So what do you think you see here? A rock? A fish buried into the sand? A... cartoon? Well, you'd be wrong on all accounts. That right here would be a crab. An incredibly cool crab. The one and only Shamefaced Crab. He's so embarrassed by his face that he has cover it up with his claws. How sad, right? Wrong!
The reason their claws are hiding their face is a common thing between crabs actually, only these crabs have larger than normal claws. Most crabs have their claws held out in front and usually they don't cover their faces entirely... except for the shamefaced crab, hence the name. Their claws are so large due to their choice of prey: They LOOOOOOVE snails. And, as we all know, snails aren't exactly easy to... open? I guess that's the right word for it. So their claws are built like special tools to get the job done. Specifically, they're built like a can opener.
Can you see the right claw (on the left hand side) in this picture? You would think that that part at the bottom was it's tiny claws but it's actually a pair of nodules to crack open the shell of a snail while the other claw holds and turns the snail. These nodules are only found on the right claw of ALL shamefaced crabs! Which is a strange characteristic seeing as all crabs, as well as lobsters, will have a larger, more dominant claw but it doesn't have specific side. So usually there are righties and lefties.... but not in this case, they're always righties.
Not only do they use these claws for opening food and protecting their face (clearly), they also use them to burrow. It might sound a little weird, but they use their claws like boards out in front of them, pushing sand away and then scurrying the rest of their body into the sand. They do this repeatedly until they are fully covered with only their eyes and antennae sticking out to find prey. If you can't really picture that, check out the video below, that should help. Unfortunately for the crab pictured, the tank it is in does not have deep enough sand for it to hide fully under so it's stuck half way out and staring at us blankly.
Personally, I think these little beauties are pretty cool and don't get the recognition they deserve like the hermit crab or the fiddler crab. They should be just as celebrate! I mean look at that face! It's adorable. Even if it is all hiding behind those ginormous claws.
If you have any comments or questions, make sure to leave them! Would love to hear from my viewers!!!
Hope you enjoyed! make sure to check back for more Marine Biology Facts coming up in the following weeks!
The other day, we were making this really yummy turkey stew from out leftover turkey dinner from Thanksgiving (yes, I know that was months ago, and yes, the meat was frozen so it was just as good as the day we made it) and we wanted something substantial to go with it. Something... bread like. But we didn't want to go with everyone's go to: Italian bread. So, I made this yummy cheesy, spicy, corny cornbread and figured I'd share it all with you.
If you haven't already heard, Jiffy corn muffin mix = heaven when it comes to baking ANYTHING corn like. It creates an awesome base to mess with and tweak as you see fit. Also, it's pretty delicious on its own, but we're not doing that today. That being said, I used 2 boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix because one box just doesn't do it.
So, this recipe is really supper supper simple! The only thing that you really want to be careful of is over mixing the batter. If that happens, the cornbread will loose that light fluffiness that everyone loves when it comes to corn bread. And I personally like when my corn bread has loads of chunks of corn in it so I know that I'm not just eating corn meal, thus canned corn and canned creamed corn.
And this recipe is supposed to be spicy and cheesy right? So I have one jalapeno chopped up, along with about 1/2 of a red bell pepper and 1/2 of an orange bell pepper for color. And of course, 1 whole cup of shredded cheddar cheese. You can leave any of those out if you'd like or replace them with different types of peppers or cheese, maybe add some onion if you'd like. These were just personally what I liked in there.
Ready? Awesome!
To begin, take your wet ingredients: 1/3 C milk, 1/3 C sour cream, 1 egg, 7 oz can of kernel corn, 14.75 oz can of creamed corn, and 1/3 C melted butter (which is about 5 1/3 tablespoons) and mix them together until fully combined. It will obviously be very chunky and runny, but that will change soon.
You can see the wet mixture underneath the powder from
the Jiffy mix... forgot to take a picture before
I tossed it in. Oops!
Your next step is to add the two boxes of Jiffy Corn Muffin Mix and 1 tsp baking powder (be careful not to use baking soda... no good). Again, DO NOT OVER-MIX. You just want the mixture to be just wet enough that it is combined. There will be chunks of dry Jiffy mix Remember that we will be mixing it more once we add the peppers and cheese.
