picking it up, over and over again, until one finally flew off with it.  It was a sight to see.

                     Went back to check the SE near shore area (by the base camp) to check on the movement of the previously marked Flamingo Tongues.  About 1/3 – ½ of them were still on the same fan.  Some had moved to other fans or corals, most of the time no further than 1.5m and sometimes as close as only 6 cm to the next coral.  Others were unable to be found on their original fan, in the sediment or any fans near.

                      Saw a huge purplish Donkey Dung Sea Cucumber close to 30 cm long (yes, that is their name), some different colored, fairly large cowfish and a burr fish, as well as the usual multicolored parrot fish, jellies and various other fish as well as a purple Sponge Brittle Star wrapped around a gorgonian branch coral.

              

                                                Squirrel Fish

                                           My little juvenile Flamingo Tongue.

July 9, 2014

           .  

Oops.  Left out this day.

Still haven’t made it back out to the NW point area.  Seas have been rough, especially in the afternoons when the wind really picks up, so back to the center reef, west of the dock.  Checked on previously marked flags for evidence of Flamingo Tongues.  Most corals other than the Common Purples Sea Fans (CPSF) had their polyps out in full force, unless a FT was on the coral, then the coral would have open polyps on part of it and closed polyps were the FTs were (the majority of the time).  Some of the fans showed signs of being eaten, but not to a serious extent, especially the feather corals, hardly showing any damage even though FTs were found on them often. 

                     In the lab at New College the CPSFs opened their polyps mostly at night, rarely in the daytime.  Only an afternoon dive today, whereas many days I try to get more than one session and area done.  Looked in the debris area under the dock for a reported large octopus sighting but was not lucky enough to see it, just millions of anchovies and other small fishes.

                                          

Rod Coral with polyps open - closeup

                                                   Purple Feather fan - 1/2 polyps open,1/2 closed

                                                    Rod coral - polyps open

           

July 10, 2014

                      Whew!  Still catching up on posts.  So much time in the water and then recording all the info.  Not to mention the iffy internet.

Time is flying here on the island of Cayos Major in the Cayos Cochinos chain of islands off Honduras.  Hard to believe we are more than half way done with our time here.  It is going much too fast.  A morning swim today, finally over to the NW point, all the way to the point this time, starting there and working my way back past the previous area I checked further from the point a few days ago. 

                     Decided to follow the shore line out, as trying to take the “short way” straight across to the point is a lot more difficult with the current and wind and takes as long to get there fighting the elements as it does to take the “long way” around the bend, closer to shore in shallower waters with less current and wind effect.  Coming back is a little easier the short way as the wind and current is pushing you in that direction.  That is also were the turtles and rays are seen a lot of the time. 

                     On the way out I spotted a golden colored boulder coral about 1m in diameter in the middle of the sea grass bed and under it saw 2 small lobsters, going to town feeding on the algae and such near their boulder.

                     I was excited to find the smallest Flamingo Tongue yet.  It was about as close to the larva stage as you could get, with the shell being only about 2mm wide and 5-6mm long attached to the top of a Common Purple Sea Fan.  Yahoo!  Smallest I have seen yet.  I few days ago I found a small juvenile FT but it was twice the size of this one.  Most FTs I have seen have been fully mature, around 2.5-3.0 cm with a few only 1.5-2.0 cm.  This itty bitty one was hard, but fun to find.

                     At the NW point there were a lot of sea fans but few FT.  Further back from the point a lot more FT on various corals were seen.  I need to verify that they were all of the Gorgonian phylum.  100s of 1,000s of sea urchins line the shore reef areas and the waves have a tendency to push me into some of these shallow area, being hard to get out of without running into the urchins and other reef creatures.  Almost got trapped a couple times and got close to meeting up with a bunch of spiny (ouch) sea urchins.

