Field Trip to Shannon Point

Pictured above is a purple sea urchin from the laboratory. Like most sea urchins I find and most organisms in the tanks, it remained idle. This organism is likely a lower-level consumer since it eats algae and some dead organic matter, but could be eaten by larger predators such as sea otters.

The most interesting part of the field trip was probably when we got out on the boat and collected organisms with the net. I got to see some creatures that I hadn't seen up close before (like the clown nudibranch!). It was crazy that we were able to pull up so many different types of organisms, and I sometimes forget how much life can be found under there. If I had to come up with one marine biology related question, it would be "how long do marine organisms survive in captivity compared to how long they survive in the wild?"