Join me in the cold, dark, life-sustaining NE Pacific Ocean to discover the great beauty, mystery and fragility hidden there.

“Exquisite Handiwork” – Sea Slug Eggs

“Some of nature’s most exquisite handiwork is on a miniature scale, as anyone knows who has applied a magnifying glass to a snowflake.“

I was reminded of this Rachel Carson quote today when diving but found myself changing the ending to ” . . . as anyone knows who has seen sea slug egg masses.”

The image here is the egg mass of the Pacific Sea Lemon (Peltodoris nobilis), a sea slug up to 20+ cm. It’s egg mass is up to some 20 cm as well.  Every little dot you see contains up to 20 fertilized eggs. So many eggs are needed when your young are hatched into the planktonic soup of the sea. 

The egg mass is the result of the Sea Lemons lining up right-side-to-right-side and both becoming fertilized. Being a hermaphrodite is of course a good design when you are a slow-moving slug that relies on smell to find its way.  More detailed information about sea slug mating can be found at this previous TMD blog entry.

Looking like rich, textured crocheting, the egg mass is indeed Nature’s exquisite handiwork.  Its intricacy rivals that of any spider’s web and, in my perception, surpasses any human nanotechnology.

Seeing such beauty serves as testimony of Nature’s perfection and complexity. How we humans are newcomers to it all, unable to truly grasp the billions of years of design that proceeded our walking upright on earth. It should further motivate us all to walk with much smaller footprints so that we do not blunder and crush the systems that are Nature’s exquisite handiwork.

Note: The Sea Lemon is often mistaken for other dorid species such as the Monterey Dorid (Doris montereyensis).  The easiest way to ID them correctly is to know that Pacific Sea Lemons have white gills. See the photos below and note how, although the body colour can be different, the colour of the gills is always white. The gills of the Monterey Dorid are yellow. The other difference, albeit more subtle, is that the little brown bits of colour do not extend to the top of the tubercles in Pacific Sea Lemons and the brown does go to the tips in Monterey Dorids. The tubercles are those bumpy little structures all over the sea slugs. Also, every sea slug species’ egg masses looks different which  provides further ID clues. The egg masses of Monterey Dorids are not quite as intricate. 

[Update 2020: I promise I will provide a blog showing the differences in IDs and egg masses of Pacific Sea Lemons, Monterey Dorids AND two more species which add to the ID confusion – Freckled Sea Lemons and Heath’s Dorids. Just need a bit of time!]

Close up on a Pacific Sea Lemon’s (Peltodoris nobilis) egg mass. Every dot contains up to 20 fertilized eggs.

 

Peltodoris nobilis egg laying (note the Brittle Star arms coming out of the crack).

 

Peltodoris nobilis mating – always right side to right side in slugs with gonopores linked so both become inseminated and lay eggs = simultaneous hermaphrodites.

 

The following photos give more of a sense of the variation in colour in this species.

 

More mating and eggs masses

3 Pacific Sea Lemons, two mating, one egg mass. Individuals appear to lay multiple egg masses to increase the chances of young surviving to adulthood. Not the white gills. 

Mating. These two were right beside the egg mass in the following photo.

Come Away With Me

Come on. You know you want to, just for 3 minutes.

Come on the dives I did today.

The little slide show I have put together, is a testimony to the grand, jaw-dropping biodiversity of this area (Northern Vancouver Island, B,C., CANADA).

The Minke whale we saw, the fish using a sponge as a hammock, the bald eagle chick that took one of its first flights – all these are animals that I have learned from by knowing a small part of the world’s ocean well enough to be able to recognize individual animals.

Such a privilege and such a joy to share with you.

Come away with me . . . . click here.

Sperm Whales – Magnificent and Misunderstood

It was on July 16th, 2010 when I saw Sperm Whales for the first time off the coast of British Columbia and my world rocked.

This whale species is unlike any other and is extreme in so many ways.

Sperm Whales:

  • Make very long and very deep dives
  • Have the biggest brains
  • Are the largest toothed animals
  • Make the loudest sounds
  • Have a very strange common name reflecting great misunderstanding
  • Were hunted intensely
  • And are so very, very unique looking.

I saw the Sperm Whales while having the joy of being a Marine Mammal Observer on DFO’s Cetacean Research Program’s offshore survey. I first saw them in the area where I have put the blue star on the map below. You’ll note from this image that this area off the continental shelf is where many sperm whales were “taken” by whalers. It is in deep waters like this that sperm whales find their prey of deep ocean fishes and squid (from medium-sized squid species to the giant squid).

