How To Be A Mermaid/Marine Biologist
Looking throughout old sketchbooks of rockfish and found these from my NOAA/NMFS days as a Research Fisheries Biologist. Fun, fun, fun…. contemplating Quillback Stock Assessment. oh the memories of analyzing all the West Coast spatially enabled trawl data for groundfishes, making conclusions about Rockfish Conservation Areas and other such mer-things.
Quillback Stock Assessment
Flag Rockfish
Map of The Coral Triangle
~Mermaid Territory of the East Indies~
This informative watercolored map will be in the introduction of the Mermaid Scientist ABC Book
Stingers aka Nematocysts
Detail from N is for Nudibranch – because nudibranchs use their sea slug slime to eat nematocysts.
A little embellishment for The Mermaid Scientist Alphabet Book; O is for Octopus.
Hammerhead shark heads.
Embellishments for the text pages in Mermaid Scientist Alphabet Book
Coral Doodles
Original watercolors are for sale at Mama Ganache Chocolate Shop in downtown San Luis Obispo, California
Thank you to everyone for coming out to enjoy some art and wine and chocolate!
I feel grateful to have such classy fantastic friends and family!
All the Mermaid Scientist art, prints and cards will be on display & for sale June and July at Mama Ganache Artisan Chocolate.
Schedule for June and July Art After Dark
Pyllacanthus imperialis – Imperial Pencil Urchin
Echinometra mathaei – Matha’s Sea Urchin
Mesplia globula – Jewel Case Sea Urchin
Tagalog/Tagbanua: Tayong
There is a lovely variety of colorful sea urchins with all lengths and sizes of spines in the Coral Triangle. The Imperial Pencil Urchin is a dramatic orange maroon, Matha’s Sea Urchin has brown white tipped spines like a hedgehog and the Jewel case urchin has a vibrant royal blue that shines within the sea grass beds.
R is for Reef Realestate
Native Name: Bahura
The Reef is an underwater ocean city
Made of the colors & creatures also found in the depths of your imagination.
Brilliant blue angels & purple porcupines
Tangerine sponges & lemon sharks
Dolphin queens & dugong kings
Creepy crawlers, poisonous spines, silky pearls & polka dots
of every shape and size.
Some eat plants, some eat each other.
Forever living, forever breathing, watching, building, swimming and eating.
They dance, enchant and take your breath away.
Forever & ever & ever
Q is for Quinque
Scientific Name: Quinquelineatus
Common Name: Five-lined snapper
Tagalog: Maya maya
A lot can be found in a name.
This is a school of Five Lined Snapper aka Lutjanus quinqueliniatus
We enjoy swimming and eating together over the coral reef.
Quinque means five.
Qunique is an important part of our scientific name.
It describes who we are and what we look like.
We have five of something, can you figure out what?
Hint: it’s long and blue.
N is for Nematocyst Nipping Nudibranchs
Scientifice name: Chromodoris elizabethina (left) & Chromodoris annulata
Tagalog: Dugo Dugo
“Nudis” are a brightly beautiful group of sea snails without shells. When you are a tiny, squishy sea creature with out a shell, you can feel a little nude and unprotected. Anemones don’t have shells either but they do have stingers. Nudis have a special way to collect anemone stingers (aka nematocyts).
First they go up to the anemone and touch it to make sure it is really an anemone. Then they retreat back to a safe distance. Next, they charge back to the anemone and start munching on the dangerous tentacles, they swallow the stingers and absorb their power. Soon the little Nudi is able to sting like an anemone. This is why Nudibranchs eat the poisonous stingers off of anemone tentacles. Stingers are not just delicious treat for these brilliant little sea slugs.
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.
Mermaid Scientist 