A pretty useful plant, Ribes sanguineum provides berries to eat and baskets to carry them. Extract from the branches have antibiotic properties. Controlled burns were used to clear out pests and encroaching trees. After a fire new shoots grow back as straight as arrows providing a living armoury.
2022-03-13 San Francisco Botanical Gardens, SF, CA [DSC03287]
Relax and enjoy the golden state flower. Eschscholzia californica has sedative effects (100 mg/kg in mice).[1]
2022-03-13 San Francisco Botanical Gardens, SF, CA [DSC03282]
[1] Rolland, Alain, et al. "Behavioural effects of the American traditional plant Eschscholzia californica: sedative and anxiolytic properties." Planta medica 57.03 (1991): 212-216.
A long lived deer resistance, dry shade, low/no water, clay soil plant: I have some good spots for it. Too bad Adelinia grande is native to the Pacific northwest, not the east coast. Roots used to treat burns and stomach ache.
2022-03-12 Big Basin Redwoods State Park, Santa Cruz Co., CA [DSC03181]
![The epithet Sonchus oleraceus is Greek for hollow-stemmed kitchen vegetable, though given its purported uses (an abortifacient, a cure for opium addiction, a narcotic, etc.)[1] I would be hesitant to try it. Herbal remedies to induce menses are comm](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5a789b8929f187b6328c1094/1656302301738-2C54BJ8FZBQC9BCO2A3M/RBD+%23370+Common+sow-thistle+220312_DSC03161.jpg)
The epithet Sonchus oleraceus is Greek for hollow-stemmed kitchen vegetable, though given its purported uses (an abortifacient, a cure for opium addiction, a narcotic, etc.)[1] I would be hesitant to try it. Herbal remedies to induce menses are common, with American history and tradition using pennyroyal, rue, tansy and cotton root.
2022-03-12 Big Basin Redwoods SP, Santa Cruz County, CA [DSC03161]
[1] Jimoh, Florence O., Adeolu A. Adedapo, and Anthony J. Afolayan. "Comparison of the nutritive value, antioxidant and antibacterial activities of Sonchus asper and Sonchus oleraceus." Records of Natural Products 5.1 (2011): 29-42.
A deep shade plant, Oxalis oregana needs to be very good at capturing sunlight. But that means when the sun slips between the trees and shines directly down they scorch. To protect themselves they close up their leaves when they get too much sun, repairing whatever damage happens before they close.[1]
2022-03-12 Big Basin Redwoods SP, Santa Cruz County, CA [DSC03114]
[1] Raven, J. A. "Flight or flight: the economics of repair and avoidance of photoinhibition of photosynthesis." Functional Ecology (1989): 5-19.
One of several groups of aircraft flying formation that morning. iNaturalist was unable to identify the species.
2022-03-12 Watsonville, CA [DSC03050]
A flicker in the golden light of dawn. Both parents participate equally in brooding and provisioning,[1] though the guys do better as single parents.[2] This gives the gals some freedom, with one polyandrous female maintaining two nests 1/2 km apart.[3]
2022-03-12 Watsonville State Wildlife Area, Watsonville, CA [DSC02854]
[1] Wiebe K.L. & C.L. Elchuk 2003. Correlates of parental care in Northern Flickers Colaptes auratus: do the sexes contribute equally while provisioning young? Ardea 91(1): 91-101.
[2] Wiebe, K.L. Asymmetric costs favor female desertion in the facultatively polyandrous northern flicker (Colaptes auratus): a removal experiment. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 57, 429–437 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-004-0878-2
[3] Wiebe, Karen L. "First reported case of classical polyandry in a North American woodpecker, the northern flicker." The Wilson Bulletin 114.3 (2002): 401-403. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4164475
What to do with the leftover food on the toddler's plate? Feed it to daddy! Some parents are more extreme: Fecal-Sac Ingestion by Spotted Towhees.[1] The claim is that eating the bits the chicks don't digest offers up some extra calories. Females at twice the rate of males because of course they are doing more of the work. I guess that beats starving.
2022-03-12 Watsonville State Wildlife Area, Watsonville, CA [DSC02854]
[1] McKay, Jenny E., et al. The Condor 111.3 (2009): 503-510.
Sunset over the Pacific. No green flash.
2022-03-11 Point Pinos, Pacific Grove, CA [DSC02785]
Another turnstone, this one on a stone much too big to turn. Regarding stone turning, an adult jelly is called a medusa after the Greek woman with venomous snakes for hair that turned people to stone. Appropriate for an animal with tentacles around its mouth that paralyzes fish.
