Crustaceans and Echinoderms

Echinoderms and crustaceans are both able to reginerate. An echinoderm can reginerate legs as long as part of the center is left. When crustaceans lose a claw, the left over one takes its place and a new one is grown.

Video link: http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/animals/invertebrates-animals/other-invertebrates/sea_urchin_breeding.html

Differences:

  Echinoderms -

• Name means "spiky skin
• Radial symmetry
• Endoskeleton
• Calcium carbonate skeletal system
• Don't molt
• Cool video link

  Crustaceans -

• Name means "jointed feet"
• Bilateral symmetry
• Exoskeleton
• Chitin skeletal system
• Molt

Crustaceans

Yeti Crab 



http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2009/decker_rour/taxonomy.htm

 

Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Arthropoda
Class - Malacostraca

Order - Decapoda

Family - Kiwaidae
Genus - Kiwa
Species - hirsuta

Japanese Spider Crab



http://www.buzzle.com/articles/japanese-spider-crab.html

Kingdom - Animalia

Phylum - Arthropoda

Class - Malacostraca

Order - Decapoda

Family - Inachidae

Genus - Macrocheira
Species - kaempferi

Squat Lobster (one species)



http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/kunkel/fish/Kunkel_Fish_LifeList.html



Kingdom - Animalia

Phylum - Arthropoda

Class - Malacostraca

Order - Decapoda

Family - Chirostylidae

Genus - Eumunida

Species - picta

Echinoderms

Sea Urchin (one species)



http://wamuseum.com.au/dampier/explore_echinoderm_seaurchin.asp



Kingdom - Animalia

Phylum - Echinodermata

Class - Echinoidea

Order - Cidaroida

Family - Cidaridae

Genus - Prionocidaris

Species - baculosa

Firebrick Starfish



http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/55563/Firebrick-starfish

Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Echinodermata
Class - Asteroidea
Order - Valvatida
Family - Asterodiscididae
Genus - Asterodiscides
Species - truncatus












Eccentric Sand Dollar
 

http://echinoblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/cloning-as-sand-dollar-defense-why-run.html



Kingdom - Animalia
Phylum - Echinodermata
Class - Echinoidea
Order - Clypeasteroida
Family - Dendrasteridae
Genus - Dendraster
Species - excentricus

Mollusk Discovery

Cephalopod

Characteristics

• Jet propulsion
• Parrot-like beak in center of tentacles
• Large eyes with excellent vision
• Passive or active camouflage
• Makes dark ink cloud
• Active hunters
• Breed in shallow water-male delivers sperm packet

 

Macrotritopus defilippi (Atlantic longarm octopus)



Kingdom - Animalia

Phylum - Mollusca

Class - Cephalopoda

Order - Octopoda

Family - Octopodidae

Genus - Macrotritopus

Species - Defilippi

 

Baby

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8625884.stm

Adult

http://www.mbl.edu/news/press_releases/2010/2010_pr_03_03.html

This octopus can mimic a flounder! Watch it...NOW! - http://www.redorbit.com/news/video/science/5/atlantic_longarm_octopus_mimics_flounder/31024/

Signs of Spring - Site Observation Day 6

On Wednesday, we went for a walk to find signs of Spring. It should not be Spring already, I haven't gotten to go sledding!!

Our first site was near the trees outside the side doors of the high school. The trees had small red buds on the branches. The sunlight was penetrating my cool party sunglasses (Happy Birthday, again, Chelsea!). The school was blocking the sun from shining on the cute buds. We heard a crow or raven and when we looked around it was up on a parking lot lamp, probably watching us (creeper!). There was a light breeze, but it was perfect weather because while the breeze cooled you off, the sun warmed you up.

To reach the second site, we had to go down the road towards the bus garage and take a left before the gate. There were some woody budding trees mixed with some coniferous ones. The mostly clear sky was super duper blue! The sun still hurt my eyeballs, but no hard feelings. A K-9 car went by and the dog started barking, but other than that it was too loud to hear anything but leaves underfoot. The bothersome wind was blowing my hair all in my face which got kind of annoying when I was trying to take my pictures. There was a cute little green bud on one of the trees:

The third site was along the side of the pond. In the woods before we got there and beside the pond we found these cool seed strand things. There was a very obvious sign of Spring; the geese we've seen practically every time we've gone outside were gone-they've migrated. Another sign of spring was this larvae thing on a little tree. The sunlight was reflecting off the geese-less water and I almost got a really pretty, but stalkerish, picture of Olivia when she wasn't paying attention (Chelsea can back me up). The grasses near the pond and the pond water were moving in the wind. Then, I heard a cricket, but for some reason it stopped when Ms. Richardson started talking on her phone. I could hear dead, dried up leaves crinkling together in the tops of the trees. I started to regret wearing my black jacket because the sun was making me burn up.

