What's With the Hazy Sky?

Have you noticed that the sky in Florida has been more hazy than normal recently? The reason for that is Saharan Dust. Dust from the Saharan Desert gets blown up into the atmosphere and travels across the Atlantic Ocean to be deposited in the Caribbean, the Amazon, and the Southeastern United States almost every year between June and August. This dust brings many nutrients such as iron with it. Studies have shown that up to 87 percent of the iron in the Atlantic Ocean has come from the Saharan Dust over the years. This supply of iron is vital for flora and fauna to survive. Phytoplankton uses iron during photosynthesis which takes a large amount of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Many types of algae and Vibrio species also use iron, though too much iron can cause harmful blooms. These can cause beaches to close, kill marine animals, or infect people. The particles brought over through the Saharan Dust can also cause breathing problems for people, especially those with preexisting problems. To read more about the iron in the ocean click here. To learn more about Saharan Dust click here.

Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park is an old quarry full of fossilized coral that has turned to limestone. The Saharan Dust has been coming across the Atlantic Ocean since the last ice age ended and you can see this in some of the limestone found in the Florida Keys. Some of the limestone in Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park has Saharan Dust in orange parts. When the iron the Saharan Dust oxidizes it turns orange and stains the limestone. The Saharan Dust can last until the end of August so make sure to drink plenty of water. To learn more about Windley Key Fossil Reef Geological State Park or to visit click here.

No, The Other Nurse

 While on our trip in southern Florida, we came across sharks on more than one occasion. There was however one species that we came across more often than any other, and it was the species that our group had the opportunity to have a hands-on experience with. In both our tagging lines and scuba trip, our group had observed and handled the nurse shark.

Photo credit to Dr. Z

Nurse sharks are a species that tends to live and hunt on the bottom of the ocean. Their coloring that usually ranges from a yellowish tan to dark brown reflects this as it helps camouflage the shark along the sea bottom. While the shark we caught on the tagging trip was smaller, these fish typically average around 7.5 to 8 ft long and over 200lbs. Some distinguishing morphological traits of the nurse shark are the barbels on either side of its mouth, small eyes and lack of a obvious lower lobe of the dorsal fin. These sharks are nocturnal and hunt at night, preferring to spend their daytime hidden in a crevasse or a cave. These sharks have also been observed behaving in group behavior, with as many as 40 individuals lying either close together or even sometimes on top of each other. When they are out hunting their diet consists of other bottom dwelling organisms such as crustaceans, mollusks, and rays. Nurse sharks are found all along Atlantic coastlines, meaning you can find them by us on the New Jersey coastlines as well.

Photo credit to Dr. Z

Nurse sharks are oviviparous meaning that their embryonic development occurs in an egg case while still in its mother's ovaries. Their reproduction occurs once every other year and the gestation period typically takes 5 to 6 months. A litter of around 25 young are born in late spring and early summer at around 11 inches in length. The mating 'ritual' is something that has been well documented in the Florida Keys. The male approaches the female lying near the bottom of the sea floor and bites its pectoral fins while attempting to push the female on its side in order to gain better access to the female's cloaca. Unfortunately, many males will try to mate with a single female, leading to females having many bite scars at the end of a season. this leads females to try to avoid males by swimming in very shallow water. The IUCN redlist lists Atlantic Nurse Shark populations as vulnerable with a decreasing trend, and the Pacific Nurse Shark as endangered with a decreasing trend.

Inspect the Insects

 In their different life stages, they are part of the marine food web. When they are near water, they can become food for the fish and land species that interact with the aquatic components of the food web. In the Florida Keys, insects are everywhere of all shapes and sizes. While they can sometimes be quite pesky to us humans, it is important to not eradicate them completely due to their stance in the food web. When at Crane Point Hammock in Marathon FL, tour guide Russ explained that the mosquitos are bad because it is protected land and they cannot spray for them. Later on in the tour, we saw a lot of mosquitoes eating fish. If we were to exterminate the mosquitos, the fish would lose a main component of their food source. The predator to these fish would then also have a decrease in food supply. This would create a chain reaction up the food web and could potentially have a large impact on keystone or endangered species within the area. 

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On the other end of the food web, many insects eat plant matter. This jumpstarts the movement of energy from photosynthesis up the food chain. The primary consumers eat the primary producers, and the sun’s energy gets passed up through the food chain. 

While on the trip, I encountered many interesting insects. 

  This is a banded tussock moth caterpillar based on my google searches to identify it. This insect is not venomous or poisonous, but their hairs act as a defense mechanism. The hairs are extremely irritating to human skin when it is touched. Citation

Photo via Anna Smith

This is the Jewel Spider aka the Christmas Spider or Spiny Spider. The name Christmas spider is due

to the time of year when it is most present in Australia- November and December.

