Whidbey Island Critters

[LCF]

Jan, one of my major goals for 2010 is to get up to Whidbey and dive with you. You see so many things that I'm sure I just look past because I don't know how to "see" them!

[Dusty2]

Great Info Jan on an unusual critter that most of us will never see.

As LCF said we need to learn to see critters like this and so far this is one that has escaped me.

[Jan K]

The first one was the key. Now I sort of know what to look for, at first it looks like a chunk of sea lettuce.

[Jan K]

Probably going to some kid's birthday party :biggrin:

[LCF]

What a cutie! I love decorator crabs, and seeing how beautifully they manage to blend in. The ones in Cove 2 cover themselves in the red, frilly algae there, and the ones at DIW cover themselves with hydroids. They're all different, and it's fun to spot them.

[smike]

Fruit Loops!

[Jan K]

More from the Keystone food court :biggrin:

[LCF]

Every time I see a fish like this, with a whole big fish in its mouth, it looks to me like the predator is trying to figure out what on earth he's going to do to swallow THIS mouthful!

I've been accused of bolting my food, but I have nothing on the average fish.

[Jan K]

G'Day mate!
"Slip that shrimp on the barbie" :biggrin:

[nwscubamom]

Wow, that's pretty cool!!! Great catch!

As for the sculpin, I'm thinking he's not a Scalyhead. He's missing cirri on his head, and his gills are white, not orange. Not sure what it might be though! Maybe Greg would know...it would be great to have more side shots of this little guy. Got any?

- Janna

[Greg Jensen]

Yeah, it looks more like a padded to me.

As for buffalos and algae- large ones eat a lot of it. One of my students and I did a project many years ago looking at this. They would slurp down entire big sheets of sea lettuce (Ulva) and we'd collect the poop and analyze it. They were very efficient at digesting it and had higher assimilation efficiencies than the published values for tropical herbivorous fishes. Given the abundance and diversity of algae in this area, there are few fish that feed on it directly- buffalos, some of the pricklebacks, and mosshead sculpins.

[Jan K]

Thank you Janna, Greg - Padded it is
And back to the Buffalo sculpin and the surfperch lunch. This parasite was hanging onto the tail of the Stripped surfperch.
Talk about being eated alive from both ends ...

[dwashbur]

No doubt about it: that perch was doomed from birth to be food!

[Jan K]

Red Rock Crab showing off future generation of crabs

[Jan K]

New Whitespotted greenlings, WELCOME to Whidbey waters !!

[nwscubamom]

How did you get these shots?? Very cool! Are these the eggs I always see in Giant Barnacle shells? I always assumed they were greenling eggs of some sort.

[LCF]

Jan, just when I think you've hit your high point, you outdo yourself. How on earth did you get those pictures?

[Grateful Diver]

Jan, those are absolutely winners!

And as always, I love the cartoon.

This continues to be my all-time favorite Internet thread ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[John Rawlings]

Wonderful, Jan....simply wonderful!!!

I, too, would very much enjoy hearing the story of how you managed to get these photos.

- John

[Tom Nic]

Wow Wow Wow... Amazing! I too, am waiting for more!

[Jan K]

Thank you all for your kind words. Janna, the eggs in barnacle shells we find at Keystone belong to Kelp Greenlings. They do not show the same range of colors, although they are identical in size. The ones I am so intriqued by are the eggs of Whitespotted greenlings. The answers why and how the multiple females manage to deposit different color eggs remain mystery to me. So far I heard it explained as:
1. Food , like in nudibranchs.
2. Different species such Sculpins deposit their eggs to Greenligs.
3. Aging of eggs
Well, from my own limited experience with egg masses, the males are not too forgiving when some other fish, critter or diver comes near their brood. And the food angle is not too convincing to me. Dustuy photographed exactly same colors from Port Townsend, and why they would all be that different. The age – eggs retain their colors for month or longer. Anyway, that is what I use may air on lately. Which brings me to the photographs of the little guys. Here I have to disappoint you all – I did not take them underwater. I posted them for illustration, not to fool you, so forgive me as they are part of my inquiry into this egg mystery. When I helped the male guardien with the intruding sea star, I took few eggs into a jar to later photograph on the shore with my land ca,era which doesn’t have shutter delay and has good macro lens, both which are lacking on my Point & shoot underwater rig. I wanted to see if I can get better shots of the embryos inside. There were no fish hatching at that time. When I finished my dive and came ashore, putting my wet gear away, I noticed that there are little guys swimming inside my collecting jar. So that how I managed to get these photos. After taking pictures, I returned all back to the Sound. I need to get a flat sided glass container, for taking pictures of the little guys in round container is too difficult. Thanks for large digital card – few shots out of hundred were usable... So here is the story and sorry if you feel cheated... Attached are some more pictures of the egg masses. If anybody has answers , ideas, please let me know ..

[nwscubamom]

Wow, that's amazing! No, I don't feel cheated at all. I knew they were taken out of the water. I just didn't know the details of how you got them to hatch in front of you! Talk about amazing timing!

The colored egg masses are very intriguing - and I have no answers for it either.

- Janna

[Greg Jensen]

I agree that the different colors are probably not due to other species adding to the mass. The only known local example of someone doing that are spinynose sculpins, who lay their eggs on buffalo sculpin nests.

According to the one paper I know of on reproduction in whitespotted greenlings, it's the yolk that differs in color and they imply that it is due to different ages. Eggs do usually go through some color changes as they develop, but the range of colors in these masses and their tendency to stay the same for long periods suggests to me that isn't the explanation, or at least not the whole story.

The diet of the female at the time she's putting yolk in the eggs could very well influence the color. There's an assumption in the literature that fish of a particular species are all eating pretty much the same things in a given area, and I know that is not true. For example, I've looked at kelp greenling stomach contents from fish taken in the same spot at the same time; one had eaten crustaceans and the other (believe it or not) had eaten nothing but Metridium.
Based on my observations of fish I've raised in captivity, I'm convinced such differences are at least in part a matter of individual preference. Fish from the same brood, raised in the same conditions, can have radically different food preferences. Of course this too isn't something that is acknowledged in the scientific literature, which tends to view them as all being the same.

[Grateful Diver]

Cheated? Heck no ... props for ingenuity. Those pics are fantastic, and provide a sight most of us never get to see ... or wouldn't recognize even if we did. Now I'll take a closer look when I see those egg masses.

Once again, Jan ... thanks! I learn a lot from this thread.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

[dwashbur]

I certainly don't feel cheated; it's absolutely brilliant! I don't think I ever would have thought of such a thing. Regardless of how they were done, they're fantastic pictures, the kind that belong in a textbook.