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Hidden Draft
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Seaweed & Sieving Sunset Beach, North Carolina, June 1, 2008 - October 15, 2008 Copyright 2008 Jo O'Keefe All Rights Reserved Inspecting Seaweed I have been
inspecting seaweed for nearly two years. For most of that time, I
used only my hands and normal vision. Since mid-June I have used a
5X Luxor illuminating magnifier. It has increased my ability to find
animals phenomenally. I purchased professional forceps to be able
to extract minute, fragile animals.
The best seaweed is caught in a man-made object. They usually are strands of fishing line, sometimes with hooks, or thin, elastic hair bands. When a man-made object is in the ocean, one type of seaweed after another gets ensnarled in it. Soon there is a big clump bursting with marine life - exactly what I want. It will be brimming with small gastropod shells, usually with tiny hermit crabs residing within them. Amphipods, called skeleton shrimp, crawl on my fingers and hands. They look like very thin beige sugar ants. I gather seaweed at the edge of the ocean to take home to inspect. Before I begin checking it, I place four Petrie dishes to my right with ocean water in them. The water helps me release the small animal or shell that I found from the forceps and lets it live. Doing that allows me to photograph live animals later through my microscope. I begin with Petrie dishes for mollusks (seashells), worms, brittle stars, and amphipods and isopods. I add additional dishes if needed. On one July evening, I extracted 600 shells. I sort through one clump of seaweed at a time, gently separating the sections. I remove all mollusks. Next I carefully study both sides of the piece of seaweed that I am holding for movement. Movement shows me tiny animals. When I see them, I remove them with my forceps and place them into a Petrie dish. Let me explain why I knowingly take home seaweed with small hermit crabs inside empty seashells. I am searching for other animals for researchers. I myself am studying. After I spend up to four hours going to the beach, walking, and coming home, and then several more hours inspecting seaweed, the animals are not in good enough health to return to the ocean. I am too tired to drive back to return them. Despite the demise of hermit crabs, I save mollusk shells for facilities that want micro-shell collections. Below are some of the animals that I find in seaweed. |
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| Amphipods |
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Isopods |
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Nudibranchs |
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| Gastropods |
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Bivalves |
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Sea Spiders |
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| Sea Stars |
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Brittle Stars |
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Anemones |
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| Crabs |
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Megalops |
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Barnacles |
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| Sponges |
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Rubbery Bryozoans |
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Seawhips |
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| Bryozoans |
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Hydrozoans |
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Sea Cucumber |  |
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| Colonial Tunicates |
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Sea Squirts |
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Sea Lettuce |
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| Worms |
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Casings of polychaete worms |
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Purple Laver |
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| Snapping Shrimp |
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Peppermint Shrimp |
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Shrimp |
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| Mantis Shrimp |
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Eggs |
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Skate Egg Cases |
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| Whelk Egg Cases |
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Sabellarid Worm Tubes with Worms Inside |
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Star Coral |
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Sieving I also want to tell you about sieving, something I began in August. First, let me backtrack to explain how this evolved. Years ago I thought I had found all of the shells on Sunset Beach, about 70 species. My "marine" journey dramatically changed four years ago when I purchased a digital camera and began photographing marine life on the beach. I no longer had to pay for developing film. My website evolved from being about the beauty of one island and my family to being about animals. Coastal birds were added. Like other topics such as one island, birds began as "Birds" but soon were split into 12 web pages. "Seashells" was split into Bivalves, Gastropods and web pages of microscope photos. Once I began photographing the animals washed ashore daily by high tide, I contacted researchers to learn what they were. I would never have traveled as far as I have without the support and kindness of those scientists. To help myself, I acquired a collection of marine life guidebooks. Besides developing an online network of researchers, willing to help me with identification, I began to collect animals for them. I save specimens for researchers depending on their specialties. Often I freeze animals in ocean water. Sometimes I save them in alcohol. At least every two months I make deliveries to facilities in Raleigh, North Carolina. I save and ship animals to other facilities as well. Since the beginning of June I have focused on what I have named micro-mollusks. They are as small as 2.00 mm wide. I found them in the seaweed that I described above but did not know many of the species. Because there has been no seaweed since July, I began sieving at the edge of the ocean in August. On the beach, I use a child's plastic sieve. At home, I re-sieve through a series of laboratory sieves that I ordered via the Internet. Dr. Harry Lee, an outstanding
malacologist, has identified the mollusks for me. While much work remains,
I have begun to post finds on my microscope photo web pages. No shell
even one-fourth of an inch wide fits within the frame of my camera when
I take a photo through my microscope. That fact demonstrates how how
small these shells are. For example, the half-inch-wide shell shown
below did not fit. Below is a list of some species that I have found
at the eastern tip of Sunset Beach, NC, since the beginning of June
2008. Inspecting seaweed and sieving has fulfilled me for almost five months. While on the beach, I can show other walkers the small mollusks that I collect. One, that none of us would have seen, is a Rainbow Tellin. Rainbow Tellins are so thin that even when intact with both valves, the only way to pick them up at home is by wetting my finger. Here is a photo.
Below is the list of mollusks found from June 1, 2008 through October 15, 2008. A few of them, such as the Lettered Olive, were found during beach walks rather than by inspecting seaweed and sieving. Here are sample photos. These are all less than one fourth inch wide.
Cumulative list of Sunset Beach (USA: NC; Jo O'Keefe!) mollusks as of 10/9/08. Phylogenetic order.
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