Week Two begins

Ventral view of a parasitic isopod. The cressant on the left is the dwarf male. The speheres in the background are eggs prematurely released from the marsupium.
Clione- a beautiful swimming pteropod mollusc
Cadlina leuteomarginalia

This course has continued to be an indecent about of fun. My photomicroscopy's coming along, even if my photography isn't. I spent part of the weekend in Seattle tracking down some non- reflective plexi to make dish bottoms, and I borrowed a can of black spray paint from DT. Now I can shoot the animals (at least those big enough for the dissecting scope) against a less scratched and distracting background. As of now, I've got a Nikon CoolPix 990 with a remote shutter, with a 10x ocular-cmount adapter on the dissecting scope. Today I got a nice shot of a parasitic isopod (with attached dwarf male) which a student found under the carapace of an poot Ibogea and a Cadlina. In class we discussed some of the weird meiofaunal phyla- the gastrotrichs and acanthocephalans. Acually got to see some gastrotrichs squeezed out of freshwater wrack from Egg Lake. These guys are both on the order of 100 um, and my pictures aren't pretty. But I like these two.

Tomorrow is the best low tide of the year, and we have a field trip. It also looks like the family is going to arrive from CA. I'm thrilled. It's been peaceful in their absence. But where's the fun in that?