Update from the outer banks

It's been a good week down here at the beach.  Perfect weather for a few days giving way to wind and rain today.  We saw lots of interesting wildlife, from your standard shells and crab parts on the beach, a good diversity of shore birds, a pod of dolphins, one whale, a fox and lots of deer.

Here's a little practice with your knowledge of Atlantic Coast mollusks.  How many of the following taxa can you name:

And here are some shots of taxa that we will work with in lab this week - Arthropods and Echinoderms. The sea star on the left (the genus Asterias) was pretty fresh, but dead, and became a bit smelly over the last few days.  The other sea star is Astropecten.  The crabs are all specimens of Persephona punctata - a purse crab.  There were lots of these washed up on the beach.

Check back for another post tomorrow that will have some video on types of breakers.  This will be one of our topics for Monday's class.