Tag Archives: sea star

July 11 and 12

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Ecological Notes:

  • I believe most of the gulls eggs have hatched, based on the nests I can see with one to three chicks and discarded empty eggs nearby. The gull parents feed fish to their young. I am impressed how many whole little fish a gull catch then regurgitate for their chicks.
  • I am seeing more nursing harbour seals and pups around the south and east sides of the island. Today, I heard a pup communicating with its mother by little grunting sounds.
  • This afternoon, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a river otter scurry along a path by Tank Shed. I could not see if it was heading for the water or underneath the boardwalk, as they are elusive.
  • See the photo gallery below for more ecological happenings from the past two days.

Weather:

  • Yesterday (July 11):
    • Sky: Clear
    • Wind: W 1-33 kts
    • Sea: rippled, then 2′ chop in evening
    • Temperature Low 11oC, High 20oC
  • Today (July 12):
    • Sky: Clear, fog between 08:45-09:30 with foghorn
    • Wind: W 16-39 kts, gusts up to 44 kts (81 km/h)
    • Sea: 1′ chop in morning, then up to 4′ waves in afternoon and evening
    • Temperature Low 12oC, High 15oC

Visitors:

  • Yesterday, Greg came from the college to refill the diesel tank.

Facility Work:

  • Scrubbed and squeegeed solar panels, routine tidying and checking infrastructure around the island. With the clear days, the solar panels have been fully charging the batteries.

Vessel Traffic:

  • Many Canadian and American ecotour boats have been nearby and heading through the waters of the ecological reserve. There were much fewer boats today, with the high winds.

Here are photo highlights from the past two days. Click on the photos for larger views and captions.

Smoke And Fog Through The Week

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Weather:

  • Sky overcast, heavy fog and some smoke
  • Visibility 1 NM down to 100m
  • Wind 5-15 knots SW
  • Sea state: calm

Visitors/Boats:

  • A contractor came out to do a little work yesterday, and some supplies were brought over as well.
  • We have not had much other activity. Tour vessels are becoming less frequent, and the same for pleasure craft.

Observations: 

  • The fog and smoke cover has been extreme over the past four days or so – it is hard to discern the fog to smoke ratio. The fog horn has been sounding for the better part of those days. Probably an average of 16-18 hours per day and typically going through the night.
  • The sea lions are gradually taking over the shores of Race Rocks! Their numbers increase by the day – the areas around the ‘fuel shed’ and the crane are beginning to see a couple of curious creatures poking around. We’re planning on redesigning the fencing on the jetty for this season and for the rest of the island it looks to be high time for a parameter fence. We do need to keep the buildings protected and significant areas undisturbed, but it has been nice to see the sea lions lounge on the jetty.
  • There seems to be a bit of an increase in some birds. There have been shorebirds and others, perching all around the rock and often resting at night. If we need to move around outside at night we keep an eye out as they sleep in the grass and in the plants around the paths.
  • A census will come hopefully tomorrow – the visibility makes it into a game of opportunity.

Here are some pictures from around the rock over the past couple of days:

March 4 and 5

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Wind: yesterday 2-42 knots variable directions, today 0-31 knots from N in am and W in pm
Sea State: yesterday chop up to 1 m, today rippled then up to 1 m chop in afternoon
Visibility: yesterday 10 NM, today 5-15 NM
Sky: yesterday clear, today partly cloudy and rain in afternoon
Temperature: yesterday 5-10 °C, today 5-9 °C
Atmospheric CO2: 413.05 ppm (recorded by NOAA at Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii)

The tide has been getting low in the evenings over the past two days, revealing lots of neat intertidal creatures. With no sea lions hanging out on the east side of the island, I was able to explore the rocky shoreline to see feather duster worms, sea stars, barnacles, surf grass, many types of seaweeds and long ago discarded metal pieces from former buildings and equipment at the lightstation that only reveal themselves at low tide.

There are six very stationary elephant seals on the island: one adult female, two adult males, two female pups and one male pup.