2022-03-11 Point Pinos, Pacifc Grove, CA [DSC 02720]
Although mostly transparent, the tank lighting highlights the structure of this jelly. They are famous for the production of luminescence and green fluorescence proteins[1] which were used extensively in the 1960s to help understand cell biology. They only glow when they bump into things. You can see it if you pick one up and shake it gently on a dark summer night.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02645]
[1] Mills, C.E. 1999-present. Bioluminescence of Aequorea, a hydromedusa. http://faculty.washington.edu/cemills/Aequorea.html
A comb jelly (Ctenophora), which is a different phylum from the true jellies (Cnidaria). No "cnids", which is Ancient Greek for nettle (κνίδη). Instead the tentacles of most comb jellies produce glue to trap prey. As they float through the water it looks like they have multicoloured led light strips dancing over their bodies. Except they are not bioluminescent. Instead the strips are made from tiny diffraction gratings that show different colours depending on the angle, so just by wiggling they pick up different colours from the tank lighting. I don't know why they need this in the deep where little light shines.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02638]
Floating on the currents with long tentacles trailing. The nettles pack a sting like a bee, so not pleasant for swimmers. Use jellyfish sunscreen for protection.
2022-03-11 Monterey bay aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02637]
Aurelia sp, descended from a long line of jellies going back at least 500 M years. Free floating larva come to rest on a reef or rock and form a polyp. Polyps clone themselves, forming "buds" which break off and float away, developing into adult medusa. Adult medusa reproduce sexually,with the female holding the fertilized eggs until they hatch into larva and float away. In a curious bit of life cycle reversal, medusa have been observed rejuvenating, turning back into polyps.[1]
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02624]
[1] He, J., Zheng, L., Zhang, W. and Lin, Y., 2015. Life cycle reversal in Aurelia sp. 1 (Cnidaria, Scyphozoa). PLoS One, 10(12), p.e0145314. DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0145314
Floating through the ocean sweeping up zooplankton, this mobile ecosystem carries parasitic amphipods (small shrimp-like critters) and symbiotic cancer crabs that feed on them.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02623]
A stony coral and not because of the psychedelic colour. It is easy to grow if you have low light and water flow. It is not a picky eater, but you may need to feed it at night when the tentacles are open so Dory and Nemo don't steal all the food.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02513]
Another member of the sandpiper family, along with curlews, sanderlings, turnstones, dowitchers, woodcocks (which cocker spaniels were bred to hunt), snipes, shanks, tattlers and willets. The first record of the name godwit is from the 1400s, perhaps because that's what their call sounds like.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02613]
Four sanderlings in the swash, coming back empty. The sand crabs will live to see another wave!
2022-03-10 Oso Flaco Beach, Pismo Beach, CA [DSC01580]
Sand crabs live in the "swash zone", moving in and out with the tide. They filter plankton from the receding wave with their feathered antennae then quickly bury themselves before the sanderlings rush in looking for a bite.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02425]
A couple of challenging critters to keep in your aquarium. You will need a chiller to keep the water cool, a pump to keep it moving and filters to keep it clean. The anemone is easier, needing fresh fish once a week and a bit of plankton, but the red gorgon is difficult to impossible. A soft coral without an algal symbiote, it needs continuous plankton feed. This tends to foul the tank and smother the thing you are trying to keep alive.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02408]
A turnstone with no stone to turn. Instead of looking under rocks for bugs it can dig through the sand or plow through some washed-up kelp.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02609]
Gliding over the bay showing off its sexy feet* this pigeon guillemot is headed out for dinner. They use their wings to power a dive 20 to 30 meters down where they find crustaceans and fish to eat.
2022-03-11 Monterey bay, Monterey, CA [DSC02460]
* Sea birds have drab feathers so attractiveness is signaled by the colour of the beak and feet. Pierotti, R. (1987). Isolating mechanisms in seabirds. Evolution, 41(3), 559-570. DOI: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.1987.tb05826.x
Nesting on open ground stilts have developed distraction displays, such as the classic "broken wing", but also false brooding where one parent will pretend to sit on a nest that isn't a nest.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02421]
The black oystercatcher is local to the west coast; the American oystercatcher (RBD #122) covers the rest of the continent. There's a 480 km stable hybridization zone in Baja California but the chicks don't survive as well. Maybe the wrong colour for the beach.[1]
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02598]
[1] https://www.museum.lsu.edu/~Remsen/SACCprop931.htm
The aquarium includes an aviary where cute little shore birds can hide behind the rocks.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02612]
A near-shore fish whose fry fry in tide pools.
Q: Where does the zebra seahorse roost?
A: On the zebra perch.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02581]
In search of coral polyps and brine shrimp to eat, this Chelmon rostratus is inadvertently participating in a game of Finding Nemo.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02569]
If you want to find fish then go to an aquarium. In this case some clownfish and a blue tang.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02573]
A tropical fish from Indonesia, Pterapogon kauderni is paradoxically threatened in the wild because it is easy to keep in an aquarium. They are mouth-brooders, with the male holding the eggs and fry in his mouth for 3 to 4 weeks until they are developed. He is hungry at the end of this so be sure to remove him from the breeding tank so he doesn't devour his offspring!
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02545]
Balanophyllia elegans on a field of blue.
2022-03-11 Monterey Bay Aquarium, Monterey, CA [DSC02400]