9 Nov 2018 by Cassie Fries
Hello from the night shift, even though I am writing this at 9 am, which to me is late at night. It’s confusing but when I say, “the sun is setting!” at sunrise, just go with it—it makes sense. It’s about a week into the cruise and things have really picked up. We have been doing tows every night and catching a good amount of ‘biology,’ our catchall word for every little critter we get.
My job is to get data for g-measurements (density-measurements) on the different animals caught. To collect the data, I have to get the density contrast of the animal. This involves putting the animals in a beaker of seawater and adding a mix of seawater and glycerin to be able to make them buoyant. So far, I’ve been able to take measurements of pyrosomes, krill, shrimp, fish, and phyllosoma.
Phyllosoma are larval lobsters, but at this stage they resemble almost nothing like the lobsters you eat. With a translucent, thin body, and very long appendages, it’s hard to be able to see how these grow into the lobsters we know and love.
