How To Be A Mermaid/Marine Biologist
All smiles! I won the bid with NOAA/NMFS to create an educational rockfish kids science book & poster!! Drawings of canary rockfish, yellow eye rockfish & bocaccio coming soon!
Nothing like catching a big fish contract!
Photo throwback to catching the biggest fish in Palau
For no good reason there is a prevalent fallacy spread through many areas of the third world that a boy’s education in more important than a girl’s. This was a harsh fact for a liberal, educated California girl to come to terms with in my travels. This is also the reason I began a program in the East Indies, The Mermaid Islands Corp.; to help educate girls.
The powerful First Lady Michelle Obama has gracefully started a campaign to raise awareness to the 62 million girls denied access to education. Mermaid Scientist and Mermaid Islands embody this spirit and certainly my band of sea fans do too! So, just in case you missed it, this is the First Lady’s message:
“In school, we learn that our voices matter. Tweet or Instagram
a black and white portrait and share what you learned in school:
“In school, I learned ____. #62MillionGirls don’t have that chance.””
In support of this inspiring program and with my optimistic hope that the more we talk about the importance of educating girls, the more girls will gain access to an education and consequently whole universes of possibilities! Check out 62milliongirls.com to see all the cute little kid celebrity photos, my favorite has got to be Mindy Kaling.
here is mine:
Join the movement and tweet or Instagram yours too,
what a fun and easy way to get involved!
P is for Purple Parrotfish Poop
Scientific Name: Scarus niger
Palawan: Mol Mol, Tagalog: Loro Loro
These Parrotfish are one of many contributors to the beautiful tropical white sand beaches in The Coral Triangle. They are particularly fond of eating the algae film that grows on coral. They chomp into the coral with their beak (actually fused teeth) to get a mouthful of both coral and algae. The crushed coral helps the fish digest the algae and is then pooped out in the form of particularly perfect, soft, white sand. Next time you are relaxing on your tropical vacation, remember to thank the parrotfish.
Side Note: These particularly pretty purple parrotfish look most like the male Swarthy Parrotfish – Scarus niger. The ones observed here have slightly different spot patterns behind the eyes but it could be a local variation or due to a shift between initial and terminal phases. This is the way I saw them so this is the way I paint them. There is also that glorious possibility that they are a new species, sigh, the scientific holy grail.
pen ketch of Female (above) and Male (below)
O is for Octopus
Scientific name: Amphioctopus marginatus
Tagalog: Pugita
The Coconut Octopus of The Coral Triangle is a multi-talented mollusk. He can change color to tell you how he’s feeling, solve puzzles, catch fish, blow ink, swim, crawl, explore, befriend mermaids
AND, most impressively, he joins the elite group of species on planet earth who use tools. His favorites include coconuts and clam shells and uses them for protection. Like the nudibranch, he is a soft and squishy little guy who feels exposed and naked when walking across the ocean floor. A clam shell acts like an army helmet or bunker, making a safe place to hide when a hungry sea monster attacks.
Video: http://bcove.me/u67wa3sj
M is for Mola Mola
Scientific Name: Mola mola
The Mola Mola is also known as The Sunfish because she likes to bask in the sun. She dives into the cold dark depths of the ocean to fill up her belly with jellyfish. When the cool deep waters chill her bones, she swims all the way back up, up, up to the surface, lies on her side and soaks up the warm sun rays. Sometimes a sea bird will drop down and pick off all the little hitchhiking bugs on her tail. Because they are so slow and docile, they are the most highly parasitized fish in the ocean (Disgustingly long tape worms are a common hitchhiker).
The little orange fish on the left is a baby picture, from when she was a teeny tiny microscopic mola mola floating in the plankton as she grew and grew. Molas are the largest teleosts and grow from 10 microns to over 10 feet wide.
K is for Krill
Scientific name: Euphausia fallax
Tagalog: Alamang
A Krill is different than a shrimp and different than a prawn.
Krill are Krill.
They are open ocean travelers and the size of a jellybean
They munch of delicious green diatoms.
Their sheer numbers are a super force that
create a floating cloud with the power to turn the immense blue ocean a radical shade of pink.
Everyone in the sea depends on these tiny pink crustaceans to keep things running smoothly.
The power of one pales with the power of a billion trillions!
J is for Jellyfish loving Juvenile Jack
Scientific name: Gnathanodon speciosus
Tagalog: Leson & Labong Labong
Juvenile Jacks love Giant Jellyfish.
They have tough skin so the jellyfish tentacles only sting a little bit.
Having jellyfish protection when a big fish wants to eat you is worth a little sting.
This bright yellow jack is also known as Golden Trevally and like most trevally, they get HUGE.
Jacks are truly a « Jack of all trades ». Jacks patrol their reef, but they can also compete in the open ocean or expore sandy shallows or swim around the mangroves.
They are large and in charge predators and even boss around the reef sharks.
At least they are once they grow up, and to do that they have to survive with tricks like swimming with jellyfish.
E is for Elongate Eel
Tagalog: Indong
Scientific Name: Gymnothorax isingteena
aka The Spotted Moray
This eel is an eeeelongate fish, his long body is ideally suited to squeeze through small holes in the reef and chase small fishes for dinner.
An interesting hunting partnership developed between Moray eels and Groupers. The Grouper sees where a school of fish have hidden themselves from him in the coral reef, because he is too big to go into these small holes he goes off to find his friend the eel. This eel is a bit nearsighted so the grouper floats right in front of his face and shakes his head back and forth, back and forth. this is their secret code for: “I know where there are some tasty small fish, follow me”. The eel follows the grouper to the place in the reef where the small fish are hiding. He wriggles in and chases them out for the grouper to catch and hopefully manages to catch a few for himself along the way.
Tagalog: Gasung
Scientific name: Corallium spp.
We all live attached together underneath the big blue sea.
Up close we each resemble an itty bitty Anemone.
Call us Coral
These gentle “sea cows” share the Order Sirenia (mermaid) with manatees. They graze in the underwater meadows of tropical sea grasses but are not complete vegetarians. Every once in awhile, they munch on a slow moving jellyfish, polychete worm, or sea squirt.
I discovered that the shy curious Dugong is attracted to surfboards. There is a nice little right point break near… (nope, not telling, he he he), where Dugongs pop their big noses out of the water, investigating you and the surfboard’s dugong-like silhouette. Gentle, graceful marine mammals, it IS like meeting a mermaid.
They are traditionally eaten in this area but are now protected. Being endangered and charismatic aquatic mammals, they bring significant tourist dollars to Busuanga. 30+ Dugongs now swim in the waters around northern Palawan and this year there were 3 calves.
Mermaid Scientist 