Now for the pes de résistance: the additives! Jalapeno, bell peppers, and cheese. Can't go wrong with that. You want to make sure the jalapeno is chopped up nice and small. I made them into really tiny squares, like you would see in salsa. A good thing to keep in mind: these things can be really spicy and can irritate your hands when handling them so I suggest using gloves. This keeps your hands from stinging like crazy if you have any invisible cuts and cuts down on mess! Won't have to wash your hands between each thing. The bell peppers I made a bit bigger, still small but larger squares. Cutting them into strips and then into squares is probably the best bet to do it.
I suggest adding all of the peppers at once, mixing them so they're evenly distributed. Just remember to be gentle with that batter. No over mixing. After they've been mixed in there nicely, add the cheese and mix it in there well. With the cheese, it will probably stick together and create chunks, which is fine. You'll just get nice pockets of cheesiness which is always fun.
Red, green, and orange. Remember, you can add different fillings if
you'd like, like onion or other peppers or nothing at all.
Cheese! Again, add any type you'd like. Mozzarella would probably
make a good addition, for example. And you can increase or decrease
the amount according to your preferences
You're batter should come out looking something like this:
Once fully mixed, place inside a baking tin. It can be square or round, depending upon how you would like to serve it. I used a 1 1/2 inch deep round cake pan and mu batter fulled it up pretty well. There's no need to grease the pan, the corn bread will be nice and moist and slip right out when you cut into it. Bake at 350 degrees for 40-50 minutes until brown on the top and edges (depending upon your oven, you may need to have it in for a longer period of time. I left mine in for about 70 minutes). You can split it between two pans if you'd like, there is definitely enough batter for that, just make sure to adjust the time for cooking so that they both come out perfect.
After a little over an hour, my corn bread was ready! And it seems there was a little bit of a mishap... Maybe I should have used 2 pans instead on 1... Oh well, still turned out delicious and fluffy. Look at the golden brown! Mm, mm, good!
Just a little spillage. Still tasty!
Perfectly golden all around!
And there you have it! I served it along side my turkey stew creation with some basmati rice. But you can serve it along side anything you see fit. It's fluffy and light in flavor with a little kick but will still fill you up!
I hope you all enjoy and make sure to leave me comments letting me know how yours came out and how you liked it!!
Extr-e Extr-e!! Read all about it! Spotted: Seahorse Mating Dance!
Yesterday, for the first time, I got to see some live action seahorse mating! Honestly, it was so cool to see. It's one of those things that I knew about but seeing it all in action is just... so different.
For those of you that don't know the process of seahorse mating, let me explain!
The process for seahorse mating is truly a beautiful thing. The male and female with join in a kind of dance to "woo" each other, entwining their tails together and drifting up and down in the water column. Once the female has decided upon who will be the father, the male fertilizes her eggs internally. Sexy sexy time! At this point, this start to change up a bit. Instead of the female carrying the eggs during gestation, the male will carry them. Male seahorses have a specialized sack below their stomachs that allows them the ability to carry the eggs for the female. You can see the sack in larger seahorses, smaller individuals are more difficult to see. the sack tools like an extra bulge below the stomach that is sometimes a lighter color than the rest of the body. When the eggs have been fertilized, the male will begin to dance with the female again, opening and closing it's sack to take the eggs from her. He will then hold onto the eggs until they are ready for live birth. This can take anywhere between 14 days to 4 weeks, depending upon the species of seahorse.
When the eggs are through their gestation period, the male will squirt them out like a water gun. The babies will be fully recognizable as seahorses only very small. Once born, the babies will have to swim to the waters surface in order to take a tiny gulp of air to fill their gas bladder. Many aquatic animals are born with already filled gas bladders, but seahorses need to fill theirs with air upon birth. This action creates some challenges for seahorses in captivity because, often enough, the babies will sometimes get caught at the surface and die due to the inability to sink easily from the stagnant water of tanks. To remedy this, many aquariums, including the one that I volunteer at, Biomes in North Kingston, RI, have specialized tanks that create a circular current throughout the tank. These tanks are usually circular in shape and are specially made for creatures that need a constant current, like seahorses and jellyfish. This circular current prevents the seahorses from being caught at the surface once their gas bladder has been filled, prolonging their life in that instance.
