Quiz 3: Try Googling This!

Background:
One of the more disgusting things that scientists of the world get to do it diet studies. This may not sound bad in principle but how do you truly figure out what and how much of what an animal has eaten. This is a particularly tricky task for marine animals since it is very difficult to observe them for any significant amount of time.

The best way of finding out what an animal has eaten is look at what is inside that animal. Yep, that's right. You have to catch the animal, kill it, and then dissect its innards to find out what kind of animals are in its digestive track. To the untrained eye most things just look like a pile of goo since they are inevitably in some sort of decomposed state but believe it or not people become very good at identifying those piles of goo.

The fact that there are indigestible parts of animals is a huge help to scientists that perform these studies. Body part such as bones, otoliths, beaks and eye lenses can all be counted and potentially linked to a specific prey.

Question:
And so we finally arrive at the questions, how do you tell the difference between fish eye lenses and squid eye lens?
ANSWER:
Keith is correct. Squid and fish eye lenses are different shapes. Fish eyes are sphere shape and squid eyes have a flat surface. Keith you are ready to dig into some guts and start describing food chains.

Big Spiders

We spent Sunday climbing at Pinnacles in preparation for the Red Rocks trip. It was a great day, we managed to stay in the shade except on anchor of the last few routes. We got to see a lot of wildlife too. Before arriving at the craig we spotted three hairy spiders aka tarantulas. First wild tarantulas we had ever seen.
The photo above shows how well they blend in with the ground, you can just make out it's last legs and abdomen in front of Louie as it leaves the road. I made Lou take the close up pictures as I didn't really want to get that close.


We also saw frogs, two soaring CA condors, woodpeckers stashing acorns for the winter and deer. We even made a new friend! Any who, it was a good day. Now we are counting down to Red Rocks and Thanksgiving, 6 days until mayhem begins and we can't wait!

This is from last month, Louie spent a weekend in Yosemite with Graham, Greta, Jake and Emily. They had a grand ol' time. I thought this was a great pic of Graham.

We only got one photo from our weekend in Tahoe, and this is it. Good times with family and friends!

October/November

Time for an update. Since our last post we have continued to have fun outside and I have been making progress on my thesis.
I am taking a diving class this fall. Last week we were diving with a foraging sea otter and the week before we got to dive in the Monterey Bay Aquarium's kelp forest exhibit. It has all been awesome. Check out the MBA exhibit live link at http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/efc_kelp/kelp_underwatercam.asp
In the mornings between 9-10 they have a diver in there to feed the fish. While you are checking out the site you can print out a sea food watch card, they recently put together one for sushi.
Louie has spent some weekends without me in Yosemite. He met up with Jake and Emily, and Graham and Greta last month for a fabulous weekend in the park while I made progress on my thesis.
Halloween weekend was the annual Tahoe trip with my Grampa Don. We were joined by a new cast of characters (new to the Tahoe weekend), including Louie's mom, her boyfriend and his daughter, my grandpa's girlfriend Pam, and Jake and Emily.
The weekend started on Halloween night in Sacramento. Louie and I dressed as Dr. Seus's Thing 1 and Thing 2 complete with silly string, water gun, and balloons for props. It is good fun to create small bits of mischief at a party where you only know two other people.
Saturday night we spent several hours at the casino. Emily played 4 hours of blackjack and didn't lose any money! I sat down at a roulette table and placed 6 chips on number 23. The ball was tossed spinning around and coming to rest on......23! The first spin! One spin and I doubled my gambling money. One spin and I was cashing in, a short successful night of gambling for me. Jake played some roulette later and won all the chips in his color!
Most of our group walked out of the casino with some extra money or at least even, and we all had fun.
We played a great game of Pictionary and went on a group run. There was a lot of rain this year so no climbing, but there was great company, good food, and a welcome soak in the hottub.

One week into November and we are preparing for our Thanksgiving vacation. Louie and I are much looking forward to some time climbing at Red Rocks with a slew of friends we don't get to see often enough. At the last head count we will be joined by Pete, Keith, Jake, Graham, Garrett, and Eric. After four days of climbing we are headed to Boulder to meet up with even more of our fantastic friends for Thanksgiving feasting and other festivities.

Look for a third quiz question coming soon. Melanie is two for two, any challengers out there?
First person to correctly answer three quiz questions will receive a treat from the Fraurer's bakery.