4/30/13

It was the second day at the Archbold Research Facility. We started off the day going to Lake Annie, hoping to see an alligator. Unfortunately we didn't find one, but we did find a lot of orb weaver spiders and a lot of spiders in the brush around the lake. Just as Pete got into the water and Emily was thinking about going in, we all got in the van to see the tortoise site. We got to see a lot of burrows and a tortoise. The researchers are continuing a study that was set up in 1967 to see how long the tortoises live. They showed us a scope that is designed to go into the burrows to find the tortoise and see how long the burrow is. After lunch we met with Mark the entomologist at Archbold who told us a lot about the bugs in Florida, and how intricate their ecology is. After dinner we got geared up to go hunt for wolf spiders. We collected a lot and gave Sky some for her neurological research.

An orb-weaver spider we found at Lake Annie.

Tortoise number 800 at the tortoise research site.

A brown widow spider that was found at Lake Annie.

Everyone is ready to go hunt wolf spiders.

 

Rachel conquers her fear of spiders.

Jessica is intrigued by the large wolf spider.

Emily shows off what she found hiding in the bushes.

Maria, unsure about the spiders at first, decides to give it a try. 

Brandon finds his true love.

 

Ayla and Pete have no problem handling the spiders.

 

Dana finds a tick to add to our list of invertebrates.

This morning we went to The Ding Darling Nature Reserve and took the dike nature trail in search of whatever animals we could find. In particular we were looking for fiddler crabs and alligators. Unfortunately we weren’t able to spot any alligators but found a good number of fiddler crabs crawling around on the beaches. In addition we found some ant lion holes and were able to dig up one ant lion.

                The most exciting find of the nature trail was the number of horseshoe crabs we spotted. We found approximately 50 horseshoe crabs gathered in a shallow area near the rocky shore. The smaller males were in search of the larger females in order to breed. It was amazing to see all of them together in one spot.  

                Later that day we arrived at Archbold Biological Station and spent some time walking around the property and studying its history before the thunderstorm sent us inside. In the evening, once the storm had passed and the sun had gone down, a few of us went in search of spiders. We found a lot of wolf spiders, including one large female with a bunch of babies on her back, which was a pretty exciting discovery.

Overall, it was a great day full of lots of neat discoveries and there was a ton to see and learn.   

 

Today we went to the Apollo Beach in search of cephalochordates.  We were hoping to find lancelets, but unfortunately we did not find any.  However, we did find a brittle star (opthurhioidea), jack knife clams, polychaeta sedentary and errantia, some gastropods, mussels, and some barnacles.  The water was a bit cloudy, so it was a bit hard to find some stuff.  The technique we used to find things that worked the best was sieving with a screen to filter out the muck and sand.  Peter used his snorkel to dig extra deep, which allowed us to find a lot of the worm-like things.  The most interesting things we found, one of which we could not identify was a worm about an inch and a half long with a black tip and orange body.  The organism's body was severed, yet it still seemed to be alive and moving.  We also found a dancing lady, and a slime ball which we thought was an egg sac of some sort.  Many of the organisms exhibited interesting structures for locomotion and feeding.  Overall, today was interesting and we found lots of things that some of us have never seen before.

Exploring the mangrove forests

Launching the kayaks

On our second day in sunny Florida, we had the pleasure of spending the morning in kayaks, exploring the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  With our enthusiastic and knowledgeable tour guide, we paddled along the Commodore Creek water trail and got to see and learn many interesting things about this important mangrove ecosystem. The estuary and the mangrove forests are a nursery and are home to many birds, crustaceans, gastropods, fish, and mammals. While the egrets and pelicans were beautiful as they preened their feathers in treetops, it was hard to take my eyes off the bottom of the water trail. As we leisurely paddled along, we saw crown conchs, lightning whelks, sea stars, horseshoe crabs and various fish species. 

A crown conch in its natural setting

After a quick lunch break, everyone was eager to get back outside in the sunshine and collect more shells on Bowman’s Beach. We spent the evening identifying our shells and I’m excited about the diversity we’ve been finding. I’m really looking forward to shifting our focus to the cephalochordates we hope to find at Apollo’s beach tomorrow! 

Maria, Emily, and Pete anticipating today's adventure

Today we visited the "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge on Sanibel Island. Led by our wonderful tour guide, Donna, we kayaked around the preserve. Jessica and myself shared a kayak, and during the journey we saw various types of birds, crabs, and even held a starfish. After our formal tour broke off, we were free to kayak around the area for ninety minutes. Pete and Ayla were able to see a dead alligator (which I'm quite jealous of), though we were unable to locate it.

Some of our group, before heading out.

If you look closely, you can see a crab on the mangroves.

After heading back to the hotel for lunch, we went to Bowman's Beach to collect more shells. Some of us were more successful than others, but I did manage to find a perfect shell...Unfortunately, it was still the home of a hermit crab! Most of us were getting sunburnt at this point, so after spending a little longer on the beach, we headed back again.

Bowman's Beach 

Occupied shell

Tomorrow, we plan to go to Apollo Beach, which is north of our current location. We're going to be snorkeling, which is something I'm quite excited to do. Wish us luck collecting shells!

Just returned from "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge.  We found some interesting creatures kayaking in the estuary.  After a quick lunch and a nap we will be heading to Bowman's beach to do some shelling.

