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Day 12: Catch of the day

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Today we got together in the wet lab and went through all of our findings from the parrotfish study yesterday. On the striped parrotfish, we found that they usually swim in large, informal groups that re-convene at the edge of the coral or in the sea grass. We mostly observed juveniles, although there was at least one male spotted in both of our groups. On average, it was around 5-6 fish that we would see swimming together. Usually the fish were eating algae off of grass, but sometimes they would also eat off of coral.

When all of the parrotfish groups got together, we found that all of the species had been eating algae, and only a few of them would appear to actually be eating pebbles or the seagrass itself. Also, all of the species primarily lived near reef edges.

Later on, we went out into the shallow waters to try and collect any creatures we could catch and birng them back to the wet lab to analyze. I was really impressed with how some TFBs could just snatch them right out of the water. I successfully caught a fish too! I’m not even sure how I did it, it practically just swam right into my tray. The creepiest catch was definitely the box jellyfish Elise caught near the mangroves. Apparently it was just hanging out near her leg! I don’t think the box jellies here are nearly as dangerous as the Australian ones, but it was still horrifying to hear that we were just standing that close to them the whole time.

In the water I also saw a lot more needlefish! They were super fast and too smart to get caught in our meagre trays and buckets, but I observed them swimming near the surface in groups of 3-4 and darting around, presumably catching smaller fish just like us.

For our poster on the parrotfish today, I took the job of illustrating our observations-the fish! It was really cool to put them on the paper and try to match each of their unique colors to the reference pictures we had.

This afternoon, we went on a walk around the island and spent a good amount of time in the coral graveyard. It was fascinating to observe the gradient of color, starting with the living coral in the sea, and finally progressing to the grey, dead coral that had been fossilized and is now fully exposed on the shore. We also picked up many little creatures that lived in the shallow waters along the coast.

I gave my presentation on piscivorous fish tonight, and we learned about sharks and rays in addition to angelfish. Angelfish also practice protogynous hermaphroditism, which I really did not know about before this trip, but seems to be quite common among the reef fish.

Tonight, instead of going for a night snorkel due to precarious wind conditions, we fished off of the dock! The highlight BY FAR was Claire D catching a squid! It was absolutely unbelievable-she somehow captured the (not so) little guy on the first try in a tiny net and successfully transferred it to one of the buckets we had set up. Once in the bucket, the squid inked! In addition to the squid, we also collected fish, shrimp, and a glass eel! It was one of, if not the most, memorable nights of the trip thus far.

Screenshot

-Emily

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5/27- Exploring a graveyard

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After spending the past few days mostly in the ocean, it was nice to spend today doing some non-snorkeling activities.  We waded in the shallow parts around the dock, just trying to catch anything and everything we could. Our coolest and scariest find was definitely a box jellyfish, which has one of the worst stings. Somehow, no one got stung, and Elise caught it! It’s crazy how something so unassuming can be so powerful. 

We also walked to the coral graveyard. The whole island is covered in fossilized corals, but this part is a particularly large mound of them that has built up over a long period of time. These calcium carbonate fossils are still in very distinct shapes, so you can kind of tell what species they are. I saw elkhorn, staghorn, finger coral, lots of brain corals, maze coral, mound corals, and others that I couldn’t even identify. Hard corals secrete calcium carbonate to make a skeleton, which builds the coral reefs. This process has been happening for billions of years, and when they day, they become fossilized and eventually get compressed into limestone, which we see as the predominant bedrock of many areas in the Belize forests. It’s this limestone that led to the formation of the giant cave structures that we explored. The geological time is incomprehensible to me, and it’s amazing how it is all connected.

At night, we all went to the dock and shined light into the ocean to watch sea creatures. We found a really cool squid, which we caught, watched ink, and messed with it to see it change colors. This was so fun, but I wish it had jumped out at us, which is apparently one of their defensive mechanisms.

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Day 12: Exploring Shallow Waters

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Today was such a fun day despite it being more land based than the previous few have been. This morning we waded into the mangroves and sea grasses right I off the island. We were told we should collect anything that was not nailed down, and while most things swam far too fast for us to catch with small nets and buckets, we still found a cool assortment of animals. We found multiple hermit crabs of varying sizes, a large purple crab, some tiny fish, a tiny crab, and a box jellyfish amongst other things (no one got stung by the box jelly). After bringing them into the wet lab and observing them, we released them back into the sea grasses and mangroves. 

I also saw a small lemon shark around us the whole time we were in the mangroves and seagrasses. It was trailing bonefish (of the same size as itself) but didn’t seem to be hunting very aggressively. 