Sperm Whales inshore of Vancouver Island are exceedingly rare. There was one documented in February 2018 near Telegraph Cove by Lisa Larsson of OrcaLab and Jared Towers of DFO. In late fall of 1984 Dr. John Ford of DFO recorded the clicks from one in Johnstone Strait near Telegraph Cove (source: Ford, Marine Mammals of British Columbia).

Our first clue that we might be sighting Sperm Whales was the very unique blows that veer sharply off to the left. Through binoculars we could confirm the species ID by seeing the animals’ colossal heads and wrinkly skin and, when they descended for a long and deep dive, it was indisputable that we were seeing Sperm Whales. The distinctly shaped tails came high out of the water, straight up and down and the animals descended as if slowly going down in an elevator. I found myself gasping in amazement when I first saw this. (Note that the images below showing the Sperm Whale’s dive and blow are not from the research trip in B.C.)

Down he went. Down, down, down. The dive could take up to 90+ minutes and could be to a depth of 1185 m (most dives to ~400 metres for 35 to 60 minutes). That’s more than 100 atmospheres of pressure!  (One weblink I provide below provides video of a Sperm Whale at this depth.)

Apparently an average Sperm Whale’s dive profile is to slowly descend for 10 minutes, hunt at depth (more often at 300 to 800 m) for approximately 25 minutes, then slowly ascend for 10 minutes. The whales then stay at the surface for some 8 minutes, taking up to 90 breaths (range of 20 to 70) to offload carbon dioxide and reload oxygen into their blood and muscles.

This long period at the surface is when they were an easy target for the whalers. Yes, Moby Dick was a Sperm Whale but the ferociousness portrayed by Herman Melville in this classic novel is pure fiction. Were Sperm Whales to attack and swallow people whole, they may not have been so terribly exploited. We humans wanted their blubber, their spermaceti and their ambergris. Ambergris is found in the intestines (see previous blog item) and “spermaceti” is a semi-liquid wax found in the Sperm Whales’ huge heads. Early whalers thought it was a reproductive material which is why the species has its strange common name. Science now believes that this material has a role in buoyancy by being cooled and contracting to become more dense when the whale is diving and then becoming heated and expanding to allow the whale to ascend from such great depths. It may also have a role in sound production.

In the dark world to which the Sperm Whales descended, they find their prey through echolocation. These clicks act like an “acoustic flashlight”. They go out from the whale’s huge head and, when they bounce off an object and “echo” back, this allows the sperm whale to form an image of its surroundings and prey. (I also provide a weblink below that provides amazing, but very worrying, video of a Sperm Whale using echolocation to take fish off a longline = “depredation”).

As well as these slow and regular echolocation clicks, Sperm Whales also make really loud clicks called “codas”. Codas are believed to allow the Sperm Whales to communicate with one another, maybe in a way like we humans use Morse code. Listen to the Sperm Whale that was in Johnstone Strait in February 2018 at this link. 

I don’t know that anyone can be quite the same after an enormously privileged experience like seeing a Sperm whale. I was left stunned with a cocktail of emotion surging through me that included wonder, joy, passion and resolve. More passion for conservation and more resolve to share these experiences to make them count.

Male adult Sperm Whale going of a deep dive. Image by Peter Jucker; taken in the St. Lawrence.www.juckiwildlifephotography.com

Typical Sperm Whale blow = low, bushy, explosive and at a sharp left angle.Image by Peter Jucker; taken in the St. Lawrence.www.juckiwildlifephotography.com

Sperm Whale tooth. Image by Louisa Bates of Telegraph Coves Whale Interpretive Centre.www.killerwhalecentre.org

Many thanks to Peter Jucker and Uko Gorter for their great generosity in sharing images for the purpose of education and conservation.

Links to Sperm Whale sound and video:

Sources:

Great resource for further information on Sperm Whales off British Columbia’s coast: John Ford’s 2014; Marine Mammals of British Columbia: Royal BC Museum Handbook; available via the Royal BC Museum and Amazon.ca .

AOKI, KAGARI; MASAO AMANO; KYOICHI MORI; AYA KOUROGI; TSUNEMI KUBODERA and NOBUYUKI MIYAZAKI (2012) Active hunting deep-diving sperm whales: 3D profiles and maneuvers during bursts of speed. Marine Ecology Progress Series 444:289-301.

Hakai Magazine, August 2021, Why We Can’t Shake Ambergris

Watwood SL, Miller P, Johnson M, Madsen PT, Tyack PL (2006) Deep-diving foraging behaviour of sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Journal of Animal Ecology 75: 814-825.

