MCC's Marine Biology Study Ablog 2024

The day at vina was very interesting, we explored a particularly rocky beach formation and traversed in search of snails , octopus, crabs and sea sponges. The search yielded some rather wonderful results. A black brittlestar age unknown but found in vina del mar and very interesting rocky intertidal creature. tiny two-spotted octopus is very very cute Tedania tropicalis looks like a little volcano sponge. It is a rather peculiar little creature, squishy but firm. Flishy flishy there goes the fishy, this unlucky little guy had a hook stuck in his mouth but thankfully it was pulled out and he was set free to go on his way back into the vast ocean. He appears to be a spotted bay bass.   I found the vina environment very interesting and I would love to go back on a boat or even earlier in the day to explore further down the rock formation. The water was very beautiful and it was astonishing to see how many creatures fit in such small spaces. 12/10 would go again.

  Students had the opportunity to take part in a long-term monitoring project of intertidal diversity with CEDO researchers at a sandy beach site out front of Playa bonita.  CEDO researchers introduced students to Quadrat sampling, a classic research method used in ecology to study biodiversity.  Students were asked to identify, count, and record all species within quadrats placed along 30 meter transects along the beach.  It is tedious work sometimes - ask about how many red-fingered hermit crabs they had to count in some of their quadrats!  But nonetheless very valuable research, as this research helps to promote beach certifications here in Puerto Penasco.  Please ask your friend or loved one how beach certifications are helping to encourage developers to play a part in maintaining some of the amazing intertidal biodiversity Puerto Penasco has to offer.    

 Yesterday (5/27/24) at 9:30am we came across a guitar fish or a ' Rhinobatidae', its a  cartilaginous fish, similar to a ray or skate .  Although it was dead it was a cool sight given we just caught and observed a string ray. These two creatures look alike and have very similar features, but they are drastically different. Guitar fish are known for their elongated body with a flattened head on trunk, and small wings. They are endangered at a global level, they migrate seasonally to give birth so they are vulnerable to fishing activities. Common guitarfish mostly eat fish and invertebrates, like mollusks and crustaceans. The common guitarfish live in shallow, sandy, and muddy habitats, this is why we found this particular one at Cholla Bay. Guitar have many other threats other than fisheries, they are mostly captured for their fins to meet high demand for shark fins.  As said previously guitarfish are a group of skates, which are most commonly confused with stingrays. The most

  On Friday, we attended a lecture held by Paloma about marine mammals. In the lecture, Paloma told us about the great biodiversity in the Sea of Cortez and the different kinds of mammals found in the sea. Mammals like Sperm Whales, Pygmy Sperm Whales, Blue Whales, Humpback Whales, Fin Whales, Gray Whales, Sea Lions, False/Killer Whales, and perhaps one of the most interesting and trajic is the Vaquita.  The Vaquita is a type of "toothed" whale (as seen in the attached picture the jaw bone of the whale) that is only found in the Sea of Cortez. It is relatively small at about 1.5 meters in length. One of the most trajic facts about the Vaquita is that there is only about 10-12 individuals in the Sea of Cortez due to over fishing and dangerous gilnet entanglement.  There has been many unsuccessful attempts to preserve the Vaquita and possibly bring the population back up. Paloma told us about the newborn Vaquita that had washed ashore barely alive. The baby was brought to CEDO

Throughout the week we got to experience many different forms of life. Some of these forms of life are so small, or in such weird places that you wouldn’t even expect them to be alive. There were several different organisms that we found living on top of other organisms.  Epibiota is life that is living on top of life. This could be algae growing on top of a clam, or barnacles growing on a hermit crab shell. This picture is of algae with bryozoans living on top of it. When I first saw this I would have just assumed that it was salt or maybe the color of the algae, but I learned that it is actually a living organism on top of the algae. Each tiny hole in the white substance has a little organism living in it that will pop out to feed.  While this shell is not currently living, it might have once been a part of epibiota. You can see that the inside of the shell has spaghetti-like squiggles all over it. These are from tube worms that will create a casing on a hard surface to live in. Ther

 The last major event that was listed for the itinerary was something I was definitely looking forward to the most, which was going to the Isla San Jorge, also known as bird island. This was because I not only would be riding a boat for the first time, but I'd also be snorkeling with Sea Lions! It took us to get there by boat for around an hour, and did a monitoring survey of how many sea lions were either cubs/pups, or got entangled with netting, whether it'd be on the head or the tail. After this, we spent a while in the ocean with our snorkeling gear and struggled with swimming properly because of the waves. We made sure to keep our distance by at least 20 feet since the male sea lions get extremely territorial, but the female sea lions were the complete opposite. They would come in groups of around five or more and would come up to us very closely, while swimming right below us and then coming back up again, just so they could get a reaction out from us, which worked.  The