Right before lunch I saw a nurse shark (probably the same one we’ve been seeing) under the dock resting. It didn’t move very much. 

After lunch we walked around the island where w got to see a coral graveyard. Since the island is on an atoll, half of the island is incredibly protected waters and half of the island has large wave break from the open ocean. We hadn’t spent much time on that side of the island before today, so it was interesting to see it. Since atolls are made of a ring of coral and this reef has been bashed by waves for thousands of years, the entire coast was made up of fossilized corals. It also created an interesting intertidal zone where I found some large conchs and a ton of brittle stars (in the picture below). 

By night we were planning on doing a night snorkel but the wind was too strong so we just dropped a light below the dock to see what came by. There were some small fish and shrimps as well as glad seals (super cool and minimally studied translucent larval stages of certain fish and eels). After waiting a while, a squid came by! Claire D caught this squid in one attempt and we watched it ink in a bucket. 

All in all, today was so interesting since we saw so many different animals across the shallow ecosystems surrounding Middle Kay.

Claire C

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Day 12: More Parrotfish and Hat Misfortunes

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Hi Blog,

After breakfast, we met in the wet lab in order to finish analyzing our parrotfish data from yesterday and to compile it all into a poster. Emily took on the visual illustrations for the four kinds of parrotfish surveyed in this project which looked amazing. We actually got the poster finished in under 2 hours which was a new record time. I think our poster devising and presenting skills have definitely leveled up during our time here in Belize.

Working on poster!

During the poster presentation out on the dock though, Elise’s hat got blown into the ocean, which then she immediately dived in to save. Little did I know, she would not be the only one jumping in the ocean to save her cap…

 

Can you spot Elise in the water?

After the poster, we went to the mangroves and seagrass to catch any organisms we could find. We found grass, some crustaceans, arthropods, small anchovy-like fish, and a snail. We had tools such as two small nets, two trays (one of them had two trays stuck together), and some tongs to aid us in our harvest, but the process was very difficult regardless. At one point though, Claire D caught four of the small fish back to back to back which was so impressive! I tried to catch them with my hands, but they were too fast for me… After our harvest was over, we went back to the wet lab to take a closer look at the samples. I was especially intrigued to look at the snail (that Lily caught) under the microscope, as I could see it moving within the shell.

After this, we had sandwiches for lunch which was absolutely delicious. Then, at 1:30 PM, the class took a trip to the coral graveyards. We got to see countless fossilized/calcified corals, such as brain corals, staghorn corals, seafan, and even a conch. It was incredibly powerful to see the contrast between the vibrantly colored human plastic pollution and the black/white fossilized corals. It truly reminded me of the consequences of anthropogenic actions on the environment, and it was eye-opening to see that with my very own eyes.

Fossilized conch

Around 3 PM, we began presentations starting off with Claire C’s taxon presentation about sharks and rays. But the power shut off towards the end of her lecture, so the rest of the presentations were postponed until 5 PM. In the meantime, some of us went to the dock to lay down and sunbath, and my hat got blown off by the wind into the ocean. I, left with no other choice, jumped in and swam to retrive my poor hat.

At 5 PM, we resumed with the rest of the presentations, such as Emily’s piscivorous fish presentation and Ian’s topic lecture about the evolution and ecology of angelfish.

We then had dinner, which was chicken soup with rice. I added some hot sauce in it to add a little kick, and it was perfect.

After, at 7:30 PM, the class met up for an optional night fishing, since night snorkeling had gotten canceled due to the strong winds making the snorkeling conditions rather unsafe. I didn’t have much expectations for it since our tools were a hanging dive light and two tiny nets, but to my surprise, our class did a spectacular job! Not only did we catch several shrimp and small fish, but we also caught a glass eel and a squid!! The glass eel was very silly to look at as it looked like a clear noodle with cartoon eyes. The highlight though, was the squid caught by Claire D. We put it in a bucket for observation, and we actually watched it squirt ink, which turned the entire bucket black! Also, when we were playing around with it with the net, the squid actually changed colors to camouflage with its own ink speckles!

Since today was mainly land-based, there was no surgeonfish spotting, but maybe I will be able to see one again tomorrow!

I’m not quite sure what the day will look like tomorrow, but I will keep you guys updated! 🙂

 

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Day 12: Docks Full of Sunshine

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Today was our first entirely land bound day, which though at first was disappointing ended up being a really nice change in pace.

We went out to the dock to pass a bit of time and spotted a young lemon shark swimming by. It was the first of many appearances for this little guy.

We then began our day by compiling our parrotfish data from the previous day and creating our third poster of the class discussing our findings.