Whitehead, H. (2003). “Vertical Movements: The Sperm Whale’s Dive”. Sperm Whales Social Evolution in the Ocean. University of Chicago Press. p. 79.

Sharks Among Us #1 – The Blue Shark

The image below is of a Pacific Blue Shark (Prionace glauca) being rescued by Lindsey Pattinson of Tiderip Grizzly Tours on July 15th, 2010 in Glendale Cove, British Columbia.

Lindsey Pattinson rescuing a blue shark. Photo: Nick and Sue Spiller. 

Many British Columbians are unaware that we have at least 13 species of shark among us, ranging from the smaller species such as the Spiny Dogfish up to the 6-gill shark (5 m+) and the very, very rare Basking Shark (9 m+). The beautiful Blue Shark reaches a maximum of 3.8 meters and is distinct in its deep blue colouration and slender shape.

The Slue Shark is common in B.C. and is, in fact, extremely far ranging and widespread. It is found from Alaska to Chile in the Pacific but is also present in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.  It has been found in waters from 7 to 16°C, latitudes of 60°N to 50°S and from the shallows to depths of 350 m (being more often at depth in warmer waters).

In researching the species after Lindsey’s find, I discovered that Blue Sharks undertake very large migrations, reportedly up to 9,200 km, moving north in the summer months.  More females than males move to the higher latitudes.

But, of course a sighting like this in Glendale Cove is an enormous rarity. Even with the Blue Shark being common in B.C., they are more often oceanic, on the continental shelf . . . not on the beach in Glendale!

For whatever reason, the animal stranded there and Lindsey cared enough to do what he could to save it.  Many shark species need to keep swimming in order to have oxygen-rich water pass over their gills. Knowing this, Lindsey moved the stranded shark back and forth in the water, forcing water over its gills and indeed, he revived it. He and the tourists he was guiding on the Grizzly Bear (and shark) watching trip had the joy of watching the animal swim to depth.

Thanks to Lindsey, this Blue Shark will be able to have more days of feeding on anchovy, mackerel, salmon, hake, dogfish, crustaceans and squid. It may also scavenge here and there and even feed on aggregations of krill by straining the water in the way a baleen whale would.

I suspect the Glendale Cove shark was a female and with Blue Sharks being a very prolific species, now saved, she could go on to bear 25 to 50 pups at a time (apparently even as many as 135)!  These young would grow inside her as the blue shark is “viviparous”, meaning they bear fully formed young. The pups are 35 to 44 cm at birth.

I was fascinated to learn that blue shark females can apparently “get pregnant” up to 20 months AFTER mating. They can store sperm packets in special glands in their reproductive tract called “shell glands” (aka nidamental glands) and pass their eggs through these glands to get fertilized.

If the rescued Blue Shark was indeed female, she may not have been able to feel much of Lindsey’s caring touch since the females are up to 3 times thicker skinned that the males! This adaptation is believed to allow the females to deal with the males since there is a lot of biting during courtship.

Unfortunately, the fate of Blue Sharks can also be to become the bycatch of longline and driftnet fisheries. One source reported that in one year alone (1990) “it is conservatively estimated that by-catch of blue sharks taken by the Japanese squid fleet in the North Pacific totalled 700,000.”

Further life history: Males sexually mature at 4–6 and females at 5–7 years. Believed to live to age 20.

For more photos of the blue shark rescue, click here.

Great thanks to Nick and Sue Spiller for sharing these photos.

Sources include:

The Case of the Killer Plankton

This week’s case is the result of Stacey Hrushowy bringing a unique jelly-like marine creature to my attention.

Forgive the sensationalist blog title but truly, this animal is like the stuff of science fiction.

It’s a 15 cm pulsing, translucent, rainbow-flashing blob that has a fascinating diet!

Mystery creature (15 cm). Photo by Stacey Hrushowy.

I’ve narrated a slideshow with video to share this with you. Please see below.

I would not have been able to identify this species without Dave Wrobel and his site jellieszone.com .


Of Humpbacks and Waterfalls

This comes to you from the Coast Guard ship the J.P. Tully where I have the great good fortune to serve as a marine mammal spotter for the next days.

BCY0057 nicknamed “Niagara”.

We have been recording many humpbacks sightings but today, while the larger ship was being fuelled in Port Hardy, we were able to do some work from a zodiac, allowing for a better opportunity to ID the humpbacks as individuals.

I share with you the experience of seeing one of these individuals, the humpback carrying the DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) ID number BCY0057.

