2nd half of time at MLML

Date: 2-20-12  Time Spent: 7.5 hours  Total Time: 15 hours

Action: The first part of the day was spent looking at preserved specimens in the collection at MLML. I got to see a bat ray, a couple skates, a frilled shark, some electric rays, a few chimeras and a spiny dogfish which is what my mentor Jenny is working with. That took up the morning and after lunch we moved on.

Action: We spent a couple of hours going over and organizing the specimens from the day before, simply because there were so many samples of cephalopods and inputing that information into a computer from the notebook that was used.

Action: It was around three when we started looking through the fish samples found in the dogfish stomachs. Some would be spines or partial spines, fish heads, chunks of flesh, and scales. We cataloged those samples and cleaned up the ethanol that need changing. The whole vertabrae could be used to identify species because each fish has a particular number of vertabrae in their spine. I got to see individual vertabrae of fish spines close up and learned that the atlas bone is the starting point of the spine and how scientists can tell if it's in tact or not. We also looked at some squid beaks and matched them with the squids they were taken from. We were done at 4:30.

How do I feel: It was definately a crashcourse in ichthyology, the study of sharks, skates, and rays. My mentor was very knowledgeable and did a good job instilling as much information in me as possible by running through scientific names, taxonomy and the anotomical differences between different species of sharks or skates and rays and even different quirks within a particular group of sharks, like all dogfish have spines on their two dorsal fins. I feel very accomplished in what I learned and what I can take from the experience but I know that two days does not put me anywhere near the level of my mentor who has had seven more years of education in her field so if I do decide to learn more about sharks, it's going to be a lot of studying and new information and discoveries and tests and ethanol and dead animals.

Important Side Note: The smell of ethanol is NOT pleasant. It's an alcohol, so it burns your nose. I have a strong stomach so I never felt like I was going to throw up but if I never smell it again, it will be too soon. If you have a weak stomach, do not become a marine biologist. Once again, ethanol= NOT PLEASANT! By far the most difficult part of the physical project was dealing with ethanol for hours on end.