Below is a video I recorded of the males seahorses dancing with a female opening and closing their egg sacks. I can't stress enough how in aw I was to actually see this in action. And to top it off, there was a little girl there who knew EXACTLY what was happening between them. She's a regular at the a aquarium and she wants to become a marine biologist when she grows up and it just makes me feel so good when I see her because she has such a passion and love for the ocean and the animals within it. I Love seeing that!
Welcome to Echinoderms, Part 2! Who's excited! I am because the two classes we're talking about today are awesome (just like the rest of them :P ). Today's topics are brittle stars and sea cucumbers! Just like what we talked about in Part 1, these guys are part of the Echinoderm phylum. If you haven't seen Part 1 you should! I covered Starfish in there and they are some freaky creatures!
So let's just get started, shall we?!?!? Brittle Stars / Basket Stars - Ophiuroidea
The central disc of brittle stars are reminiscent of starfish. Source
Brittle stars and basket stars are very similar to starfish. They have the same general shape, just a bit more lengthy, and they have tube feet, just like starfish. But they are very different in their own ways.
To begin, brittle stars are just a different version of starfish. They only have 5 arms and have the same body shape. Only.... they don't. A central disc makes up their body and their arms are snake-like extensions. Unlike starfish, the internal organs of brittle stars are compressed into the central disc and have a one way digestive system, meaning they don't have an anus and that food passes in and out of the mouth (gross right?). Also, their madreporite, which allows them to suck in water for their circulatory system, is found on the underside of their body.
Their arms, instead of being solid and stiff, are segmented by plates and are extremely flexible. Small ventral plates make up their arms, connecting their internal organs (the same set up as starfish) and allowing their tube feet to exchange water to attach to surfaces and food. These arms can be voluntarily dropped at a moments notice just by disconnecting the plates at a specific point in order to avoid predators or get themselves out of a sticky situation. These plates can then be grown back through regeneration. On top of voluntarily dropping their arms, the segmented structure makes brittle stars the fastest echinoderms out there. Each plate has a spine on each side, allowing them to grip onto surfaces better than tube feet alone would. This gives them snake-like movement through the water, which fits their class, "Ophiuroidea", which means "snake-like".
A basket star wrapping it's branched arms around a
coral colony. Source
Now, for Basket Stars. They are similar to brittle stars only.... their 5 arms branch like crazy, which is where they get their name. Their exceedingly complicated network of branched arms creates as "basket" of sorts in order to catch prey. Instead of having exposed ventral plates like brittle stars, their body is covered in a thin leathery skin. This allows them to grip surfaces and catch prey better. This skin is extremely thin and is easy to rip off of them to expose their ventral plates beneath.
Basket stars only come out at night to catch prey and can look pretty creepy. When "sleeping", they curl up their tentacle like arms and can easily be mistaken for some sort of growth on rocks or coral (pictured over there << ). But when unfurled in the current, they look monstrous. If you came upon one of those on a night dive, you'd probably be in stunned aw at the size it could be come. They climb on top of corals or rocks or anything really that gets them into the gentle currents of the water and unroll their crazy tentacle arms, swaying in the water to catch plankton or small fish and crustaceans.
So... If you're ever go night diving... Be careful of these creepy cool creatures!
Sea cucumbers are what I consider to be the "Redheaded step child" of the Echinoderm phylum. Why is this? Well, they really don't look like a starfish... or a brittle star... or a sea urchin.... or anything really. And if you just look at it, it doesn't seem to have the same symmetry as the rest of the phylum, which it doesn't. Instead of being radially symmetrical, sea cucumbers are bilaterally symmetrical. This means that they can only be equally split in half lengthwise (like you would a lobster).
Sea cucumbers are cylindrical in shape and have tube feet around their bodies in rows, multiples of fives like the rest of the echinoderms. But! In addition to that, they have these weird tentacles around their mouth that are actually modified tube feet that are used to catch food and shove it into their mouths. Pretty ingenious for an animal that looks and feels like a slug without a shell.