It is the easiest to ID humpbacks as individuals by using the unique markings of their tails. This particular humpback was one that we very quickly were able to recognize due to a very distinctly shaped white spot near the centre of its tail. The marking is in the shape of a waterfall so, since “BCY0057” is not an easy name to remember, locally this whale is known by the nickname . . . Niagara.

We know that Niagara is about 10 years old due to Dr. Alexandra Morton having taken a picture of the whale in 2000 when it was travelling with his mother.  As a further result of these photo records, we also know that Niagara’s mother is BCX0022 (aka “Houdini”), one of the most prolific humpbacks known to research. She had 5 calves in 7 years, quite the feat considering that humpbacks are pregnant for about a year.

Today’s experience of seeing Niagara again was moving.  It was also ideal from a research perspective since we were able to get good ID shots of the tail and both sides of the animal and, since Niagara was feeding at the surface, it was possible to collect scale samples of the fish being fed upon. DNA testing of these scales will confirm what species of fish Niagara was eating.

At the link below, I share with you an image of Niagara “lunge feeding” so that you can get a sense of how far the throat pleats of humpbacks distend to allow huge volumes of food and water to be engulfed. Reportedly up to 20,000 litres is taken in per mouthful. The water is then pushed out through the baleen.

The image also shows you the “beard” of barnacles on Niagara’s throat pleats. These species specific barnacles will surely be a topic of a future blog.

And, if you look very carefully, you’ll see Niagara’s right eye with lids closed.

Duty calls  . . . .

Click here for the image of Niagara (BCY0057) lunge feeding and for a larger ID photo.

Seeing Whales – Seeing Red

I saw A12 swim by today. A12, also known as Scimitar, is an old female killer whale of the “Northern Resident” population of fish-eating, inshore killer whales. She is about 69-years-old (known as the result of the photo-identification work of Dr. John Ford, Graeme Ellis and the late Dr. Michael Bigg).

A12 is the grand dame of the first family of killer whales I ever saw; an experience that had an impact on me that I will never fully be able to explain. It led me to make a radical career change, moving back to Canada to work as a marine educator on the very waters where I first saw A12.

Seeing her today was as powerful an experience for me as it was the first time I saw her but  . . . there was sadness too and, there was anger.

Last year her son A33 “Nimpkish” went missing. He was around 38-years-old. Mother fish-eating killer whales never leave their sons so we knew there was very little chance of ever seeing him again. Indeed, no one ever has.

With A33 gone, A12 would still sometimes travel with her daughter A34 and A34’s calves and grand-calves but she was also often on her own. Then, as of July 22nd, she was frequently seen with “the three brothers” (the A36s); three mature male killer whales whose mother went missing in 1997. As the only surviving offspring, these males were always together. A12 is closely related to them and it was remarkable to see how the mother with no son, interacted with the sons with no mother.

Today, there were only two of the three brothers near A12. The eldest, A32 (aka “Craycroft”) who was around age 46, is now missing.

Another male killer whale gone.

And this is what laced my experience today with anger. But why?  Whales, like everything else, die.

I assure you I am not being overly sentimental. It will never be conclusive what made these whales die but, but, BUT we humans definitely had an influence. Their health, in fact, is an accurate mirror of how our actions impact the environment.

The whales, with their position high in the marine food chain, are full of chemicals like fire retardants and pesticides (the work of Dr. Peter Ross). Despite the many lessons learned with the likes of chemicals like PCBs and DDT, which were banned in 1977, we still do not appropriately test new chemicals and we use chemicals with reckless abandon. The toxic reality is that the ocean is a soup of chemicals – including the old and new (e.g. PBDEs) “persistent organic pollutants” that do not break down; “travel” to the colder areas of the world; build up in the food chain (bioaccumulate and biomagnify), and reduce animals’ ability to fight disease and reproduce.

A32 was above average age for a male killer whale but “average age” has been determined from the data available only after our use of these chemicals. It is not believed to be natural that male killer whales (and the males of many other marine mammal species) die at a much younger age than the females. Their earlier demise has to, at least in part, be due to their toxin loads being much higher than the loads in the females. The females’ toxin levels are lower because females download these fat-soluble toxins in the fatty mother’s milk, to their calves (of course with negative impacts to the calves).

These chemicals had to have an impact on the missing mature males and, the situation literally becomes all the more toxic, when coupled with lack of food. When the whales do not have enough food and use up their fat reserves, the toxins become more concentrated. And 2008 was an appalling year for Chinook salmon, the salmon species essential to the survival of killer whales of the “resident” populations. The work of Dr. John Ford has shown that there is a direct correlation between the survival of these killer whales and the availability of Chinook salmon and, of course, we humans impact the survival of salmon  . . . by habitat loss, over-harvesting, climate change, current open net-cage salmon farming practices, etc.

