Carolinaquatic

[carolinaquatic]

[carolinaquatic]

Platanthera ciliaris. Fringed

[carolinaquatic]

Slithering saltmarsh snake #Nerodia clarkii

[carolinaquatic]

[carolinaquatic]

[carolinaquatic]

Relax...it’s a water snake!

[carolinaquatic]

Today’s bouquet

[carolinaquatic]

One fish two fish Redfish!

[carolinaquatic]

James spinymussel, holding tight

[nanonaturalist]

Giant Floater Mussel, Pyganodon grandis

Let’s put it in the electron microscope!!

I had to break tiny parts of the shell off to fit it into the microscope, and one part of it broke off into little needle-like crystals. This is what they looked like up close. Nice!

I moved to an intact area, and saw these tightly-packed hexagon structures. Hmmmmmmmmm… I think those crystals in the top photo came from this anatomical feature of the shell. Let’s look at one of the opalescent areas!

Oh! Look at that! If you need help understanding the information at the bottom, this image is magnified 1350x. The scale bar in the lower left corner represents 50 microns. A human hair, on average, is 100 microns wide. If a piece of your hair was in this image, it would be twice as wide as that scale bar.

These little flaky things are interesting, let’s zoom in!

WOW!!! Now we’re zoomed in 2600x. These are crystals that make up the inner portion of the shell, but look: they’re thin plates, and they grow in layers! The size is interesting, too. You know how the insides of shells shine kinda rainbow-ey? I’m guessing it has something to do with the size–visible light is roughly 400 to 750 nm in wavelength, so physical structures in those sizes tend to do strange things with light (you think butterflies limit themselves to pigmentation? HA think AGAIN!). And these crystal plates are about the right size! 

Here’s a different area with those crystals, but with mysterious holes! What are they for?! 

ENHANCE. This was the zoomiest I could get. Look at those crystals! Nice!

Before I left, I needed to take a look at the outside of the shell.

Since the electron microscope looks at things so close up, it’s possible that this is all just sand. But it could also be minerals bound together with a protein matrix, which is what I believe the outer shell of these is! I was looking around for an area that looked more “shelly” and I found… this:

Uh… I have no idea what this is… But it was embedded in the outer shell of that mussel! UPDATE! IT’S A DIATOM!!!! :D

If you have electron microscope requests, keep sending them in! I’ll keep doing these until they kick me out the door on Feb 28 OR until I quit which is HOPEFULLY way earlier than that!

December 7, 2018

[izzy-the-fish-girl]

So before I post my photos from my trip to a conservation hatchery, I feel like I need to give a short lesson on north american freshwater unionid mussels and what makes them so awesome/unique. 

Bivalves are boring, right? Wrong. These mussels are some of the most interesting critters we have in the southeastern US. They have an amazing life cycle that is both their claim to fame and their downfall. The unionid mussels undergo a obligate parasitic life stage. The larval stage, called glochidia, have to attach to fish (and sometimes a specific species of fish) in order to become adults. This illustration below may help you understand.

(source)

But then the issue becomes how do sedentary mussels get their glochidia onto fish. This is where the mussels become amazing. Some of them lure fish in with fake prey. Over millions of years, sections of their tissue have evolved to look like prey! Some look like worms, some look like fish, and some look like grubs and other invertebrates! It is truly amazing. And these are what I was able to get some awesome photos of at the hatchery. 

As to why so many freshwater mussels are endangered, they are very sensitive creatures. Small amounts of pollution harm them greatly. Sedimentation is also deadly as they cannot move away and are often smothered. And lastly, they cannot reproduce without their host fish, so if their host fish declines due to dams blocking their movement or pollution or sedimentation, the mussels will decline as well. These amazing mussels are hit with a double whammy: they are declining due to their sensitivity and their host fish are declining due to the same water degradation. That is why so many are listed on the Endangered Species Act and why such great effort is being put into their propagation. 

And thus ends your general introduction to the north american freshwater unionid mussels. While I didn’t get any videos at the hatchery, I highly recommend you look up videos of these mussels in the wild.

[whatthefuckwhoevenknows]

@thebrainscoop Don’t you have a thing for bivalves?

[thebrainscoop]

YES I LOVE UNIONIDS SO MUCH!!!!!! AND THIS IS WHY ^^^

I even talked about freshwater mussel reproduction on The Brain Scoop panel at VidCon this year and check out this amazing video of a Lampsilis mussel luring in a bass and THEN try to tell me these aren’t the most fantastic majesties you’ve ever seen

[carolinaquatic]

#cashie #bigblue #striperdipper

[carolinaquatic]

[carolinaquatic]

[carolinaquatic]

CORE banks 4 on 4

[botnika1]

[edeltrouts-deactivated20240204]

indian summer

[carolinaquatic]

Too late? No