Site four was a little ways up in the woods. Ms. Richardson showed us some plants on the forest floor that had new red branches (a sign of Spring). The rest of the plant was brown because it was old growth. The smallest spider I have ever seen was at this site. It was so small that no one could get a focused picture of it. Ms. Richardson tried to get everyone to be quiet for a little while so we could hear the forest come back to life. Mostly, I could just hear leaves rustling and crunching when people shifted their feet. There was no breeze here and mainly shade so it felt mighty comfy, but also like something bad was about to happen because I heard that before a tornado hits, everything gets really still. Then, when we were heading back to school, we passed a crawdad chimney.

Biofilm Simulation at the G.C. Marine Reserve

Last Friday, we got to make cool graham cracker snacks. They were delicious! We were stimulating the biofilm experiment. Biofilm plates were used to catch organisms and sediment at different depths in the Chesapeake Bay. In the original experiment, Plexiglas plates were used - this is where our graham crackers came in. They were the base for organisms to attach to or get caught on. The Plexiglas is too slick for the things to attach to so a base has to be made. Bacteria originally created the Extracellular Polymeric Substance (slime) that caught stuff, but we had to use icing. Then, we used a lifesaver to 'bolt our plates to the substrate.' Icing on the bottom of the cracker actually attached it, but if it had been a real Plexiglas plate, a bolt could have been used. Then, we used different sprinkles to represent the different organisms in the Galapagos Marine Reserve. This was probably the most complicated part. I mean it wasn't too hard, but you had to hold the sprinkles high above your cracker and tap the bottle to get enough, but not too many organisms or you'd have to count every one of them. Oh, and I was late from SODA, so I had to chase the sprinkle bottles around the room and ask someone about every single step. Anyway, I ended up with 30 coralline algae, 9 diatoms, 14 barnacles, 11 coral, and 1 oyster. Below is a picture of my beautiful biofilm plate.



Photo courtesy of Olivia Muchmore

Plankton Wars

So, the other day we had a plankton war. It was a competition for the slowest sinking plankton or one that stayed suspended in the middle of the tank (sounds impossible). I was lucky to have Jawaan as my partner, but neither one of us could decide what we wanted our plankton to have, so we made three of them. The one we actually used in the competition was a chunk of clay flattened with a button and stabbed in every side with a toothpick (8 total). It sounds violent, but it was a really cute plankton! Then we doubted that it would float so we added foil around every other pair of toothpicks, making it look like the top of a windmill. I think we were overly cautious because then it floated too much and we were defeated. The winning teams created plankton that had a greater balance between buoyancy and weight, making them sink slowly.

Photo courtesy of Ms. Richardson

Algae in my Cupboard?! Say what?!

Our homework last week was to find 8 foods with alginate, carrageenan, or beta carotene in the ingredients, which meant they had algae in them. Disgusting, yes, but pretty awesome, too. I think Mrs. Richardson did this to weed out the weak in our class. She also wanted us to see that algae isn't so bad after all and it shouldn't be stereotyped as nasty, slimy junk because that hurts its feelings. Really, I think she just wanted us to know how much algae really affects our lives-it's in the food we eat! I found one food with an alginate in it-Mini Wheats. My Grannie always eats Mini Wheats so I have to admit this one kind of grossed me out. A couple days ago, Mr. Bass had Mini Wheats on his desk. I broke the news to him about the algae and he looked at me with this disgusted face like I was crazy, so I blamed it all on Mrs. Richardson (just kidding, Mrs.R).

I also found carrageenan in Swiss Miss mix (try saying that ten times fast), Breakfast Essentials mix (delicious), Activia (not mine, just saying), heavy whipping cream, GoGurt, Jello Cook & Serve, and Dole Mandarins in Orange Gel.

Site Observation Day 5

When we went outside last Friday, we not only did our normal observations, we did a bird count! We saw one seagull and eight geese and we heard one crow in the distance.

On the way to our first site, Ms. Richardson was timing to see if we could make it a solid five minutes without talking. It took a few times, but we finally got it, if you don't count Olivia and I lipping words to each other. Our site was beside the pond. There were eight geese in the pond and one of them was white! There were also fish touching the surface of the water to eat bugs. I could hear a train going through Mineral. The wind was cold and made ripples on the water, but unpleasantly blew my hair in my face.

Our second site was at the corner of the pond where the path splits three separate ways. We were closer to the geese this time, but they were partly blocked by small trees. There were many trees across the paths from the pond. Lots of them were bare, but I could hear the wind rustling through them. It was cooler here because of the shade.

To get to our third site, we had to go down a very steep set of stairs. I'm sure they wouldn't have been as dangerous if they weren't covered in slick, dead leaves, but thanks to Josh and Chris we all made it down safely. Then, we had to avoid brairs to get to the stream. It was starting to feel hotter outside although we were shrouded with shade. There were frogs hiding under leaves and swimming in the water, so I could hear people trying to find them and splashing water.

Our fourth site was at this cute little pond near this random house. Olivia and I found a frog no one else saw. I couldn't get a picture quick enough before he swam away, but we did find one. Ms. Richardson and the rest of the class found salamanders and little frogs. There was a mini waterfall and you could hear the water dripping from the pond to a little stream. There was a nice, cool breeze and some sun. I think this site was the most beautiful.