Saturday, September 1, 2007
Saturday, August 4, 2007
Neta's Sea Urchin
Dear Carl,
I hope that you got off on your adventure as planned and pick this message up somewhere along the way.
As best as I can determine, your sea urchin is Astropyga radiata. It is sometimes called a red urchin and sometimes called a false fire urchin. This urchin is variable in color, but always shows the 5 bands of color that are free of spines. Apparently younger individuals have banded spines. The blue spots are also distinctive. Its distribution appears to be the entire eastern Pacific. In some areas the urchins may form dense clumps of several hundred individuals. This urchin also seems to form a number of associations with other species, some cardinalfishes, some juvenile razorfishes, and juvenile snappers like to hide among the spines, and crabs and shrimp are often found nearby. There is even one crab that may carry this urchin on its back for protection! They seem to be able to enjoy a variety of habitats, from sandy areas to mangroves, to rubble and are found from very shallow to moderately deep water (100 ft?)
Wow, it looks like you might need to go back and check this urchin out to see whether it has friends!
Good luck on your adventure!
Kate.
I hope that you got off on your adventure as planned and pick this message up somewhere along the way.
As best as I can determine, your sea urchin is Astropyga radiata. It is sometimes called a red urchin and sometimes called a false fire urchin. This urchin is variable in color, but always shows the 5 bands of color that are free of spines. Apparently younger individuals have banded spines. The blue spots are also distinctive. Its distribution appears to be the entire eastern Pacific. In some areas the urchins may form dense clumps of several hundred individuals. This urchin also seems to form a number of associations with other species, some cardinalfishes, some juvenile razorfishes, and juvenile snappers like to hide among the spines, and crabs and shrimp are often found nearby. There is even one crab that may carry this urchin on its back for protection! They seem to be able to enjoy a variety of habitats, from sandy areas to mangroves, to rubble and are found from very shallow to moderately deep water (100 ft?)
Wow, it looks like you might need to go back and check this urchin out to see whether it has friends!
Good luck on your adventure!
Kate.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Monday, June 11, 2007
Saipan Lagoon
Finally, after 4 months, I went for a 2 hour swim. Decent visibility, 25 yards, slight current. Was able to find three of the five giant mantis shrimp that I have been observing for the past 18 months. A small congor eel has taken up residency where a larger eel, about 3 feet long, had been residing last January. Was able to grab a 24" snowflake eel for a second or two. As long as an eel stays rigid you can hold him, as soon as he goes limp he takes off like a bullet. Had another bluefin trevelly encounter, no blacktip or eagle ray's. Swimming, like woodworking, is a excellent attitude adjuster for me. Another excuse for swimming is to get a photo of the blue band octopus that I observed 3 years ago. More later, Carl
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