In terms of defense, these guys have some weird ways of doing it. When moved, picked up, or taken out of the water, sea cucumbers do this weird thing with their molecular structure to make them feel like... well, goo. Their whole body goes limp and becomes this gelatinous mess. This action discourages any attack because there's really not much to attack. Plus it feels really really weird in your hands. Now, when they feel there is danger about, they spit out their insides. It's called self-evisceration. Poisonous threads that sit in their digestion tract are expelled to ward off would be attackers and allow the sea cucumber to slowly wiggle away! These threads can be regenerated over time so that they can do it all over again. So... just imagine fending off a bully by pooping threads out of your bum..... Weird right?
I hope you've enjoyed this weeks Marine Biology Facts! Come back next week for more! And if you have any questions or comments, please, leave them below!
The Epic Conclusion of the Lavender-Ginger Vodka Infusion!
So after about 2-3 days of seeping in the corner of my kitchen, our little experiment turned out looking a bit murky. Which, honestly, was expected. Also, the ginger tea bags may have come apart as well so.... there was a lot floating in there.
The smell upon opening that bottle was Glorious though! The whole kitchen filled with the smell of lavender. I'll be honest, by the strength of the smell, I was a little worried that the ginger would be over powered because I didn't smell it at all when I took a sniff from the bottle. But I had to wait to see about that because I wasn't gonna drink that >>> with all those floaties in there.
So, I filtered it....
Seeing as there were a lot of Lavender buds floating in the vodka, it clogged a few times and I had to use about 3 coffee filters before I realized there was an easier way.... A fine mesh Colander!!! I poured the better amount of the vodka through that into a measuring cup to get rid of the big lavender chunks then filtered it all through another 2 coffee filters. It took a bit of time. DO NOT pour all of it in at once, you need to let it filter in chunks. Mine came out to be close to 5 or 6 chunks, filtering through the coffee filters placed in a funnel. I walked away from it each time I filled the funnel so that I wouldn't play with it and mess it all up if I stayed there.
See how slow it goes? Give it time! Don't rush. It's worth the wait.
So, the final out come was really good. Once it was done filtering, we had a taste test and it was yummy. Strong, as expected since it's straight vodka. Scented with lavender, a light ginger taste on the pallet and lavender once again on the way out. I would use less lavender than I did though, the amount that I put in overpowered all of the other flavors and made the vodka a bit bitter. My boyfriend said it made a great breath freshener... and seeing as he was burping a little bit afterward and it smelled like lavender, I'd have to agree.
Mixing for this I would suggest a Lemon-Lime soda if you want a fizzy drink but this would also go great in a hot or iced tea. It's very complimentary to the light tastes that you would get from a white or green tea and adds a floral scent. Adding anything sweet I would suggest Honey or Stevia, they easily blend with the liquid and won't add that crunchy texture you sometimes get with sugar.
Good luck and enjoy! I hope it turns out as well for you as it did with me!
One of my favorite phylums in the ocean are the Echinoderms. This phylum includes sea stars (starfish), brittle stars, urchins, sea cucumbers, sea lilies, and other variations of these animals that are ONLY found in the ocean. The most widely known and, in my observation, the most popular, are the starfish. You always find them in children's drawings of the sea, depicted with most, if not all, pictures of mermaids, and as characters in movies/TV shows (*cough* Finding Nemo *cough* Little Mermaid *cough* Spongebob Squarepants *cough cough*). But they're personally not my favorite. Urchins are my personal favorite. But I'll get into that later!
These guys all have some really cool characteristics. We'll start with some (not all!) that they ALL share and then get into their specifics.
A sea urchin's test (or shell) can be split equally in all
directions when cut along the mouth axis
(or middle of the body)
The creatures classified within this phylum all have radial symmetry. This means that if you take, let's say a starfish, and cut it in any direction along the main axis, each section should be identical. You can really see this in starfish and brittle stars, also urchins when their spines fall off. They also have multiple arms, or appendages, radiating out from the central body, usually occurring in multiples of 5. Each arm (or segment in the sea urchins case) is identical in it's external and internal construction (organs included). Echinoderms also have a very simple nervous system, so simple that they're not considered to have brains. Instead, their nervous system consists of what's called a nerve ring, located around the mouth, with nerve bands running down each arm or appendage of the body. It can not see detailed images but some echinoderms have been studied and proven to be sensitive to light.
