Spotted Sea Hare

The Spotted Sea Hare (Aplysia dactylomela)

The Spotted Sea Hare is a large marine slug that is relatively common in Bermuda. It grows to about 15 cm (6 inches) in length. The leathery skin is light brown, tan or olive and covered by large and small black rings and fine black lines. Sea Hares have a very thin shell inside of their bodies. If disturbed a Sea Hare will squirt violet purple ink. The ink is harmless to humans (but it will stain), but is thought to be an irritant to fish and other potential predators.

Sea Hare releasing ink The Spotted Sea Hare can be found in tide pools along the rocky shore. It can also be found in shallow water on sandy or rocky bottoms with dense algae growth, and in seagrass beds. They feed on algae, mostly intertidal red algae.

Spotted Sea Hares are hermaphrodites, meaning they are both male and female at the same time, so they can mate with any other Sea Hare that comes along. They lay thin strings of jelly-like eggs along the rocky shore.

The Spotted Sea Hare in this video was found in a tide pool where it was using its nose (the two frilly parts on the front of its head) to search for red algae.

Great Egret

Great Egret (Ardea albus)

 Anyone who has visited the Spittal Pond Nature Reserve in the last month has probably noticed at least two large white birds around the pond. The Great Egret is a migrant species that frequently overwinters in Bermuda. Great Egrets are distinctive because of their size, they can reach up to 1 m (3 feet) tall; and the wing span may be twice this. Their snow white coloration is also distinctive. The Great Egret has a yellow bill and black legs and feet.

The birds can be seen feeding in wetland habitats like Spittal Pond and Seymour’s Pond where they catch lizards, small fish, and frogs and may even eat small rats. When the Egret is hunting it straightens its long neck and leans forward intently watching its target. It then darts forward to spear the prey with its sharp straight bill. If the bird is disturbed it will rise slowly into the air and fly away with its neck folded into its body and may make a ‘chuck chuck’ call.

Spanish Moss

Spanish Moss (Tillandsia usneoides)

Known locally as ‘Old Man’s Beard’, Spanish moss appears as masses of hanging feathery, silvery-green “threads”, often seen on old Bermuda cedars (Juniperus bermudiana).

This air-plant is part of the bromeliad family and not actually a moss. It is the most widely distributed member of the Bromeliaceae family, occurring throughout  tropical and subtropical America.

Spanish moss has no roots. Instead, the entire surface of the shoot is covered with highly specialized trichomes (scales) which absorb water and nutrients from the atmosphere. It is an epiphyte (a plant that grows on another plant) and hangs in festoons up to 30m long. However, the apparent length of the plants is due to numerous shorter individual plants, usually 15 to 25cm long, which overlap each other. It grows in a zigzagging pattern, and tangles around itself and its support. While it is not parasitic its weight may damage the branches of its host tree and can slow down tree growth by blocking sunlight.

 

Tillandsia usneoides reproduces both sexually and vegetatively. It flowers in the summer, often abundantly, although the tiny, pale yellow-green to blue, solitary flowers are inconspicuous. The flowers last about four days and have a pleasant, subtle fragrance, which attracts a variety of insect pollinators.

The fruits are tiny, cylindrical capsules, which split and release the seeds the following winter. Seed dispersal is aided by delicate hairs, 1 to 2 cm long, which act as a parachute. These hairs are covered with tiny barbs, which anchor in the cracks of rough bark or other sites. (Source: Kew Gardens)

It can also reproduce by fragments of the plant being blown by the wind or by birds using it for nesting material. Spanish moss may own its unusually extensive range largely to powerful hurricane winds.  Powerful hurricane winds may also have aided the spread of Spanish Moss throughout its extensive native range in the Americas.

USES

Epiphytic plants such as Tillandsia usneoides are very useful as bioindicators for air quality. Since these plants obtain their nutrients and water from the air, their tissues contain nearly the same levels of elements, including pollutants, as the atmosphere they grow in. Research has shown that Spanish moss is a particularly reliable indicator of metal pollutants in the air. (Source: Kew Gardens)

T. usneoides yields a tough, elastic fibre from the non-living vascular tissues of the stem. This fibre resembles black horse hair and was once of major economic importance. To obtain the fibre, festoons of the plants were harvested from trees using long poles (up to a tonne from one tree) and "cured" by burying the plant material in pits or trenches until the living, greenish tissues decayed and only the black vascular tissues remained.

