{"id":919,"date":"2008-10-13T23:41:26","date_gmt":"2008-10-14T03:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=919"},"modified":"2008-10-31T17:39:22","modified_gmt":"2008-10-31T21:39:22","slug":"five-star-day-on-west-island","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/?p=919","title":{"rendered":"Five Star Day on West Island"},"content":{"rendered":"

This afternoon we explored the shoreline of West Island in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 West Island lies on the western shore of Buzzards Bay across the water from Woods Hole, Falmouth\u00c2\u00a0and Naushon Island on the east side.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather varied from overcast to broken sunshine with temperatures in the chilly 50s\u00c2\u00a0and a strong easterly breeze blowing in off the bay and ocean.<\/p>\n

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West Island on Left; Buzzards Bay in Center; Falmouth & Woods Hole on Right<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

West Island is not normally a specimen collector’s delight with shoreline filled inches deep and yards thick with codium and eel grass, but we\u00c2\u00a0chanced to arrive at dead low and we decided to explore the exposed tidal pools at the southern point of the island.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

West Island Shoreline with Heavy Codium & Eel Grass Wrack<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

It proved a five star afternoon: seastars, that is.\u00c2\u00a0 We had never found seastars on West Island before, but today they seemed scattered throughout the southern tip of the island, hiding in pools of water under rocks, foraging in tidal pools and hectored by ubiquitous seagulls.<\/p>\n

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First Seastar (Asterias forbesi) on South Point of West Island<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seastars (Asterias forbesi<\/em><\/span>), often popularly called starfish, have five “arms” which can regenerate.\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, the natural history says that a seastar needs only a segment of the central disk along with one arm to regenerate into a new seastar.\u00c2\u00a0 We should be so lucky!\u00c2\u00a0 With mostly cloudy skies, brisk winds and chilly temperatures, seastars were moving even slower than their normal sluggish pace.\u00c2\u00a0 But while conditions weren’t in their favor, they did present us some great opportunities to document these magnificent critters.\u00c2\u00a0 The following sequence from our first seastar gives an overview of the creature’s dorsal (top) and ventral (bottom) sides.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Seastar under Rock; Dorsal (top) and Ventral (bottom) Views<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seastars have spiny skin and belong to the phylum echinodermata along with sea urchins and sand dollars.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 The top or dorsal surface of\u00c2\u00a0a common\u00c2\u00a0seastar consists of numerous scattered spines. Each of these spines are, in-turn, surrounded by tiny jaws called pedicellariae.\u00c2\u00a0The pedicellariae\u00c2\u00a0remove sand and other debris and occasionally snag passing prey.\u00c2\u00a0 The ventral (bottom) surface of the seastar’s arms is covered with tube feet that have suctions at the bottom of each foot.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Each tube foot works in coordination with other tube feet\u00c2\u00a0enabling the seastar to grasp prey or\u00c2\u00a0move about over various surfaces.\u00c2\u00a0 The orange spot in the dorsal core is called the madreporite and is responsible for the movement of water into the vascular system that controls the movement of the tube feet.\u00c2\u00a0 The clip below shows the tube feet in action as it moves a shell along one of its arms.<\/p>\n

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Seastar Tube Feet on Ventral (bottom) Side of Arms<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seastars are said to prefer clams, quahogs, oysters, et cetera as prey, but will consume snails in a pinch.\u00c2\u00a0 Tube feet on the ventral (bottom) surface act like suction cups, securing each side of\u00c2\u00a0a bivalve shell while the arms pull them open.\u00c2\u00a0 The seastar then inserts one of its two stomachs into the prey and digestion occurs inside the clam,\u00c2\u00a0turning the mollusk into liquid\u00c2\u00a0that is\u00c2\u00a0guided into the seastar’s mouth by cilia on its arms.\u00c2\u00a0 The seastar sucks up the liquified clam.<\/p>\n

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Ventral Surface with Lots of Shelled Critters Moving Along Tube Feet<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The second seastar we encountered had previously regenerated one of its arms which\u00c2\u00a0was obviously smaller than the other four.\u00c2\u00a0 This ventral image below illustrates the size difference.<\/p>\n

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Seastar with One Regenerated Arm<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

More active than the first seastar we had discoverd, this one showed off its speed as it “dashed” along a shallow tidal pool.\u00c2\u00a0 I know there are\u00c2\u00a0some who say that observing a sailboat race is akin to watching grass grow, but it’s clear that those folks have never invested time as spectators in the ultimate sport of champions: seastar racing.\u00c2\u00a0 If you have time to invest, we encourage you to enjoy the next two exquisite videos, beginning with the tube-foot\u00c2\u00a0dash through the tidal pool.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Seastar Glides through Tidal Pool<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

For those who have survived the previous experience, you are well prepared for the ever-exciting seastar sport of gymnastics; that is, tumbling 180 degrees from ventral up to dorsal up.\u00c2\u00a0 Judging is based on artistic content, plus degree of difficulty.\u00c2\u00a0 A perfect five point landing earns the highest points, especially from the Eastern European judges who are more technically oriented.<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Seastar Acrobatics<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

We found another seastar hugging the underside of a rock and rescued a fourth from the ravages of pestering seagulls.\u00c2\u00a0 The fifth and last seastar we almost missed because it looked more like\u00c2\u00a0a butterfly lying in a shallow pool.\u00c2\u00a0 It had lost three of its arms and we thought we had run across a goner.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

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“Butterfly” Seastar with Only Two Arms<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

But a closer examination revealed that this seastar had healed from its injuries and\u00c2\u00a0was a lively and healthy critter, perhaps proving the point that chopping up seastars only serves to create more seastars!<\/p>\n

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Click Here to View Video in High Quality<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Healthy Two-Armed Seastar<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

A surprising day for the Turtle Journal team.\u00c2\u00a0 Temperature, wind, clouds and season\u00c2\u00a0conspired against us.\u00c2\u00a0 But the gods smiled and gave us\u00c2\u00a0quite literally\u00c2\u00a0a five star day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This afternoon we explored the shoreline of West Island in Fairhaven, Massachusetts.\u00c2\u00a0 West Island lies on the western shore of Buzzards Bay across the water from Woods Hole, Falmouth\u00c2\u00a0and Naushon Island on the east side.\u00c2\u00a0 The weather varied from overcast to broken sunshine with temperatures in the chilly 50s\u00c2\u00a0and a strong easterly breeze blowing in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[824],"tags":[704,715,719,713,701,718,707,702,697,699,720,717,712,127,700,652,710,714,651,705,716,709,703,708,653,32,706,157,711,696,698],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=919"}],"version-history":[{"count":36,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":948,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919\/revisions\/948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turtlejournal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}