It gets better, by the way. Echinoderms can regenerate. And not JUST regenerate, some can even reproduce when harmed, but before I get into that I'll explain regeneration. What this means is that if they get hurt, like a piece of their arm is ripped off, they can grow it back. I know that sounds similar to when we get a cu or a chunk of skin ripped off while skateboarding or something like that, but it's completely different. A good comparison would be if you got a finger chopped off. You can't grow that back, You'd have a stubby finger or any other body part for the rest of your life. In contrast, if a starfish looses a limb, it can grow back entirely! It takes some time and a lot of energy, but they can do it. Now, reproduction upon a limb or such like that gets ripped off is a little more complicated. Regeneration can occur if any amount of a limb is ripped off, but reproduction can only happen if a piece of the nerve ring is severed in the process. So basically, it needs a bit of it's primitive main nervous system to be detached as well. And, POOF!, there appears another identical starfish. A clone. Super cool!
Now! Let's talk about a few of the specific types of echinoderms!
Sea Stars (Starfish) - Asteroidea
Like I said, these guys are one of the most popular of the echinoderms. And for good reason!
Everyone knows about the little suction cup like things that are found on the bottom of starfish and that they're used to move along the surface of whatever they're climbing over, which can seriously be.... anything. But the way that they make those suckers move is pretty cool. On the aboral side (top) of their body, there is a little hole that opens and closes to allow water to pass in and out of the ring canal (which is different from
The ampulla, on top of the tube feet, act like turkey
basters, squeezing and relaxing to force water
into the tube feet to make them move.
the nerve ring) and spread out to the radial canals. The whole is usually a different color than the rest of the starfish and looks like a large pore. They use these canals to create a vascular system of hydraulic pumps, pumping the water in and out of each tube foot to extend or retract them independently. For an animal that doesn't have a brain, I'd say that's reeeaaaaaaally impressive. On top of that, they don't only use those tube feet to "walk", they also TASTE and breath with them. They taste chemicals on surfaces and in water with the ends of their tube feet to help them find food and to avoid toxic areas, on top of exchanging oxygen and carbon dioxide through the "skin" of the them. Imagine being able to taste and breath with your feet..... It's not really a pleasant thought.
That white stuff you see is the starfish's stomach... not food.
Now for a bit of, well, gross. How they eat. I'll keep this short because it is pretty gross but it's still really cool. Starfish, instead of just popping things into their mouths, which are pretty small by the way, actually excrete their stomach's onto their prey. Yes, you read that correctly, they throw up their stomach in order to eat. They then partial digest their food and.... *shiver*..... slurp up their digested food. Sounds delicious, right? It's gross. Cool... but incredibly gross. But, it does give them a bit of an advantage because then they can eat larger fish and gorge on food in one sitting instead of using their energy to hunt for large amounts of small bits of food.
I'll let you ponder the awesomeness and.... weirdness that are Starfish and bombard you with more Echinoderm information a little later. I hope you enjoyed and are a little more excited about starfish and their brethren!
I'll just leave you with this video I took of a super tiny starfish wiggling it's little tube feet at the aquarium, Biomes, that I volunteer at!
Coming up: Part 2: Brittle Stars and Sea Cucumbers!!
My boyfriend, Todd has been going on and on about this vodka he had a while back at a bar in.... I think it was Austin. So the vodka was infused with black tea and lavender. He's been craving it as of late and we had some vodka and lavender laying about and last night said "Hey! Let's make some infused vodka!"
Now, we didn't have any black tea, we're more or a green and white tea household. So we started looking through our stash to pick out a flavor that would go well with lavender. It wasn't really hard. I suggested ginseng at first but Todd was looking for something with a little bit more flavor and freshness. Now, I think ginseng has an amazing amount of flavor: subtle but DELICIOUS! But, hey, that's just my opinion. Obviously, he didn't think so, so we ended up picking out this organic ginger tea that I picked up at TJMaxx a while ago. It's very yummy but I think that any ginger tea would probably work. (Could even try it with ginger root maybe? Oooo, I'll try that next time.) Ginger has been used in a multitude of medicinal facets but it's mainly known for helping combat nausea, mainly caused by motion sickness but is used in other cases as well (ever have ginger ale when you've been sick? Yeah, I thought so :P ). It's also used to fight internal infections, inflammation and countless other reasons. It's a very versatile root. So that's one plus for Ginger + Vodka = Healthy.