                                          Long spined sea urchin - all over the place

Encrusting coral

                                          Purple feather Gorgonian

                                         Strange division of arms on sea cushion

                     

July 8, 2014

Winds and current still ripping pretty good making the NW point a little too rough again today.  Went back to the southeast shore and southwest shore and point area. 

                     Yesterday I met one of the tourists, Norma from the capital city of Honduras, who is going back to school at FIU in Miami for a BA in Marine Bio.  She was interested in tagging along with me on my research and I was more than glad to have her along.  She read the GPS unit for me, giving the latitude and longitude coordinates for the locations we found the Flamingo Tongues.

                     We marked the beginning and end of the shelf with the 100s of sea fans, but still found few FTs in that area.  I did spot a small octopus that disappeared real fast upon seeing me.  Together we mapped the location of all FTs found, whether on the fans, the feathers, branches or rod corals, or even in the sediment.

                     I found a FT approximately 10-12 cm from a purple ribbon coral.  As I proceeded to grab my camera and take a pic of it off the coral it moved to the base of the coral, within 30 seconds.  I was amazed at how fast it moved considering I watched one move last year for a period of 10 minutes at a “snail’s pace” moving only about 40 cm in that time.

                                                   Diseased coral with purple spots and black streak from Flamingo Tongue eating the coral polyps.

                                         Odd pattern in Brain Coral

                                          Chain eel in sea grass bed with mouth open

                                                    Black ball sponge

July 7, 2014

                     Due to the high winds and strong current I did not go out to the far NW point area but went back out to the same reef area as yesterday, west of the dock 100m to see what kind of movement the Flamingo Tongues do in a 24 hour period.  In the shallow area of the reef in a 3m² area were found 12 FT.  In other random 3m² areas there were no FT found.  One shell of a FT was found near the base of a branch coral.  The cameras have been working well, especially the compact Olympus camera I got just before leaving.  The clarity of the camera for close up shots seems to be better than the Sea Life camera supplied by Dr. Gilchrist.  Check out the difference in these photos.

                                          FIRE WORM - CLOSEUP - SEALIFE CAMERA

                                FIRE WORM - CLOSEUP - OLYMPUS  CAMERA

FLAMINGO TONGUE ON COMMON PURPLE SEA FAN CREATING A BLACK STREAK ON THE VEIN - EATING THE CORAL POLYPS

                     July 6, 2014

Since internet has been iffy I am playing catch up again with the posts.  

          Did not push too hard today.  Only a morning swim (3 hrs) and a laid back afternoon, catching up on blogging and consolidating info, even a little easy reading.   Aaahhh!  Checked out the area in front of the dock, west about 100m or so.  There was quite a bit of rubble before reaching the actual reef area.  The rubble area had rock, some hard corals, such as boulder and brain corals.  Heading towards the northern side (to the right) the reef started to come alive with a lot of different soft corals, some sponges, anenomes, urchins and brilliantly colored fish.  There was an abundance of feather and branch corals compared to fans.  Many FT were found on the feather and branch corals, a couple on rod corals and even some in the sediment between fans.  The FT tended to congregate in a fairly tight area near the center of the reef which is in a pretty open area getting a fairly strong current.  Marked as many as possible with flags before lunch.  Worked with the GPS unit getting used to it to mark the FTs throughout the bay.

                                     BRANCHING FIRE CORAL - OVERTAKING SEA FAN                                         

                                          SPLIT-CROWN FEATHER DUSTER

                                          CHRISTMAS TREE WORMS ON BRAIN CORAL

                                          CHRISTMAS TREE WORMS - CLOSEUP

July 5, 2014

            Headed to the southeast near shore area this morning.  Saw a few Cushion Sea Stars of various colors along the way, pretty good size, about 1 foot across that look like a puffed up version of a “starfish” or sea star as is the proper name.  Worked my way to the shelf area where 100s of fans are on a rocky area about 30m offshore and 1-2m deep.  For as many sea fans as there were, there was very few Flamingo Tongues (FT), only on the edges of the reef, not in the center.   Very surprising considering the quantity of fans.  I would have thought it was a cornucopia for the snails.  Apparently not, and it makes me curious as to why.  Continuing to follow the shoreline, within 30m or so more FT started showing up as I neared the bend turning west.  All FT were seen on Common Purple Sea Fans except for one that was on the sediment in front of a fan (about 10cm away).  As I proceeded towards the southern point heading west more FT started appearing.

