Recently in Mystery Photos Category

Red Mangrove (Rhizophora mangle)

Snail Mucus

Gumbo Limbo Tree (Bursera simaruba)

Hard Corals

The Brown Anole is a small lizard found in the Bahamas and Cuba. It is a cold blooded reptile that suns itself on rocks and in trees. It feeds mainly on insects. It shows off its orange dewlap and does pushups to mark out where its territory is.

This is a French Angelfish!
It is common to Florida and the Caribbean and is also found in the Gulf of Mexico and Brazil. Adult French Angelfish swim freely in reefs and juveniles hide within the crevices of corals. We found that when we tried to swim close to these adult fish, they did not swim away and hide in crevices. We spotted this beauty at Turtle Rocks, off the coast of South Bimini.

Answer: This is a picture of Red Mangroves and they are essential to everyday life of many baby fish, lobsters, sharks and many more small animals. The mangroves provide food for many other predators as well. Usually juvenile grow up in the mangroves and venture out of the mangrove when they are older. The Mangroves also help protect islands from storms, and is the habitat for birds and the Bimini Boa. The birds are able to fish in the mangroves for their meals.

Answer: Blotched Swimming Crab

This crab can be found in Florida, the Bahamas, and the Caribbean. The swimming crab is shy when approached and found in harbors and bays. They are important because they feed on dead and decaying organisms in the water. Blotched Swimming Crabs can swim to depths of 300 feet!

Conrad and Megan

It’s a plankton net! The boat drags the plankton net in order to catch various types of plankton. It has a long net with a collection bottle at the bottom to trap tiny plankton. With the plankton samples the participants of HSMB will be able to learn about the health of the environment and the population and variety of plankton.

This is a copepod that we caught in during one of 4 plankton tows.

Copepods are very abundant animals in most mesozooplankton collections and often outnumber all other animals combined. Because of their abundance, copepods are important links in virtually all marine food webs.

It's a Bimini Boa! This snake, indigenous to bimini, is not well known. Being a Boa, this snake uses its muscles to contract and suffocate its prey. The boa is only found in Bimini and is protected. Not much is known about the boa because of its low population and because it only lives in Bimini.

It is a Queen Conch! This conch was found on the inside of Turtle Rock. The queen conch is abundant in the Bahamas, South Florida and the Caribbean. This marine creature lives in the grass beds and flat sandy areas near reefs. Although this particular conch was found in water as shallow as two feet, the Queen conch are more abundant in water 40- 100 feet deep.

This instrument is called a densiometer. We use this to figure out canopy coverage in one specific area and use it to know how much light is getting to the ground. We take what we find in that one specific area and apply it to a large area. To use this, you stand under a group of trees and hold it about 18 inches in front of you making sure that you use the bubble to level the instrument. You look at the instrument and count how many squares have canopy showing on them. When you get that data, you take the number of squares that had canopy coverage and multiply it by 1.04.

Dragonflies are colorful, flying invertebrates that spend three to five years as larva. They typically have 4 wings and can fly up to speeds of 200 miles per hour. They have no sting and will not bite, making them harmless.

It is a red sea urchin. These are found in the Pacific Ocean from Alaska to Baja California. It is found near rocky shores to shelter itself from extreme wave abuse. The red sea urchin was one of the many organisms we observed in our scavenger hunt activity today. We hope to see one of these in Bimini. Learn more about sea urchins!

This is a Red Wiggler (Eisenia fetida) earth worm! Earthworms live in many different environments. Some live underground, like nightcrawlers. Others, like red wigglers, live above the soil where there are piles of leaves, animal manure, or dead plants. Red wigglers will process large amounts of organic material and are great at composting. Don’t take worms from your garden soil — they won’t survive in a composting bin. To learn more about why you should compost your food scraps and other garbage and how to get started follow the link below. http://www.sheddaquarium.org/pdf/shedd_worm_brochure1.pdf

This is a photo of a copepod the most abundant zooplankton or animal plankton in marine environments. There are so many that when they come to the surface at night to feed they can hide a submarine from radar detection!

I am a King Helmet Conch. I am occasionally found in Florida and am common to the Bahamas and Caribbean. However I am becoming extremely rare in many areas due to over-collecting. I am usually found in shallow sand flats and often around patch and fringing reefs. I hunt at night for sea urchins, and attack with a surprising speed. Don't let my big shell fool you, I am very quick!

This is a gastropod called a Queen Conch. When full grown their shells are 6 to 9 inches long . When a conch dies its shell often becomes an important hiding place for other animals. Conch are also harvested for food and the Queen Conch population has declined in many parts of the world because of over harvesting in recent years.

What am I ?
I am a type of algae. I'm called Valonia aegagropila. I am composed ofr tigtly packed, straight, elongated, or buble shaped branchlets. This alga is found from just below the low tide mark to 5 meters deep in the protected waters of the back reef or lagoon.

It's a Cushion Sea Star!!! I live everywhere in the Bahamas, Caribbean, and elsewhere in the Atlantic. Cushion Sea Stars are the most common and well-identified creatures in the ocean. They grow up to 50 centimeters (20 inches). A noticeable feature on Cushion Sea Stars is the bumps on their surface. These bumps are called tubercles. Cushion Sea Stars mainly live in reefs, lagoons, and mangroves. Their diet consists of Microorganisms, algae, and particulate matter around sand and sea grass. They can also eat other Echinoderms (Sea stars, sea urchins, and sea cucumbers). They are preyed upon by Queen Triggerfish and Spotted Trunkfish.

The creature in the mystery photo is Ricky, a Cuban Rock Iguana. She was brought into the classroom by Matt, an HSMB instructor during his lecture on Vertebrates. Like most reptiles, she too has scaly skin which we all were able to experience first hand. Cuban Rock Iguanas are found not only on Cuba, but Puerto Rico and the Cayman Islands too.

They can grow up to 3 feet long and are typically grey to light green with dark bands running vertically on their sides. These Iguanas are close relatives of the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana which is very endangered. It is believed that only about 30 individuals of the Grand Cayman Blue Iguana live in the wild.

In contrast, the World Conservation Union classifies the Cuban Rock Iguana as ‘vulnerable’ because of habitat loss.

Did You Know?

* The Cuban iguana is a subspecies of the West Indies iguana.

* The average lifespan of this iguana is 25 – 40 years.

* Shedd’s two Cuban iguanas were born in California Aug. 24th, 1986 and were acquired from the Milwaukee County Zoo in 2007.

* Iguanas can store large quantities of fat in their lower jaw and neck.

* Cuban iguanas can swim if necessary, and can hold their breath for up to 30 minutes.