Today, I drained the cistern which stores the seawater before it gets treated by the desalinator. The cistern is a large concrete box located between the lighthouse and the main residence. It measures 12 m long by 8 m wide by 3 m deep. It holds a lot of water. The water was slightly turbid and causing the desalinator pre-filters to work harder than needed. The water pump ran for four hours to drain the many thousands of litres of water back into the ocean. I used a long pressure washing wand to reach in to clean the rocks on the bottom and concrete walls, at least the parts I could reach. Tomorrow, I will refill the cistern when the tide is higher and the intake hose can be put off the end of the jetty.

Yesterday morning, six visitors came to the island: Travis, Hilary, Antoine, Hannah, Val and Greg. There was one tour boat that passed by. Today, two tour boats were in the ecological reserve in the morning.

A Windy Census

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Weather

  • Visibility: 15 miles
  • Wind: 20-25 knots West in the morning, picking up to 30-35 by noon.
  • Sky: overcast
  • Water: 3′ chop

DSC_6368

Ecological

  • I oversaw an enthusiastic day long census with Maya, Tazi, and Ali.
  • Discovered a new Black Oystercatcher nest with 3 eggs!
  • Maya and Tazi discovered a new Canada Goose nest.
  • I begin to suspect that our new elephant seal male is actually Chuckles.
  • If he did nothing but eat for 3 months straight, that would explain his girth.
  • Saw a Steller Sea Lion branded 9628.
  • We found a blood star, and Maya showed us various chitons.
  • Maya and Tazi did a transect.
  1. Harbour Seals: 190
  2. California Sea Lions: 42
  3. Steller/Northern Sea Lions: 39
  4. Elephant Seals: 15 (13 on Great Race, 2 in the Southern waters)
  5. Seagulls: 225 (Glaucous-winged)
  6. Pigeon Guillemots: 82
  7. Canada Geese: 36 (14 on Great Race, 22 flyovers)
  8. Black Oystercatchers: 8 (plus 2 nests with a total 5 eggs)
  9. Harlequin Ducks: 3 (2 male, 1 female)
  10. Cormorants: 3
  11. Barn Swallows: 2

Maintenance

  • We cleaned the solar panels.
  • Finished cleaning the boathouse floor with T.S.P.
  • Repainted some rusty propane tanks.
  • Sanded the westward facing bench by the Students’ house.

Boats

  • Several eco-tours came by in the morning, but as wind picked up they disappeared.

March 14 – West Wind and Waves

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Overcast and rain in the morning, sunny in afternoon
Wind: 1-11 knots from the W and N in the morning, 22-46 knots from the W from the late morning onwards
Air Temperature: Low 9.3°C, High 11.3°C
Ocean Temperature: 9.2°C

A gale warning in the afternoon, with winds gusts up to 46 knots, remained in effect for the rest of the day. The gulls had a hard time sitting and claiming their nesting sites when the wind gusts reached 46 knots. Due to the winds, the afternoon was filled with indoor tasks like cleaning, organizing the basement and drinking tea. The winds diminished in the evening.

Hanne Christensen, one of the visiting Pearson students, took some photos around the island yesterday and today. They are included in the gallery below.

March 10 – Juncos and a Robin

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Cloudy, with fog in the morning
Wind: 0 – 16 knots from the W then NE in the morning, switching to SE in the afternoon
Air Temperature: High 10°C, Low 7°C
Ocean Temperature: 8.9°C

This morning, the Pearson students here for Project Week helped stack firewood in the cupboards outside of the Engine Building.

Four oregon juncos and a robin were seen flying around the southern part of Great Race.

This afternoon, four students took part in rescue diving scenarios with Chris. Afterwards a few of them went snorkelling around the jetty to check out the sea stars, a sea slug and other species.

Chunk continues to hang out near the Marine Science Centre.

Three ecotour boats came into the ecological reserve to share the sights, sounds and smells of the marine mammals and birds with their customers.

Pteraster tesselatus: Slime star –The Race Rocks Taxonomy

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A useful defense mechanism is evident in the slime stars. They will fill a bucket full of slime when picked up, this can be toxic to other invertebrates.