            Afternoon had me prepping equipment and cameras for tomorrow and catching up on transferring information from my reusable, waterproof “paper” and cameras to my info sheets and computer.  Not as much fun as being in the water checking it all out, but necessary none the less. 

                                                    FIELD OF SEA FANS - FEW FLAMINGO TONGUES

             
                                             GIANT SEA ANENOME

                                          BLUE ENCRUSTING CORAL

                                          BLUE ENCRUSTING CORAL - CLOSEUP

                                          SEA CUCUMBER - PURPLE - ABOUT 12"

Well, I've been searching and searching for shrimp and have finally found two. This is exciting for me. I've finally got some to film. This should be pretty good for me. On July fourth I swam with a turtle and two days ago I swam with two more. My count is up to four green sea turtles, 1 huge american stingray, 1 large octopus (not sure of the species), and millions of other fish. So far this has been a wonderful experience.
Yesterday we went diving for the first time. The first location was a place called the stadium. It was a sand flat surrounded by angled walls of coral that was reminiscent of a stadium. At the end there was a small swim through cave. The cave was pretty awesome, but overall the best part was the corals that surrounded the flat. The second location was that of a National Geographic plane wreck (no one was harmed.). That was a pretty awesome little site that snuck up on you. It was at 60 feet and was covered in corals. This has been my favorite experience on the island so far.
Here is a view from the dock that I took a while ago. This is the first time I've been able to upload photos!

My Independence Day - July 4, 2014

July 4, 2014   

            Fireworks may be exploding all around the country tonight but the stars in the sky here are doing the same.  1,000’s to see with only a crescent moon in the sky.  I haven’t been able to see the Milky Way since I can’t remember when with so much light pollution at home.  The Big Dipper hanging low in the northern sky was shining brilliantly as were all the other stars and planets.  We went down to the docks to see if the Spotted Eagle Rays were hanging around like previous nights, but to no avail.  Seeing “shooting stars” and all the constellations was awesome though. 

            I tackled the Northwest side of the bay this time, towards the point (1/2 mile as the crow flies) but did not make it all the way to the point as the winds starting picking up and the current was slamming me all over the reef area before I even made it to the point.  It is one long swim going diagonally across the bay, over the deeper area, fighting the current, but that’s where I get to see the turtles and rays (but not today).

            This area of the bay seems to get a lot more current flow than the opposite aide of the bay (Southwest towards the point).  As with the section of fans on the southeast shore area with 100s of fans, this area on the northwest side held a similar section loaded with fans.  An average of 30-40 fans per 3m².  Overall, this side of the bay looks healthier with more corals and Flamingo tongues and less algae.  

          The coral are darker purple in color like the second picture, although some still have a lot of algae.   You can see the “black streak” the FT made as it moved along the fan, eating the coral polyps.this particular FT did not have very much of its mantle displayed and it can be seen that the shell itself is very plain, white and creamy in color.  The first pic shows a Flamingo Tongue with it's mantle almost fully displayed on a very small (as you can see from the size of the FT which is only about 2.5-3.0 cm long) purple rod coral surrounded by the heavy algae plaguing the area.

            More pics for your viewing pleasure.  Blue Branching Vase Sponge from various angles.   Enjoy.

July 3, 2014

            Went back to the first site to check on the movement of the flamingo tongues I found yesterday.  Found 4 of the 7 in this area had moved, one almost a meter away, and 3 others had remained on the fan they were on yesterday.  I also found quite a few more and marked those.  Quite a few were found on other coral than the Common Purple Sea Fan.  Yesterday I found 1 dead one (shell) at the bottom of a sea fan.  I also found what I thought was a dead one (but wasn’t) in the sediment near a sea fan. 