The resulting fibre was used as stuffing material for upholstery in furniture, cars and mattresses; it was also used in ropes and floor mats. Manufacturers in Liverpool were using Spanish moss imported from America as mattress filling in the 1840s. It has now been largely replaced with synthetic fibre, but T. usneoides is occasionally used in arts and crafts, in upholstery and insulation. It is a popular garden mulch and is used in the florist industry to hold moisture at the base of flower arrangements. It is also used throughout Latin America as a Christmas ornament.

Native American tribes used T. usneoides for livestock feed, as a binding agent in clay bricks and plaster, and for kindling. Women wove the fibre into the fabric of their dresses. It was used in medicine for a range of purposes, and has many uses in contemporary herbal medicine in Latin America. For example, preparations of the plant are used on haemorrhoids, abscesses and tumours, and are taken orally for heart, liver and lung ailments. Research has shown that T. usneoides has antiviral, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic activities, among others, that may support its use in herbal remedies. (Source: Kew Gardens)

Reference:

Most of the information above was found on the Kew Royal Botanical Gardens Royal Botanic Gardens Kew website at www.kew.org. Kew is a scientific institution, using its extensive collections of living and preserved plants to form an encyclopedia of knowledge about the plant kingdom.

Tiger Sharks

Tiger Sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier)

 

The tiger shark is one of the largest sharks in the ocean, capable of attaining a length of over 5 m (16 ft). This shark typically reaches maturity at lengths of 2 to 3 m (6.6 to 9.8 ft) and weighs around 385–635 kilograms (849–1,400 lb). Tiger sharks are ovoviviparous, which means the shark eggs are fertilized and carried within the mother. They are born in litters between 30 and 55 pups, while pregnancy last between 15 and 16 months.  At birth the pups are 20 to 30 inches (50-75 cm) and completely independent. Females mate once every three years.

Tiger sharks are seasonal visitors to the island, with the largest numbers found at Argus and Challenger banks between the months of July and October. The sharks move north for the summer and often east of Bermuda, some staying well out in open water.  In the winter the sharks move south towards the Bahamas or Caribbean for months in close association with island habitats.

Tiger sharks are found in tropical and sub-tropical waters and they usually hunt alone and feed primarily at night. This shark eats fish, seals, squid, birds, turtles, stingrays, sea snakes and they also eat other sharks. These beautiful sharks have special gill slit (spiracle) behind the eyes that provides oxygen flow directly to the eyes and brain. They also have really good eyesight and great sense of smell. Tiger sharks' skins can typically range from blue to light green with a white or light yellow underbelly. Dark spots and stripes are most visible in young sharks and fade as the shark matures. Its teeth are specialized to slice through flesh, bone, and other tough substances such as turtle shells. Like most sharks, however, its teeth are continually replaced by rows of new teeth.

The tiger shark is captured and killed for its fins, flesh, and liver. It is caught regularly in target and non-target fisheries. There is evidence of declines for several populations where they have been heavily fished, but in general they do not face a high risk of extinction. However, continued demand, especially for fins, may result in further declines in the future. Tiger sharks are considered a near threatened species due to excessive finning and fishing by humans according to International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). While shark fin has very few nutrients, shark liver has a high concentration of vitamin A which is used in the production of vitamin oils. In addition, the tiger shark is captured and killed for its distinct skin, as well as by big game fishers.

 By Dept. Conservation Services Summer student Mr. Edwin Dill - thanks Edwin!

Purple Ocean Snail or Purple Sea Snail

Purple Ocean Snail (Janthina janthina)

The Purple Sea Snail or Purple Ocean Snail has a delicate shell that grows up to 3.5 cms (1.4 inches) across and is light purple on top and dark purple below. This remarkable mollusc has adapted to life on the open ocean. It spends its life hanging from a raft made of mucous bubbles filled with gas that the snail creates and carefully maintains. This life raft of bubbles keeps the snail at the sea surface where it hunts for food. It mainly eats other ocean drifters such as Portuguese-man-of-war jellyfish, Blue Ocean Slugs and Velella.

 The Janthina on its little raft of bubbles is carried wherever the wind or the ocean currents take it. Often after storms or when the wind has been consistently blowing on-shore for several days, rows of Purple Ocean Snails, Sargassum weed and other open ocean creatures can be found washed up on Bermuda’s beaches.

The closely related Pallid Janthina (Janthina pallida) is also rarely found in Bermuda. It is smaller, the shell is more highly domed and is a uniform lavender colour.

Janthina janthina shells are usually the size of a penny, but can grow up to twice that size. They are lavender on top and dark purple below.