DIVE DRY WITH DR. BILL #897: YET ANOTHER MYSTERY

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

drbill

The Lorax for the Kelp Forest
Scuba Legend
Rest in Peace
Messages
22,824
Reaction score
6,061
Location
Santa Catalina Island, CA
# of dives
2500 - 4999
DIVE DRY WITH DR. BILL #897: YET ANOTHER MYSTERY

Albert Einstein reportedly said "The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science." Well, in my scientific pursuits ranging from the galaxies of the Universe to the critters in a tidepool, I've come across many mysteries. Some I've solved, often with the help of more knowledgeable people than myself. Some I have yet to understand even with the help of such folks.

For decades I've noted unusual patches of yellow clinging to our subtidal rocks around Catalina. Early on I referred to them as unidentified yellow snot. Very scientific of me! All the images I've taken of them were in May of various years. Thanks to my high definition (HD) camcorder I could easily detect the presence of what must be eggs within these masses. This suggests a critter that must mate around this time of year. I don't remember ever seeing these masses in any other month.

I took several HD images of the yellow mysteries on a recent weekend in May. They were abundant in the dive park which made finding them quite easy. However a touch of surge made filming them a challenge since I didn't want the front port of my video housing crunching up against the rocks. Wouldn't be prudent, right Dana Carvey?

I sent the images to several experts at places like the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History (LACMNH), the California Academy of Sciences and others. Years ago when I taught at the Toyon School on Catalina Island my students and I had collected large numbers of fish down in Mexico for scientists at the Museum. We were down there for a three week interim studying the marine and terrestrial biology around Bahia de Kino on the mainland coast near the Midriff Islands. Oops, I digress...

I assumed the eggs entrained in the yellow mass came from some snail in our waters. One of the experts at the LACMNH wasn't so sure about that and said they might be fish eggs instead. I posted images on marine identification pages on Facebook. To date no one has been able to offer even a guess as to what critter might have laid them.

John Fowles in The Magus wrote "we need the mystery in our lives... the unanswerable." Well, as a scientist I seek answers to the mysterious. I need answers. But then, I'm a Gemini. The other side of me, the spiritual/artistic/whatever, values the mysterious. So I'm torn on this one!

© 2021 Dr. Bill Bushing. For the entire archived set of over 900 "Dive Dry" columns, visit my website Star Thrower Educational Multimedia (S.T.E.M.) Home Page

Image caption: Yellow masses of unidentified eggs and a close-up on the lower right.

DDDB 897 snail eggs mystery sm.jpg
 
You're right, it does look like yellow snot. So not some sort of tunicate?
 
Interesting. How about getting a small sample to someone or a service that does DNA barcoding for species identification?
 
I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty sure I have seen this while diving on the northern coast of Bali. Immediately though of it as yellow snot as well. Didn't know there were eggs in there though.
 
I mentioned that these sightings occurred within a marine protected area so they couldn't be collected. A week later I dove outside the MPA and the yellow snot was gone.
 

Back
Top Bottom