We’re working around Eleuthra Island and our collecting trips have been generally quite successful. (If anyone is following the proposed cruise track – forget it – we have had to change our plans a number of times.) This particular area contains an abundance of solitary, predatory tunicates (sea squirts) at about 2,000 feet. These animals are of particular interest to the Chief Scientist Craig Young (U. Oregon) and he had a wonderful dive photographing these weird animals (each roughly the size of a tangerine). Upon return to the surface, he was successful at beginning a culture of these animals – a feat that has not been accomplished to date. For me, the highlight of this dive was the video footage of a 20-foot-length of a colony of colonial salps (actually close relatives of the tunicates that warm the cockles of Craig’s heart). Each individual of the colony was almost six inches in length – a truly astounding sight.
Late into the evening beginning at 10 p.m. began a collection of deep water (from a depth of 4,000 m – yes, that’s 12,000 feet). The students were processing the water samples well past midnight. I faded into the night at about 1 a.m. and many of the students were still working on the water samples or their own projects. Our own Craig Brauer (aka “Young Craig”) was collecting larvae of sea stars from a plankton sample taken this night that we will use to study the process of asexual reproduction by these lovely developmental forms.
Some of the students visited a small island during the afternoon and collected a number of shallow-water sea urchins. Richard Emlet (U. Oregon) was successful at beginning a nice culture of Tripneustes ventricosus and they should be swimming tomorrow morning. So let the experiments begin!