The Research Cruise

I had a fantastic time on the research cruise. It was strange but nice to be working with people rather than alone and even though it was hard work it was interesting. I saw lots of new species, mostly invertebrates but some new fish which was good. I thought I’d show some of the species I saw.

One of the most beautiful invertebrates we got was the painted shrimp (Campylonotus vegans). It’s found in shallow waters and has electric blue spots on its back.

We had a three small octopuses which we kept in a bucket (the ‘save the octopus campaign’!). They were very cute and liked to hide in shells.

It’s not a fantastic photo but this is Maurolicus muelleri. It’s a very small fish (less than 6 cm long) but is highly silvered and has photophores along its ventral edge.

This is my first flat fish in the Islands. It’s Thysanopsetta naresi and is not commonly caught. This one is of average size, about 16 cm long.

This is one of my favourite invertebrates. It’s a basket star, Gorganocephalus chilensis. It’s huge and looks incredible when it’s in the water.

The most common starfish we got was Porania antarctica. It comes in a range of colours, from deep purple through red to light orange.

While I can see the beauty in most of the animals we get there are some which are so alien that it is impossible. One such species is the invasive polychaete Chaetopterus variopaedatus. They are tube worms and one day we got a lot of tubes. Normally they are empty because the animals retreat into the sand, but some were large enough that I thought the animals may not have had time to escape. I had a look for a live worm and this is what I found:

And just to prove I do work rather than take photos all the time, here’s me about to take otoliths from a (dead) Neophrynichthys marmoratus.