So today, as I witnessed A32 no longer being with his brothers, I felt the wave of rage come up inside me. Missing whales causes reflection on the state of the environment due to human over-consumption, lack of precaution and disconnect from Nature.

But the wave passed shortly after the whales did. For there is still every reason for hope. As long as people care enough to change, there is hope. The potential for change is endless and there is ample evidence of humanity, increasingly, moving in a direction that considers the link between our daily actions and whales like A12, A33 and A32.

Indeed, there is ample reason for hope as long as there are people like you who read to the end of a lengthy blog entry like this.

Take one further step and click on this link to find out how easy it is to help the whales, and ourselves.

Thank you.

Sea Spiders?!

Yes – there are spider-like animals in the ocean!

Globally, more than 1,300 species have been identified.

Yellow Hairy Sea Spider likely grazing on the polyps of Red Soft Coral. 

But, even though they are invertebrates with jointed legs (arthropods) and most have 8 legs, they are not spiders (arachnids). They are also not crustaceans. They are classified into the a distinct group of arthropods – the chelicerate subphylum. The particular species you see in these images, belongs in the subgrouping (order) called the “pantapoda”. That’s Latin for “all legs”. It’s a good name since this species has almost no abdomen. 

“All legs” indeed. Yellow Hairy Sea Spiders on retracted / deflated Red Soft Coral. 


They have a mouth part called a proboscis, a flexible tube that they use to mix digestive chemicals with their food and then suck it up.

Yellow Hairy Sea Spider appears to have “decorated” himself with algae. 

Some species have additional leg-like appendages near their mouths. Often only the male has these structures so that they can take care of the eggs by carrying them.

The species pictured here are those I see most often around northeast Vancouver Island and they are only about 1 cm across. They have been given the common name “Yellow Hairy Sea Spider” (Tanystylum grossifemorum). 

The hairy parts are believed to help the animals feel and sense chemicals.

I have only ever seen this sea spider species on Red Soft Coral colonies (Gersimia rubiformis). They appear to feed on the bushy polyps of the soft coral. As defence, the polyps can retract and have stinging cells but this seems to do little to deter the sea spiders. 

One of the things I find fascinating about sea spiders is that they have a very thin external skeleton (exoskeleton) and as a result don’t need a respiratory system; they can “breath” through their skins.

Nudibranch species that also feed on Red Soft Coral include the Diamondback Nudibranch (Tritonia festiva to 10 cm) and the Orange Peel Nudibranch (Tochuina gigantea to 30 cm).  

_JH15378

SEA&SEA 1200HD

As an aside, there is also a fascinating association between Red Soft Coral and Basket Stars (Gorgonocephalus eucnemis).  See below. Basket Star embryos develop INSIDE the polyps of the soft coral! It’s also thought the embryos feed on the soft coral’s eggs which brood inside the parent. When juvenile Basket Stars emerge from the coral’s polyps, they hang onto the outside till about 3 mm in disk diameter. Then, they crawl onto an adult Basket Star, shuffling off when approx. 5 cm. When adult Basket Stars’ 5 seeming infinitely branched arms are fully outstretched, width is up to 75 cm. Age is up to 35 years.

SEA&SEA 1200HD

Sources:

Below the Kelp

It’s the day before summer begins and  . . . what a day it was.

We had radiant sunshine and a flat-calm ocean during our dive today.

I can think of no better way to share the beauty and wonder of today’s adventure than to take you below the kelp with me.

Please see today’s images at link below. I have included captions that provide a bit of information about the species we were so fortunate to see.

Come below the kelp – by clicking here.

It’s Raining Fish?!

Juvenile yellow-tail rockfish.

Recently, I noticed a lot of splashing in a tideline off Telegraph Cove, BC. I share my observations with you via the little video clip at the link below.

You’ll note that it looks like big rain drops are hitting the water.

I discovered that what was creating the splashing were juvenile yellow-tail rockfish feeding on zooplankton. The zooplankton, including a small species of krill, had been concentrated at the surface by the big tidal exchange. There had been almost a 4 metre exchange between high and low tide (more than 12 feet).

I also discovered a very unique larval fish in the tideline that day but will share that discovery in a future “The Marine Detective”.

Click here for the video of the yellow-tail rockfish feeding in the tideline.

Enjoy!