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Photo via Anna Smith

Based on my own identification, this next insect is the Trichonephlia clavata. They are in fact poisonous,

but it does not pose a threat to all humans. In fact, only certain people are allergic to their venom and

their bite is pretty harmless. I'm not sure about you, but I would prefer to never find out if I am allergic

or not and would like to avoid them if possible! This is an invasive species that is native to Japan but

has made its way over to North America. citation

Photo via Anna Smith

The next insect I encountered was the Eastern Lubber Grasshopper. This large grasshopper is about 3 inches long. I found them to be very people shy and none of them were interested in checking out my hand when I placed it in front of them in attempt to let it crawl on me. It is very common in the Everglades. Despite having wings, they cannot fly. I was shocked to see how short they jump despite how big their appendages are. Their bright color is an indicator to predators that they are toxic when eaten. This also explains why they move slow, and if a predator does approach them still, they can make a loud hissing noise as well as "secrete a foul-smelling foam spray to irritate its predator" (Facts about Lubber) On second thought, maybe it is a good thing that they were not interested my attempts to hold them!            Photo via Scotty Ulrick

Meow, Meow, Meow, get it?

The Laura Quinn Wild Bird Sanctuary is one of the most well known and respected rehabilitation centers in South Florida. The founder of this establishment, Laura Quinn, was known as the “bird lady” who gained that title from her many years out in the field rehabilitating many bird species.  Although she originally taught mathematics at a school, her love for nature took over her career when she began bird woodwork out on the boat with her husband. After some time of studying many Florida Keys species, she collaborated with Dr. Robert Foley who was a veterinarian. She then sought out five and half acres of property to which the small sanctuary resides. This is due to the fact that only three quarters of one acre was allowed to be used for her house and office. Laura Quinn joined the birds and flew high in September of 2010, only about 20 years prior to the Wild Bird Rehabilitation Center’s grand opening. 

credit to sam maxwell

The species that now encompass the Wild Bird Sanctuary are one in a million. Almost every resident bird has been injured in some type of way, whether from humans or just nature itself. Some of these species include the Eastern Screech Owl, the Yellow-Naped Amazon, a Blue Jay, Broad-Winged Hawks, Fish Crows, Turkey Vultures, Merlin, and a Barn Owl. Each bird has its own unique story that could explain why they were named the way they are. For example, Professor Moody and Luna Lovegood are the two Eastern Screech Owls in the sanctuary that have been residents since 2013(Moody) and 2016(Luna). Professor Moody arrived due to a vehicle collision causing his left eye to become damaged and removed. Luna arrived with left leg and wing fractures causing perching issues. Since then, they have become great companions and are extremely welcoming to the sanctuary. The meaning behind their names comes from Harry Potter characters. Professor Moody has a missing eye in the J.K. Rowling book and movie series and Luna’s character is known to be misty, distracted, and whimsical quite similar to Luna the owl. Flop was our group's favorite bird at the sanctuary. He is the Blue Jay with a uniquely sounding “meow”  as his way of song. Flop arrived in 2015 after a person tried to raise him as his own, causing a lack of instinct towards predators like us. This explains why he was so friendly to us. Although this is a benefit to visitors, unfortunately Flop can not return to the wild even after his left eye injury has healed. 

credit to me

One of the big conclusions and important lessons I learned from this visit to the sanctuary was to immediately bring or call found and injured birds to an animal hospital. Cases like Flop’s could be avoided if us humans weren’t selfish to take an animal home with us to become a pet. Also, I noticed that many of these incidents occur due to us which is extremely sad because birds like the owls were hit by cars and some of the hawks were shot for game. If you are interested in helping out the Laura Quinn bird sanctuary, click this link to adopt a bird and donate to their care!

Problematic Plastic Pollution

    Single use plastics have become a large polluter of our marine environments. This kind of litter either left behind by humans after use or improperly disposed of can wreak havoc on marine species ranging from sea birds and sharks to turtles and fish. On our fifth day in Florida we spent some time in Bahia Honda State Park participating in a beach clean-up at a less visited beach area where we collected bags upon bags of plastic debris and other forms of litter. However, ocean and coastal marine areas are not the only waterways in Florida that experience plastic and litter problems caused by humans.

Photo credit: Me. Picture of a styrofoam cup floating in the Everglades.

    During our visit to the Everglades National Park it was easy to see that careless park visitors had not been doing their job of keeping the park’s waterways clean or the wildlife safe. Plastic bottles, styrofoam cups, aluminum cans, and other trash could be seen in the water and along the trails we traveled through the slow moving river. While it can be distressing to see such a beautiful natural environment marred by such ugly things, it was even more disturbing for a group of us as we watched an alligator attempt to eat what appeared to be a large blue plastic bottle of some sort. The alligator only stopped when an on-looker distracted him from his inedible plastic prey by tossing a stick into the water near the creator to distract him. We can only hope that once we moved along that the alligator did not attempt to return to crunching down on that hard plastic again. 

Photo credit: Me. Picture of an alligator attempting to eat a hard, blue plastic bottle in the Everglades.