Slime star photograph by Ryan Murphy

Slime star photograph by Ryan Murphy,2010

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Echinodermata
Subphylum: Eleutherozoa
Class: Asteroidea
Order: Velatida
Family: Pterasteridae
Genus: Pteraster
Species: P. tesselatus

rmjellystar

Slime star and nudibranch–photo by Ryan Murphy

Other Members of the Phylum Echinodermata at Race Rocks.

taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.  2014 Garry Fletcher

 

Evasterias troschellii: Mottled Star

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Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Echinodermata
Class Asteroidea
Order Forcipulatida
SuborderAsteriadina
Family Asteriidae
Genus Evasterias
Species troschellii
Common Name: Mottled Star)

Recently Russian Scientists researching two other members of the genus, Evasterias , discovered of new steroid compounds.

Steroid compounds from two Pacific starfish of the genus Evasterias
E. V. Levina, A. I. Kalinovsky and P. V. Dmitrenok

QUOTE from Pub-med

.

[Article in Russian]
E V Levina, A I Kalinovskiĭ, P V Dmitrenok

Jan-Feb 2009;35(1):134-41.

doi: 10.1134/s1068162009010166.

 

“Abstract

Three new steroid glycosides (evasteriosides C, D, and E), along with six known compounds, were isolated from two Pacific starfish of the genus Evasterias. Evasterioside C from E. retifera collected from the Sea of Japan was identified as (20R,22E)-3-O-(beta-D-xylopyranosyl)-24-nor-5alpha-cholest-22-ene-3beta,6beta,8,15alpha,26-pentaol 26-sulfate sodium salt. The structures of evasterioside D and E from E. echinosoma (collected from the Gulf of Shelichov, the Sea of Okhotsk) were established as (20R,24S)-24-O-(beta-D-glucopyranosyl)-5alpha-cholestane-3beta,6alpha,8,15beta,24-pentaol and (20R,24S)-3,24-di-O-(beta-D-xylopyranosyl)-cholest-4-ene-3beta,6beta,8,15alpha,24-pentaol, respectively. In addition, the known compounds pycnopodiosides A and C, luridoside A, 5alpha-cholestane-3beta,6alpha,8,15beta,16beta,26-hexaol, 5alpha-cholestane-3beta,6alpha,8,15beta,24-pentaol 24-sulfate sodium salt, and marthasterone sulfate sodium salt were identified in E. echinosoma. The structures of the isolated compounds were established on the basis of spectroscopic analyses using 1D and 2D NMR techniques, mass spectrometry, and some chemical transformations.

Similar articles

 

Other Members of the Phylum Echinodermata at Race Rocks 
taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.  Ryan Murphy, 2011

 

Stylasterias forreri: Fish-eating star or Velcro seastar–The Race Rocks taxonomy

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This photo taken by Andrew McCurdy in August 2010 is from West Race Rocks around 40ft depth. It is not a very common sea star out there..

From Wikipedia: The velcro star feeds on invertebrates such as gastropod molluscs and chitons. When alert to movement in the water nearby, the rings of pedicellariae are extended, ready for action. If anything touches its aboral (upper) surface, the starfish reacts by snapping shut the pedicellariae in the vicinity of the stimulus. By this means it can catch prey items such as small fish.[3] The victim is passed to the mouth by movements of the arms and by actions of the tube feet. The velcro star can also defend itself against attack by predators such as the voracious morning sun star (Solaster dawsoni).[3] To fight back, it coils its arms around the attacker and inflicts thousands of nips with its pedicellariae. The attacker often retreats and the velcro star escapes.[3]

Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Echinodermata
Class Asteroidea
Order Forcipulatida
Family Curculionoidea
Genus Stylasterias
Species forreri ( de Loriol, 1887)
Common Name: Fish-eating star or Velc

Other Members of the Phylum Echinodermata at Race Rocks 
taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams. — Andrew McCurdy 2010

Solaster endeca: Northern Sun star

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One of the frames from the video on predation on the Psolus chitinoides

 

Predation of a Psolus chitinoides by a sea star is examined and discussed by Laura and Nadege. The stomach of the sea star surrounds the sea cucumber and the soft neck and mouth of Psolus is well inside the cavity of the sea

We see these occasionally at Race Rocks in the subtidal areas.Their favorite prey are various species of sea cucumber. Their puffy arms distinguish them from other orange stars. They can grow to 40 cm. across.

 

Reference: Lamb and Hanby, Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest.

Other Members of the Phylum Arthropoda at Race Rocks 
taxonomyiconReturn to the Race Rocks Taxonomy
and Image File
pearsonlogo2_f2The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.

G.Fletcher