      Day One-
           Today started out early, 3:30 am to be exact. After pulling myself out of bed, getting ready for the day and packing up a few last minute things I picked up Sam and we were on our way to the Detroit airport. To my surprise, we were able to drive, park, and get through security all within 40 minutes. After arriving at the gate two hours early we sat down and enjoyed our extremely high calorie muffin breakfast while we waited for the others to arrive.
            The others trickled in and before we knew it we were boarding the plane. The flight was very uneventful- probably because I slept the whole time. After what seemed like no time at all we were at Fort Myers. It was then off to the baggage claim, to the car rental desk, to subway and finally to Sanibel Island where our lodging was for the next few days. As we arrived to the hotel I think we were all over joyed to finally see the sun and feel its warmth after a long Michigan winter. While Cara was checking us into our rooms we waited outside only to find our first friend- Liam the lizard.

           After we were checked in we were told we didn't have anything on the agenda for two hours. Naturally we all put on our swimsuits and walked all but three steps to get to the beach. Some started collecting shells right of the bat, while others splashed around in the refreshing Gulf waters re-energizing after a long week of final exams. Many things were found on the beach during this time- arthropods and bivalves galore as well as remains from a horseshoe and fiddler crab.
           Before we knew it our two hours of beach freedom had passed before our eyes. It was now off to the Bailey-Matthews Shell Museum! Dick Weiss, a volunteer guide, met us at the entrance with a warm welcome and a smile. We then went inside the museum and watched an educational video on Sanibel Island's shells- arthropods and bivalves. My favorite part of this video was learning about olive mollusks, a large sea snail that is able to burrow below the sand in a swift manner. We learned that the olive mollusk is a carnivore that consumes bivalves and crustaceans with its foot.
           After the video came to an end, Mr. Weiss lead us to a room with a variety of different shells. There he explained laterality, or handedness of shells. We talked about the lightning whelk, a sea snail, and how their openings are always the same direction- left. This tells us that those animals are left handed, likewise the ones with openings on the right side are right handed shells. Mr. Weiss also showed us what a Florida horse conch shell looks like. We learned that the Florida horse conch is actually not a conch at all. Although it is one of the largest univalves. I was also impressed by the color of the mantel of the Florida horse conch- bright orange!
     After this we were then lead to tank with live gastropods and bivalves. We were shown many really cool things, my favorite being the albino Fighting Florida conch.

    Above is a traditional Florida fighting conch (left) next to an albino Florida fighting conch (right).
The coolest thing about the Florida fighting conch is that they're vegetarians and when they're out of the water they use their mantel to flip into the air and (hopefully) back in the water.
    We later were shown the Austrailian trumpet shell. It's size alone was extremely impressive. We learned that Austrailian trumpet shells are the large mollusk (and relatively heavy).

    After we left the museum we headed to the grocery store for the most important task of the day- to get ice cream. While walking to the grocery store we were distracted by the poco loco, a local ice cream shop. We indulged in very expensive, but very very delicious homemade ice cream.

     Back to the hotel we went. We had about 45 minutes until dinner was ready so naturally it was back to the beach! After splashing around and attempting to not be the palest group of people in Florida, dinner was ready! Ayla, Pete, Maria and Emily outdid themselves making rice and all the fixings for tacos and salad. After we scarfed down a delicious meal Rachel and Pete taught us about Sanibel Island where we learned that the island was not a nice place to live in the early 1900's for it was infested with mosquitoes. It was even to the point where you couldn't see the sky when it was daylight - gross!
      For the rest of the night we were out on the beach looking for different things. I found an olive mollusk which was especially exciting as we had just learned about them earlier in the day! I also found three Florida fighting conch shells.
       From there we all went our separate ways as the night wound down. I'm definitely looking forward to day two- kayaking and combing the beach!

Day 1

     After combing the beach for an hour our group headed to the Sanibel island shell museum. There we were met by Dick Weiss who informed us about the local mollusk population. First we watched a video which detailed all of the different molluscs native to Sanibel island. After the video Mr. Weiss took us down to the small aquarium filled with different molluscs.
     The Florida fighting conchs entertained us by hopelessly resisting Dick Weiss as he held them up for us to see. The conchs attempted to gain their freedom by pushing with their weak foot against their captor, a trait that is common among the Florida Fighting Conchs.  The little vegetarians, who serve as food for most of the carnivores and omnivores, live up to their namesake by fighting any hand that attempts to hold them.  After viewing the live aquarium we were given a guided tour of the museum.
     We were shown many examples of the different shells and their various uses through history. One of their more interesting uses were the sailors valentines, beautiful shell art in octagonal boxes, created or purchased by sailors for their wives.  Also interesting was the use of cowry shells as currency in Africa.
      We were introduced to many of the common mollusc shells that are found on Sanibel island and also given descriptions of the molluscs that create them. Then Dick showed us where donated shells are identified and cataloged by volunteers.
     We concluded our first evening with dinner and a discussion of the history of Sanibel island followed by combing the beach for night critters and getting some photographs of the various nightlife we encountered.

 Welcome to Fort Meyers

 Maria doing the Sanibel Stoop

 Sanibel Stoop

Mr Colbert: Calico Box Crab

 Brandon Newell

Frederick Samuel: Hermit in a Banded Tulip Shell