Once we finished, we waded out by the dock and tried to see what we could find, catch, and collect from the surrounding areas. There were tons of small schools of fish, and the lemon shark kept circling by to try to catch them. We ended up catching three large hermit crabs and a red land crab, along with a baby crab, two snails, and five small fish.

In the afternoon we finally explored the rest of the island. Though it’s only a 20 minute slow stroll around, each part proved to be super interesting and unique.

First up was the coral graveyard, which was a beach made up of almost entirely fossilized corals. There were a ton of different species, including Montastraea cavernosa, or the great star coral, which has huge polyps, brain corals, and purple sea fans!

The waters were also filled with sea urchins and starfish, which felt really weird when they moved.

Further along the trail is a really nice sandy beach, where we spotted a small dead pufferfish.

We also saw tons and tons of sprouting coconuts!

After our hike we went back to the dock to yap and nap before presentations…

…and then again before dinner.

We ended the night back out on the dock, dangling a couple flashlights to attract fish. Initially we only attracted plankton, but soon we spotted and caught a ton of small fish, shrimp, glass eels, and even a squid!

Though we never made it to any reefs, today was a much needed and eventful rest day. Excited to get back out on the reefs though!

Ian C

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Day 12: Sea-ing a Squid!

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Today we finished our parrotfish study. We concluded that parrotfish mainly eat algae. On the reef Zoe and I saw numerous stoplight parrotfish. We met as a group for most of the morning and made our poster. In the afternoon we met to walk the trails around the island. We went to “the graveyard” which is a beach full of fossilized   corals and shells. We learned that these shells and corals all eventually become the limestone that forms the caves of Belize. It was really cool to see how the dead and bleached corals looked compared to the living ones that we have been seeing on the reef. We also saw several critters such as sea urchins, sea snails, a sea star, and more.

We also waded through the sea grass to see what we could find. The highlight was a huge crab and a couple fishes!

At night it was too windy for a night swim, so we dropped a light off the dock and observed and caught several things that were attracted to the light. The plankton is attracted to the light, which attracts the fish, and the fish’s predators. We were able to see glass eels (the larvae form of fish and eels that swim in open ocean), shrimp, fish, and a squid! Claire managed to catch the squid and we got to see it ink! We searched up what the glass eel was and it was a bone fish larvae.

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Day 12: Gotta catch ‘em all

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Today, in the morning, we got together as a group and analyzed our data from the fish follow surveys we did yesterday. One thing that was a little surprising to me was that the parrotfish were not regularly eating coral, but instead seemed to be scraping or pulling algae off the coral. I had thought that their diets would be primarily coral, but we learned that most parrotfish don’t actually eat living corals. We made a poster with some illustrations and tables showing what we had found and presented it out on the dock. At this point, by our third poster, we know the procedure by heart.

Working on the poster!

Later in the morning, we waded out into the shallow sea grass beds to collect critters for observation. We had to learn the stingray shuffle for safety—instead of taking big steps, take little shuffling steps, so that you don’t accidentally step on a stingray. That kicked up a ton of sand, so it was hard to see the bottom of the sea grass beds, but it still was possible to collect little sea creatures. We didn’t have to go far to find interesting things, and very quickly we were picking up small fish, crabs, and little arthropods. I was particularly won over by a larger snail we collected, which would intermittently shoot water at us out of the bucket. On our way back in, Elise caught a box jellyfish by accident, thinking it was something else. We quarantined it in its own tray for safety. We all came away unscathed, if a little sunburned.

Back in the lab, we broke out the microscopes to look at them closer. The seaweed samples we collected were teeming with life in the form of tiny epiphytes, and the creatures looked so interesting under the microscopes. We separated the crabs into an observation bucket as well—we couldn’t put them under the microscopes, of course, but we had little hand lenses we could use to look at them closer. We observed them until lunch and then, after lunch, released them off the dock.

My snail friend

In the afternoon, we hiked the interpretive trail around the island. It took us to the coral graveyard, a beach absolutely covered in fossilized coral. There were so many different types, although the branching corals did not survive as well as the mounding corals—because of their more fragile structure they tended to be more broken up. There were also fossil shells, including conch shells. Because they became more brittle when they fossilized, they were often broken and you could see the internal structure, which was super cool. I also found one which still had some of the original shell poking through the fossilized portions, which was neat. Unfortunately, the beach was also covered in trash, possibly from large storms. That was true for a bunch of the trail, which was a bummer because it was otherwise quite beautiful.

