Back to work

Seems like it might be time to crank up the old starfish.  I'll be teaching evolution and vertebrate zoology this semester, along with an online offering in biogeography.  This makes for a nice way to share some ideas outside the classroom.  The main problem is overcoming inertia, which gets harder and harder with passing time.  If the posts seem a little forced, especially early on, bear with me.  We'll get there. 

As always, I'll focus here on the things I teach, and the things that fascinate interest my students and me.  That's fish, all things evolutionary, and assorted other items.  Sometimes we get distracted.



Mary Lee being tagged.

As a motivation to get going, I'll share this item on Ocearch.  It was brought to my attention by my daughter, currently residing in Jacksonville, FL.  Ocearch describe themselves as a "non-profit organization with a global reach for unprecedented research on the ocean's giants."  One of their preoccupations happens to be great white sharks, which they tag and track across the world.  One of their tagged great whites is Mary Lee, pictured at right.  Mary Lee, 16 feet long weighing almost 3500 pounds, was tagged last September off Cape Cod.  She spent the fall moving down the Atlantic Coast.  What caught my daughter's eye was the fact that, as of midnight on January 8th, Mary Lee was swimming in the surf zone off Jacksonville Beach.  She's moved a bit offshore over the last couple of days.  You can see where she is now if you follow the links on the Ocearch page, as well as follow a number of other tagged fish.  Pretty amazing stuff.