Favoritos de alex_bairstow

Many babies schooling around presumed parent in shaded, shallow (1/2 to 1 ft deep) backwater swamp. Based on a quick dot-count, I estimate that there were as many as 2000-3000 baby bowfins in the school.

ID with help from Milton Love and Jack Engle at University of California, Santa Barbara. Overall length about 3cm. Very shy. 5-6 individuals observed in crevices at around 50-60’ depth in the dive park at Catalina Island. Possibly a range extension for this species. This was the only image I was able to capture that was worthwhile.

Pink/purple guts when gravid, size and locality are distinctive of A. labiata. A. aurita is in the North Sea, and A. sp1 is found in harbors. A. labiata is the most common moon jelly on open coast California.

Found in a swarm of brown sea nettles Chrysaora fuscescens at the Monterey breakwater.

Sacoglossan Sea Slug. Maximum length 6 mm. Rhinophores cylindrical, enrolled,
black with posterior white stripes from base to half-way up,
leaving apices completely black. Oral tentacles
completely black; foot corners yellow. Head black with two
yellow-orange patches, eyespots at base of yellow-orange
patches. Lateral yellow-orange line on head connects
yellow-orange eye patches to dorsum. Body elongate,
with numerous cylindrical cerata covering most of the
dorsum. Proximal half of cerata yellow-orange, distal half
black. Foot yellow-orange ventrally from head to tail.
Posterior end of foot is pointed, black dorsally.
Radula of a 4 mm long specimen from Catalina Island,
California (CPIC 01962) composed of 7 teeth in ascending
row, 12 teeth in descending row, and 2–4 teeth in ascus. Leading tooth smooth, lacking denticles, with a cylindrical,
short, slightly curved, pointed cusp. Base of teeth
short, triangular, slightly concave ventrally.

Caught via otter trawling w/ Marine Science Institute. Caught juvenile Bat Rays in high densities (28 individuals in one net) including this one.

Eyes not shown, but iris' are red making for a true albino.

15 mm long. One of 11 specimens I found underneath rock ledges at Tarpits Reef on this date.

Aside from one specimen found subtidally by Craig Hoover off Las Floras Canyon, Malibu in April 2014 (http://slugsite.us/bow2007/nudwk874.htm), this species is still only known from its type locality at Tarpits Reef.

While it wasn't the camo critter we were out there specifically to study, who could help but love the face of the Sargassumfish (Histrio histrio). Ok, granted I really dig all frogfish, they are remarkable creatures, but H. histrio is quite a marvel, and we found them in abundance, though all were quite small. This fellow is about 1.75 inches long at most (as that was the largest size we found on this trip!) They do get much larger, upwards of 8 inches.

San Diego County, California, US

@pileated and I found this interesting snail on the underside of an oak branch that was on rotting on the ground. I took a DNA swipe for SLIME and hope that I was able to get enough but the slug was about the same size as the swab head so I'm only slightly hopeful of having been successful.