I was meant to go to St Helens earlier this week with a couple of members of the field nats. Unfortunately, I caught Covid so decided to do the right thing and isolated.
So when Seth called and asked if I wanted to go looking for marine life, I jumped at the chance. The cold type of symptoms of Covid were mild but my body had been really achy. I hadn’t done anything all week and was desperate to leave the house.
Fishermans Basin didn’t seem to have the same amount of ascidians that it did last visit. There were a couple of stand out observations.
I’ve identified the above as Ciona savignyi. This is based on Awesome Ascidians. It isn’t Ciona robusta, as they have the red dots at the end. These have yellow dots. If the dots went all the way around the rim of the siphon, it would be Ciona intestinalis.
I may have misinterpreted this. Regardless, I haven’t seen ones with yellow dots before. I’ve only seen the red ones.
The below ascidian looks interesting. I’m not even sure it is an ascidian! It looks too spongey. A friend said it may be Botrylloides giganteus, but I’ve had trouble finding information about it. I’ll definitely keep an eye out.
Other