     The black and white measures 1 cm per stripe.  Gives you an idea of the size of these Flamingo Tongues.  Most do not get over 3 cm but  a few stretch that.  The bottom picture shows the location on the fan, in a cleared area of algae, that I might assume has been cleared by the snail as it usually covers the fan more evenly.  The 2nd pic shows Christmas Tree Worms that grow all over hard corals such as brain and boulder.  The 3rd pic I believe is a Split-crown Feather Duster worm that disappears instantly when swimming by it.

            I did not see the large spotted eagle ray today that I did yesterday.  Its tail must have been all of 5 feet long and possibly longer.  Due to the poor clarity of the water I did not get great photos of it.  It sure was beautiful though.

     Still behind blogging but trying to catch up.  So much to see.  Enjoy the pics

July 2, 2014

Catching up for lost time and internet issues.

            After having a chance to explore the northern half of the bay I have found a few less sponges and a lot more algae compared to last year, both along the shore and near the point.  There are millions of anchovies and other small fishes throughout the bay.  Much more than I remember last year.  According to Mike, the proprietor of Turtle Bay Eco Resort, (on a deserted island – not really a “resort”) has informed me that due to a change in the winds this year, coming from the east (backside of the island) instead of the west it has affected the bay by not clearing it out as much which may be the reason for the higher algae content.  He also said that due to the change in winds, also being stronger than usual, it has kept the fisherman off the water.  They have not been catching bait fish (the anchovies and other small fish) so the population of these fish may be up because of this.  I would have thought this would have helped keep the algae content down, but it does not appear so.

            After looking over the south side of the bay, the fans on this side seem less healthy although they are prevalent, in the 100’s in one stretch, mostly small to medium size fans in this location.  Most are lighter purple or yellow, many with a high algae content on them.  The north side comparatively had less fans overall, but most were much healthier, of a deeper purple color, not so light, and not as much algae and other growths on them as I show in these photos.  As I found the flamingo tongues along the way I placed flags next to the coral they were on, or the bottom if that is where they were, to follow up in the following days the movement of these animals.  I am also trying to determine if they show a “preference” for certain fans, such as deeper purple, lighter purple, algae ridden, other corals, etc.

Darla

Cayos Major Honduras July 1, 2014

July 1, 2014

            Well, off to a rough start with cameras and computers but finally obtained some decent photos of all sorts of underwater creatures.  I am continuing research I started last year on the Common Purple Sea Fan, a gorgonian coral, and its relationship with the Flamingo Tongue snail.  I am attempting to find out if the snail vectors the Apergillus sydowii fungus to these fans or if it aides the fan by removing the fungus.  It ingests the fungus and uses it as a toxin to protect itself against predators.  I am theorizing that the Flamingo Tongue is aiding the fan, gorgonians being its primary source of food, a feeds only a little on the fans, not decimating them, and then moves on to another fan.  It may be very difficult to determine this, but I am going to give it a go. 

            Although I am studying these soft corals (non-reef building) I have captured a lot of images of other sea life besides and share it with you now.  Unfortunately I was not prepared with a camera and missed a fabulous shot of a Sea Robin.  It was very disappointing.  That will teach me to take a camera, every time I get in the water. I hope you enjoy these pics and more to come in the following days.

update 2014

we are switching to the old site as the new one is not working well.  So we will be posting from this blog.

We are in the middle of our first week,adjusting to time changes and weather.  It is clearly a nino year; wind from east,lots of algae,  no rain, but few mosquitoes.  All of our projects are started.  Darla is seeing fewer flamingo tongue snails.  Rob is locating his shrimp.  We have labeled shells and the land sites are really showing good results.  Students will be blogging about their work.