Sea hares!

Wow! We saw SO many sea hares on our trip to the Coal Oil Pt tidepools on April 16th.  The California sea hare (Aplysia californica) is a gastropod mollusk (think common garden snail) without an external shell.  This species is found along the California coast.

Some interesting notes about its physical characteristics:

Alpysia has two pairs of tentacles on top of its head: one pair up front near the mouth that help in movement and another behind the eyes used in olfaction. It is the large anterior tentacles, which resemble the ears of a hare, that are responsible for the common name - sea hare.

The color of sea hares, which can range from purple-reddish-brown to greenish-brown, depends on the color of algae they eat.  This year we saw many sea hares that were definitely more on the green end of that scale, which makes me wonder if there is different availability of algae from previous years.

These guys can get big - CA "brown" sea hares (Aplysia californica) can get to be up to 40 cm (16 in) long.  However its close relative - the California black sea hare (Aplysia vaccaria) gets even bigger, up to 75 cm (29 in), making IT the largest gastropod in the world.

And about its reproduction....
we mentioned in the field that sea hares are hermaphrodites - simultaneously both male and female.  For a peak at their mating "strategies" check out this National Geographic video entitled "World's Weirdest - Underwater Love Chain" !!

 and links to previous entries about rocky intertidal trips are here.

More on the CA sea lions

The Santa Barbara Independent just ran this story ("Rescuing Sea Lion Pups") about this year's huge influx of ill or malnourished sea lions on our Santa Barbara beaches. It also describes some of the key local players - including Peter Howorth - who are working hard to rescue and rehabilitate these and other marine mammals found on local shores.

Peter Howorth used to trap sea lions for sale. Now he’s trying to rescue them. After having caught “tens of thousands,” he makes it look easy. Photo by Paul Wellman in the SB Independent 4/16/15

California sea lions

We visited the Carpinteria Bluffs on our first "away" field trip and enjoyed seeing the harbor seals at the rookery beneath the bluffs.  According to the docents there have been about 100 born this year which is slightly below last year's count.  I don't recall ever seeing this on previous trips, but this time we observed a couple seal lion pups on the beach as well.  The difference between these two species of pinnipeds was readily apparent.  Here's a brief reminder:
             seals: no external ear flaps, short front and rear flippers, mostly silent
             sea lions: external ear flaps, longer and opposable flippers, bark!

                                from: http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/seal-sealion.html

While the harbor seals are successfully rearing and weaning their pups, the California sea lions have been having a rough year.  There has been high mortality of sea lion pups, possibly because the warmer waters this year have meant few fish nearshore for new moms, who must go farther and leave their young pups alone and hungry.  Read this article from the LA Times about the strandings (reports are that over 2,000 pups have been stranded this year) and this one from the Smithsonian, which asks whether we should focus on rehab or on the underlying causes of the problem.

Check out previous posts about the Carpinteria Bluffs here.

Welcome 2015 Walking Biology!

... and welcome spring!  We started this quarter with a stroll along the campus lagoon.  Check out this site with more information on the lagoon's formation and current management from the Cheadle Center for Biodiversity and Ecological Restoration (CCBER).


One of the species of birds that we observed was the Double-crested cormorant.  They commonly are observed roosting on the eucalyptus trees near the edge of the lagoon, often with their wings spread out to dry.  As described in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website (a superb source of information!), the cormorants "have less preen oil than other birds, so their feathers can get soaked rather than shedding water like a duck’s. Though this seems like a problem for a bird that spends its life in water, wet feathers probably make it easier for cormorants to hunt underwater with agility and speed."  Cool!

Visit the Cornell Lab's website here: http://www.allaboutbirds.org