Friday, July 25, 2014

Assignment Part 1

On Friday July 18 we took boat captained by the amazing Captain Charlie, out for a fishing trip in Boston Harbor. After some rocky waves we finally settled at a good spot and patiently waited for our worm baited lines to catch something.

First came the Silver Hake, a very elegant fish that is also called a whiting. While I am not the best at drawing I think I did a good job on drawing this fish as you can see in my notes below ..especially on those clear fins on the underside of the fish.
 These little guys were about 8 inches long but with a whole lot of fight in them.


Next came the Black Sea Bass also called Centropristis Striata by scientist. This fish is a very tough and foot long looking guy, camouflaged perfectly for the rocky bottoms of the ocean floor.

The flounder came next, with 16 inches of amazing evolution and having its eyes on the left. While I could not find the specific named I found that these guys are in the family of Bothidae which are left eyed species that lay on their right side on the ocean floor.



For the main piece in our great fishing expedition we caught a 38inch Striped Bass(Morone Saxatilis) that weighted about 50 to 60 pounds! This fish was amazing in size and flavor as well since we got to take home some of it. 
 Fun Fact: these guys breed in fresh water, then migrate to salt water.



Having ended in with a great big fish, we headed out to Lovell's island were we saw many great little sea critters in the tide pools.

We encountered a great army of common periwinkles all over the beach, they had invaded and held the beaches long before we arrived. 
 To reinforce this invasion the armored Asian Shore Crabs were on the beach as well. This invasive species are extremely effective at clearing the beaches of local sea life.. effectively clearing the path for the waves of common periwinkles to come. 

 We also saw many many outposts of Barnacles surveying the beaches for the sea invasion. On the rocks there were thousands upon thousands of them, their capability to survive outside the water made them ideal for their role in taking over the beaches and holding them along with the Common periwinkles.

Lastly some sneaky hermit crabs disguised as periwinkles were found crawling along the beaches, a very effective covert infiltration into the ranks of the invading periwinkle army.




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