Cheers, Ron

http://lh6.ggpht.com/_1qPxoVUruaw/St-pAO2emlI/AAAAAAAAAKw/Y9LNaNwkd_Q/s800/WHITESPOT.JPG

We have these on our aquarium glass (inside, of course). This is really zoomed in and darkened and contrasted just a bit to see the details. It’s approximately the size of a sesame seed or maybe slightly bigger.

Thanks!

Glad you like it! I am thinking about the next couple of editions. I hope to get the next one up within a day or two. I think it will a lot shorter than this one, though. After that, who knows.

Cheers, Ron

Yup, I was as frenzied as the squids. The solitary female shots were taken in the morning, the others in the night of the same day. Getting in amongst the squids was amongst the high points of my diving career! It was really a wonderful experience. I was a part of the action, too. Errant pairs deposited egg capsules on me and my gear, so when I left the water I was festooned with capsules; “The Creature From The Squid Lagoon.”

Some of the egg masses on the bottom were so large that fishermen recorded them on their sonar – probably were about 20 feet in high in places. Huge masses of that size have been seen in California, but we never actually saw those specific masses.

Regarding the capsules…

My feeble memory – always a dubious source – reminds me that the capsules had a rather cloying, unpleasant “sweetish” odor. If I could smell that in air, it certainly would have been water-borne.

To the best of my memory, I did not have any cuts or scrapes on my hands when I took apart the egg capsules. I handled them for about 10 minutes before I noticed the numbness beginning. Nobody else in the project handled the capsules, so I was the only one effected.

Cheeries,

Ron

Fascinating tale and cool pictures! If those aggregation shots were all from the same dive your photography must have been just as frenzied as the squid’s mating.

I was particularly interested in the toxicity of the egg cases. A few years ago a lecturer mentioned (almost in passing) that these egg cases had no taste/odor and therefore any animal that might potentially feed on them wouldn’t be able to recognize them as a food item. I was a bit skeptical of that idea at the time – but what do I know? That the egg cases are actually toxic is a much more satisfying explanation.

I’m curious as to how much exposure you had to the cases prior to having symptoms, whether you had any cuts or scrapes on your hands, and whether any of the other people involved had similar symptoms (goes to the potential of an allergic or sensitized reaction).

Toxically yours,

Alex

Any animal that eats animals from the sand substrate should be avoided, these particularly are “sand-sifting” sea stars (such as those in the genera Luidia and Astropecten.

The crabs you mention “Paguro” are called “Hermit Crabs” in English. They are very deleterious in a reef tank, they eat all sorts of small animals, from beneficial worms to baby corals They are rare on natural reefs, and they should be even rarer in reef aquaria.

I hope this helps.

Cheers, Ron

I don´t know if you could spend some time to answer me a question, but it would be very very nice for me if you do. Please let me introduce myself, I am a brazillian living here in the north, in Natal, the main city at this state, but i was born in Porto Alegre at the south of the country, and just like you i´ve grow up with the passion for underwater beings, sorry about my english, i know it´s not very good for writting, but i can read very well.

I just finished to read one of your articles about the substrat in coral aquariums and the question is: when you say that major animals that feeds on microfauna by filtration are bad ones, you are talking about which ones exactly? And what you can say about starfish and that crabs that live in a shell, the name in english has vanished from my mind(here in Brazil we call it Paguro, or Bernado Eremita), are they good ones?.

Thank so much for your attention, i am just writing this cause that text I´ve read was the best one. Thanks

Juliano Jung

Okay, I agree with you.

I suspect that what I shall do is propose some altered definitions and possibly some new terms to resolve any future problems of misinterpretations.

You seem pretty up on this stuff. I hope to get the ms done by sometime after the New Year; but my work time has a habit of disappearing ere I get to it. In any case, would you be willing to provide an editorial critique before I submit the thing? If so, let me know.

First definitions.

Active suspension feeding is defined as suspension feeding in which bulk water movement is facilitated by the activities of the organism. In passive suspension feeding bulk water movement over the feeding apparatus is facilitated by local circulation. Passive suspension feeders can modify local flow by coiling feeding appendages (create vorticies that allow particles to cross flow stream lines) or by moving appendages in a manner that modify local flow conditions or increases the volume of water sampled by the organisms. So from a functional standpoint passive suspension feeders depend on local water circulation patters to supply particles and active suspension feeders, not so much. Active suspension feeders pump water over the feeding appendages. Particle capture in bivalves has two parts, water is pumped through the feeding structure in bulk, particles are then captured from this water. In many was particle capture is thought to have an optimal flow velocity and particle concentration in a bivalve. The bivalve alters the locations of the siphons and the pumping velocity to maximize this. The bivalve takes an active role in the bulk movement of water over the feeding structures, the definition of an active suspension feeder. An active suspension feed can therefore feed effectively in water with very little physical flow. A passive suspension feeder depends on physical circulation (waves currents etc) to bring new water into contact with the feeding structures. In the absence of external flow the feeding volume is very small.

Commentary
You indicate that the polps are active, irrelevant to the question of bulk water movement. You indicate that the tentacles are used to deflect water and particles towards the mouth. Based on my definition this is still passive suspension feeding.

If you accept the definition used by my former colleges (I have been out of the field for a few years now) then your critters are passive suspension feeders. Perhaps this definition is not universally accepted, fair enough, make sure you define your terms in your MS. Perhaps you feel that your polyps are in fact causing bulk flow, fair enough but not indicated in your blog, at some point you will have to define bulk flow and describe how they qualify. Your use of the term “deflects” makes me believe they create little bulk flow. What is the volume of water processed per unit time after you substract out the flow from the flume? Can the polps feed using this mechanism in no flow? Perhaps you have an in between, not quite a classical active suspension feeder but some of both…I would be VERY suprised, but thats not a bad thing.

On a more positive note. I think what you are observing is very cool and very different from the way most critters are thought to feed. Your contention that the tentacles are not used for particle capture but rather to direct flow/particles to the mouth is new, different, and likely to cause a stir. Local flow modification etc is one of the things that make some forms of passive suspension feeding so much more interesting to me than active suspension feeding. It nice to see that I am not the only person to have spent hours actually watching feeding behavior under flow in the past 20 years. Check out Evan Ward’s endoscope bivalve feeding work for some very cool examples of actually watching particle capture in a live critter.

It makes me sad to know that my water tunnel is slowing rusting away, I love the oscillatory flow.