    Ingesting plastics and other litter can cause respiratory issues, digestive issues, death, and toxicity for many marine organisms that attempt to make a meal out of a non-food item. Additionally, chemicals in plastics and other trash can leach into the waters surrounding them, causing the water itself to become poisonous to the wildlife that calls a marine area home. However, there is hope. The least anyone can do to prevent tragedy as a park and beach goer is to simply carry out what you carried in. Going the extra step and picking up any trash that you may pass, even if it was not left by you, can make an area safer for everyone and everything around it. This YouTuber’s content is all about doing trash clean-ups to better a variety of environments for the wildlife that inhabit them. Furthermore, many states have been passing legislation, such as our home state of New Jersey, to ban single use plastics such as bags, styrofoam, and straws to reduce plastic environmental pollution. This website makes a compelling argument for Florida to adopt such legislation as well. 

    Keeping our environment clear of any further plastic pollution is the first step in tackling the large existing problem of plastic pollution in our marine environments.

These Guy's Aren't So Great at Hide and Seek While Others Are

 Throughout our time in Florida it was clear that the fish we studied for our identification quizzes wasn't a waste of time. While spending our spring semester studying many of the common fish, coral and flora of the Florida Keys. This information was great to learn as it allowed myself and fellow students to actually identify and understand what we find while snorkeling and scuba diving while in the Keys. As many of us learned quickly some species were going to be harder to find than others while some were in numbers so large it was hard to miss them while in the water. Listed here are fish species that we found and had to learn to identify in class as well as others that were least common.

The first most common fish found while snorkeling was the Bermuda chub. The Bermuda chub was learned back at stockton and could be identified by having a football shaped body with the possibility of having white or yellow markings on the face. Learning this prior to our trip allowed myself and fellow classmates to notice that we were surrounded by Bermuda chubs. In addition we found that if we crush the sargassum under the water that schools of chub would swim around us.   

     

Secondly, Sergeant major fish which were also meant for us to learn and identify were present at our snorkeling sights. These fish can be identified by the five dark bars they have on their side. It is often common to see some yellow also near the back. While diving I learned that these guys were often found in smaller schools than the Bermuda chubs. These guys were also much lower in the water compared to the chubs that were swimming within a foot of us at times.

In addition there were species that we had to learn that were either not there or could only be found easily by divers. For example a nurse shark can be seen in the image below which was found by the divers in our group. Nurse sharks can be identified by the barbels near their mouths and having two dorsal fins far back. Another animal that was found that we did have to identify this past semester but did read about was lobsters. The image below is the lobsters that were found by the divers in our group.

 

Images provided by Dr. Z

If you would like to learn more about fish identification and want to learn for yourself what you are looking at next time you're snorkeling or diving click here to study.

Pigeon Royalty in the Florida Keys

    During our trip to Florida we got to see many examples of subtropical wildlife. On that list was the White-crowned Pigeon. As a birder, catching a glimpse, and hopefully a picture, of this rare and threatened species was quickly put on my “must do” list as soon as we learned about them. Our last day in the Keys brought us to Big Pine Key where we were able to see a veritable plethora of these beautiful birds after five days of a White-crowned Pigeon drought. 

Photo credit: Me. Picture of a taxidermied White-crowned Pigeon specimen at Windley Key State Park

    Now, you may be asking, what is so special about a pigeon? We have them all over the New York/New Jersey area and there is nothing special about our little gray friends here who love the occasional french fry or crumb thrown their way by passers-by. 

    Well, to start, this species of pigeon can only be found in the Caribbean and the southernmost reaches of Florida and the Florida Keys. Because this is the only area in the United States this bird can be found, with the exception of some US territories in the Caribbean, its status is not on our federal listing. However, the state of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife has deemed them threatened and the IUCN has listed them as near threatened. This site has more information on what made them a threatened species and what is keeping them threatened.

    Additionally, the coloration of the White-crowned Pigeon is very unique. They have a dark gray body with a beautiful white cap, or crown, on the top of their head. As these birds are primarily fruit eaters, you will most likely see them up in the tree canopy or hammock, where their coloration allows them to blend into the shadows created by leaves, rather than strutting along the ground like the Rock Pigeons and Pied Rock Pigeons that we find here in the tri-state area. To get to their feeding grounds from their nesting areas, they usually fly a long distance, sometimes more than 30 miles each day. You can read more fun facts about this species here.

Photo credit: Me. Taken at The Blue Hole on Big Pine Key after this individual and another finished mating then separated.

    While observing the wildlife in Florida, I found the best technique was to be silent and still, listening and looking for what may be moving around me. This technique paid off on Big Pine Key as I heard a ruckus in a near-by tree. The breeding season for these birds is from May to September, and I was able to witness and record two White-crowned Pigeons mating in a tree not ten feet from where I was standing. Getting to witness these birds and their mating habits first hand was definitely a memorable experience.

So if you ever find yourself in the Florida Keys, or the Everglades, keep quiet and still with your gaze in the trees. You, too, may be able to see one of these magnificent royal birds for yourself.