Half-fossilized conch in the coral graveyard

In the evening, we had planned to do a night snorkel but it was too windy and conditions were not safe. Instead, we dropped flashlights off the dock to attract fish and other interesting sea creatures. We caught some of them and put them in a bucket temporarily for closer observation. These included glass eels, the larval stage of the bone fish we had been seeing. Eventually we started to attract predators, including a small squid. We were all impressed, and started joking thst we should try and catch it. It was swimming close to the dock, but I assumed we wouldn’t be able to do it. Claire D gave it a shot and pulled it out of the water first try! It was super impressive. We observed it in the bucket for a little while watching it swim around, change colors, and even ink. Eventually, we decided it was time to release it and call it a night. What an experience! It’ll be hard to top.

Squid!!
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Day 12: Parrotfish Eating and Middle Caye Exploration!

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May 27, 2025

GRRS Day 3 

Today was a bit more of a chill day… all 16 of us I think are a little tired. Excited and happy to be here, but definitely tired. Luckily, there is amazing tropical field biology to be seen from the comfort of Middle Caye (the island GRRS sits on.) In the morning, we made a poster for the parrotfish experiment, presented it, then explored the shallow seagrass beds and found little snails, crabs, fish, and all sorts of cool things. I got sunburnt :/ 

The afternoon saw some cool stuff too, as we walked along the trail to the “coral graveyard” where Pleistocene-era corals are all fossilized on the beach. It was interesting to see how the graveyard faded into the water and eventually into a living reef, a testament to the geology of how the island came about and could possibly grow as those corals die and trap sediment. I also loved to see the life under these corals, as their fossils made a perfect habitat for snails, little crabs, and sea urchins! I saw something I’ve never seen before, a Bryozoan! The one thing I didn’t like about the coral graveyard was the amount of litter and rubbish everywhere, that was obviously washed up by the ocean. Made me sad to see it all, and wonder if there could be some volunteer project hosted by the WCS to clean it up. We also happened upon a beach, where we found an entire (open, full of seawater) bottle of gold rum. Also, an important note about the beach: all that sand is Wrasse (parrotfish) poop! Even though I didn’t see wrasses today, I certainly saw their effects!

At night, we were supposed to go snorkeling, but that did not happen due to weather conditions. We didn’t let it get us down though, as we had a great night of “night lighting” off the dock. Basically, we tied a light to a dock post and had it bobbing around for about an hour. We saw all sorts of cool things attracted to the light, including little shrimps, larval crabs, glass eels (larval stage of tarpon, bonefish, and eels) and a reef squid we named Angie (after our amazing cook at LCRS.) 

As we complete day 3, I realize we’re already more than halfway through the GRRS portion of our class. It is crazy to think that we will be landing in Houston in just a couple days! 

Images

Bryozoan found on flipped over fossilized coral
Parrotfish Eating Behaviors Poster
Angie the Reef Squid
2022

Day 7: Ending our Last Day at Glover’s with Lionfish Ceviche

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We went on our last snorkeling trip to collect data from a non marine protected reef. There is saw a significant amount of bladed fire coral. I also saw a Christmas tree worm that appeared to have bored inside of fire coral which I thought was very interesting because I thought, since fire coral was an athecate hydroid colony and a hard coral, many marine organisms would avoid them due to their stinging capabilities, but they seem to support many life forms.

I also saw and photographed this Caribbean Reef Squid which was very cool! I saw some color changes on the squid when two were together so I wonder if they were communicating.

 Later we dissected three lionfish ( named snack, appetizer, and main course). Our group dissected snack the smallest of the three. After collecting data we made our lionfish into ceviche dish! Muy delicioso!

Although I am sad to leave Glover’s, I have grown and learned so much. I’m so excited for the rainforest and to stay at Las Cuevas!

~ Maegan

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Stuck on Comb Jellies

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May 25, 2019

Today was a big day for Scyphozoa and Ctenophores, otherwise known as true jellyfish and comb jellies respectively. When we unloaded at one of our experiment locations, we had to quickly get back into the boat when we realized Moon Jellies (Aurelia aurita) were everywhere (they can deliver a painful sting), but that doesn’t mean I didn’t take a picture first.

There were also a lot of comb jellies (unknown species). These jellies look similar to jellyfish but are actually from a completely different phylum and use sticky cells called colloblasts to catch prey rather than stinging cells like jellyfish. This is why Amanda was able to safely hold one in her hand.

Eventually, our marine safety officer Herbie found a reef that wasn’t infested with jellyfish. While he was checking the area, he said he saw lots of squid and lionfish. I didn’t end up finding any squid myself, but I did get to watch Herbie spear one of the lionfish – they’re invasive to the Caribbean and eat a lot of important herbivorous fish populations.

Later, we went to the forereef, which was much deeper than the patch reefs inside the atoll. I got to see some living elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), a nurse shark, several southern sting rays, and a very linear group of small squid.