I LOOOOOOOOOOVE the smell of lavender, it just fills the air once you open the bag and it just reminds me of summer. Also it's edible and good for you in many ways. It's been used in anti-anxiety and depression treatments, the scent has been proven to help you relax and unwind, and it's also used to aid in control of blood sugar for diabetics (Plus for ME!!). Also, they're just pretty, just look at those little flower buds! So I think this infusion is looking even better, since there's two additions that are healthy for you.
Ginger + Lavender + Vodka = Super Healthy!
ANYWAYS! I took 3 tea bags, which weighed about 5 gram total and 2 bags of lavender (each weighing 5 grams ) and put them into a tea pitcher and added the vodka. I didn't really know how much vodka we would be using but it ended up being 1235 mL which didn't fill the pitcher fully so...... I just put it back into the vodka bottle. Usually I would fill the entire thing or use the entire bottle of vodka, but since this was a little spur of the moment and we were just using what we had that was obviously not the case. I would suggest using an entire 1.75 mL bottle of vodka. The type of vodka in'ts particularly important since you will be changing the flavor anyway so it really depends upon your preference.
I was trying REALLY hard to keep the lavender in the little baggies. Like, really hard..... But.... they didn't really want to agree with me and decided to pop open when I moved the mixture back to the vodka bottle. Made me really sad seeing all those little buds floating around in there. :( BUT! If that happens to you, all you need to do is strain the vodka through a coffee filter and a funnel. Super easy, just adds an extra step. It just made me pout for a second but really is no biggy.
Also, you can still filter the vodka through a coffee filter even if the bags do not open. Adding this step just ensures that there is absolutely nothing floating around in there when you consume it.
Once it was all in the bottle and secure (minus the floating flower buds...), the top was screwed back on and I gave it a very vigorous shake. Make a little bit of foam when you do it. The awesome thing about this infusion is that it only takes a few minutes for it to start. Case in point: you can see the vodka is already cloudy and looking a lot like tea after I shook it. There are a lot of infusions that make you wait and watch it, licking your lips, for one to two weeks. Not this one! I wouldn't make that my first thing! You want this thing immediately (at least I know I did... but I resisted)! And basically, you can. HOWEVER, I do suggest letting it sit for at least a day or two so those flavors can really seep in there and mix together.
I would suggest tasting your creation before mixing it with anything. The flavor can be different every time you make it and also depends on the length of time you seep it all for. When drinking you should taste the tea on the intake and then the lavender on the exhale, a mix of a bright flavor finishing off with a floral note. For the time being, my infusion is sitting and waiting for me to drink it (which I can't wait for!) and I will be making another post in which I can really give some pointers on mixers and its final flavor.
I hope you all enjoy and leave comments on your experience! I'd love to hear how your attempts have turned out!!
So here it is, the beginning of the Underwater Oven.
To start, let me introduce myself. My name's Sam, short for Samantha, and I hate being called "Sammie". Every time I hear it I just think of the most high pitched female voice possible saying it and I just cringe.... it's not a fun experience. But, moving on, I hold a degree in Marine Biology and am involved in the fishing industry in... some way. Also, I experiment a little bit in the baking domain, mainly cupcakes it seems but I dabble in a few different aspects of it. And so came the name "Underwater Oven".
Here I plan on posting recipes I try out or develop, some little tidbits about marine life and all that it encompasses, and maybe some random little fun things I try out or do. I'm taking a crack at the "blogging" thing so we shall see how it goes!
Can you see the right claw (on the left hand side) in this picture? You would think that that part at the bottom was it's tiny claws but it's actually a pair of nodules to crack open the shell of a snail while the other claw holds and turns the snail. These nodules are only found on the right claw of ALL shamefaced crabs! Which is a strange characteristic seeing as all crabs, as well as lobsters, will have a larger, more dominant claw but it doesn't have specific side. So usually there are righties and lefties.... but not in this case, they're always righties.
