Incurablog: A Naturalist At Work

31 Dec 2011

Lava tour’d it up today.  9 miles walking over pahoehoe to see some glowing earth juice.  Life is grand.

Lava tour’d it up today.  9 miles walking over pahoehoe to see some glowing earth juice.  Life is grand.

3 Dec 2011

So this month I’ll be attending a 2 week long interpretive guide training course at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park

Seriously so stoked, you have no idea.  You guys, it’s basically two weeks of environmental science, hikes, and fantastic biological, geological, and ecological nerdity.  Am I shitting my pants with excitement?  No.  Gross.  Is this going to be fucking awesome?  You bet your big fat sciency butt it’s gonna!

Activities/topics included but not limited to: Volcanology, forest birds, rare plants, archeology, ethnobiology, natural resource management, evolution, a bazillion hikes to a ton of bitchin’ places around the volcano,
eruption monitoring, marine biology, endemic species, Hawaiian anthropology, native insects, geology, plate techtonics, lava formation, caving, and
seismology.

Two whole weeks of this shit.  I smell blog fodder.

But seriously, I gotta squeeze out the brain sponge and get ready to soak up some mad knowledge, yo.

24 Oct 2010

So boiling a small moray eel skull is a bad idea.

Because small bones attached to cartilage fall apart very easily without a hardening chemical added to the mixture.

Yeah, everything fell apart.

One of the other guides brought back the eel skeleton (I’ve talked about it in the past) that’s been on Flat Island for a couple of months.  I thought we should try to preserve it to show off the pharyngeal jaw as a teaching tool.

After 1 minute in the boiling water the eel’s skin peeled off easily, but all the small bones in the skull fell apart immediately, including the pharyngeal jaw.

It should also be noted that larger morays contain lethal doses of the neurotoxin Ciguatera.  This was definitely at the front of my mind as I sat over a boiling pot of Moray with steam rising into my breathing space.  (I’m fine.  The toxin doesn’t get broken down by heat, which is why cooking doesn’t remove it)

More on the Pharyngeal Jaw is here.

So now I have no eel skeleton and my clothes smell terrible.

14 Sep 2010

So I thought to myself, “What can I talk about that’s both bloodcurdlingly terrifying as well as scientific?” The answer is, of course, the Pharyngeal Jaws of Moray Eels. For most fish, swallowing is accomplished by suction in the throat, drawing the food/prey backwards into the esophagus. Morays live in confined spaces (holes, cracks, etc.) in the reef, where it can be difficult or impossible to create internal negative water pressure in relation to the surrounding area.  There’s just not enough space. To compensate, Morays have developed a Pharyngeal Jaw.  This is a secondary pair of teeth that sit recessed in the eel’s throat.  When the eel takes a bite, the second jaw reaches forward into the mouth, clamps down on whatever’s been bitten, and drags it into the throat like a ratchet, over and over again.  Because of this, the eel can swallow large prey even if the majority of its body is in a tight space.  How freaking cool is that? Now good luck going to sleep!

So I thought to myself, “What can I talk about that’s both bloodcurdlingly terrifying as well as scientific?”

The answer is, of course, the Pharyngeal Jaws of Moray Eels.

For most fish, swallowing is accomplished by suction in the throat, drawing the food/prey backwards into the esophagus.

Morays live in confined spaces (holes, cracks, etc.) in the reef, where it can be difficult or impossible to create internal negative water pressure in relation to the surrounding area.  There’s just not enough space.

To compensate, Morays have developed a Pharyngeal Jaw.  This is a secondary pair of teeth that sit recessed in the eel’s throat.  When the eel takes a bite, the second jaw reaches forward into the mouth, clamps down on whatever’s been bitten, and drags it into the throat like a ratchet, over and over again.  Because of this, the eel can swallow large prey even if the majority of its body is in a tight space.  How freaking cool is that?

Now good luck going to sleep!

31 Aug 2010

A few facts about Coral: -Coral is most closely related to Jellyfish.  Both are Cnidarians. Energy intake is performed in two ways.  1. By extending the polyps and using stinging cells to capture plankton that drifts by in the current.  2. Through a symbiotic relationship with an algae called Zooxanthellae that lives inside the coral’s rocky exoskeleton and captures sunlight which it then converts into nutrients that it transfers to the coral. -Coral is trying to bone your sister, but hasn’t been having much luck so far lately.

A few facts about Coral:

-Coral is most closely related to Jellyfish.  Both are Cnidarians.

Energy intake is performed in two ways. 

1. By extending the polyps and using stinging cells to capture plankton that drifts by in the current. 

2. Through a symbiotic relationship with an algae called Zooxanthellae that lives inside the coral’s rocky exoskeleton and captures sunlight which it then converts into nutrients that it transfers to the coral.

-Coral is trying to bone your sister, but hasn’t been having much luck so far lately.

17 Jun 2010

So I’ve spent the past 3 hours watching Jonathan Bird’s Blue World.  I was a little wary at first since it’s marketed as a “family” documentary show, and often times family shows contain much less information and way more pretty pictures, but this one has a nice amount of both.  Jonathan Bird doesn’t really have a schtick or anything.  He’s kind of a big dorky guy, but he swims around with all sorts of interesting things.  I especially enjoyed the episodes on Thresher Sharks and Mandarinfish. Definitely worth a look.  All episodes are online.  Check it out!

So I’ve spent the past 3 hours watching Jonathan Bird’s Blue World.  I was a little wary at first since it’s marketed as a “family” documentary show, and often times family shows contain much less information and way more pretty pictures, but this one has a nice amount of both.  Jonathan Bird doesn’t really have a schtick or anything.  He’s kind of a big dorky guy, but he swims around with all sorts of interesting things.  I especially enjoyed the episodes on Thresher Sharks and Mandarinfish.

Definitely worth a look.  All episodes are online.  Check it out!

30 May 2010

So I’m doing some major research…

for a new show that I’m shooting here - “Living Waters, with Andre LeBleu”.

I’m looking for more Marine Bio shows to watch.  Humorous is good, but not mandatory.

Currently on the docket is:

-The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau

-Jacques Cousteau’s Odyssey

-Jean-Michel Cousteau’s Ocean Adventures

-Kratts’ Creatures

-Blue Planet

-Various episodes of Bill Nye, The Science Guy

Got any suggestions for other shows I should check out?

27 May 2010

It’s always a good tour when you see sharks.

Led a four-hour tour out to the mokulua islands today.  We stopped at Lanikai beach on our way back for some lunch and snorkeling.  I headed out to poke around.  About 200 yards from shore I saw a trumpetfish, which we don’t often see at Lanikai, so I swam down for a closer look.  Then I noticed the tail sticking out from under the lobe coral.

There were three whitetip reef sharks hanging out napping.  I brought my people over.  Totally stoked.  Made some major bank in tips afterwards.

It’s awesome to see sharks, because then I can talk about ram ventilation and Ampullae of Lorenzini.  I mean, I like talking about that stuff when there aren’t sharks around, but if you have a reason people don’t look at you as weird.

25 Apr 2010

“Always remember to be yourself. Unless you suck.”
— Joss Whedon