By Clarissa, Eric, Magdalena, and Sabrina

Today was all about eating! And I don’t just mean the food that Tom works so hard to prepare. Sea stars and earwigs were the animals chomping away today.

We started off the day with some manipulated experiments in the Lab with the earwigs we collected the day before.  We experimented with different sized females, males, and their individual mate choices. Earwig competition may not sound very exciting or glamorous, but we were in for a surprising show! We were testing whether a small female or a large female would win in a fight for a shelter when one of our large females became vicious. She stabbed the smaller female with her pointed forceps and chewed off the smaller female’s forceps to prevent a counter-attack. With the small female weakened, there was no way for her to prevent the large female from slowly eating her over the course of ten minutes. Although that trial did not give us reliable data about which earwig would take the shelter, it helped us learn a harsh lesson about survival of the fittest in the natural world. We gave the dead earwig a brief send-off and returned to our work.

The set-up for our earwig experiments, featuring a just-molted earwig.

The next meal was a picnic at Friday Harbor Labs. While we ate, Tim Dwyer discussed our final projects. We all are coming up with scientific questions of our own to answer. By Thursday, we’ll have made posters with our findings!

Next on the menu: anemones! We set up an experiment about leather sea stars eating anemones with PhD candidate Chris Wells. For 2 hours, we meticulously observed our echinoderm and cnidarian friends to see who would win the fight. Anemones are surprisingly aggressive little buggers and none of our sea stars managed to subdue a snack.  The sea stars spent most of the time hiding in the corners of the tank while the anemones waved their stinging cells threateningly. Thanks to Chris for some fun hours in the sun!

One of our sea stars climbing the side of the tank to escape the terrifying anemones.

Cornflakes (Evy) and others set up the tanks for the animals.

For the final food of the day, we ate pizza prepared by the dinner prep team. Now, we’re about to chow down on popcorn while watching The Princess and the Frog. We’ll see you all on the other side!

By Magdalena, Sabrina, Clarissa, and Eric

Bunny bananza with Beatrice, oh my! We went out on a survey with Beatrice Grauman-Boss, an undergraduate working at the Friday Harbor Labs who gave us a presentation earlier on her work with sand dollar larvae cloning. The wind picked up as we went and the seeds got everywhere in our shoes, but counting these bunnies is incredibly important! The rabbits are an invasive species that was brought to San Juan Island in the 1880s. The animals have no natural predators and are destroying the local plant life while competing with other small mammals. Our job was to count their active burrows to estimate the population.

To count the burrows, we walked up and down the hill while holding a transect tape. There were 5 meters between each of us and we were supposed to walk in a straight line. Somehow, this was a skill we couldn’t master. It took a lecture from Rugby Tim about how straight lines work for us to get our act together.

Sabrina front and center during our survey.

Unfortunately, we saw very few rabbits. Instead, there were small foxes to entertain us. Enjoy an example of Victoria’s photography below!

A running fox!

The fun continued with a soccer game after lunch, led by Rugby Tim. Some of us worked on our teamwork while others of us ran from the ball. The final score was 3-5, but everyone won in their hearts.

The next half of the day was centered on the Other Tim, or Tim Dwyer as he is also called. He led us in a scientific scuba diving activity where he and his diving buddy Chris filmed their dive beneath the Friday Harbor Lab dock. There was a TV above water that was a live feed of what they were filming with their underwater camera. They captured several nudibranchs for later study and showed us the glamorous life of a scientific scuba diver.

All of us watching the divers on the TV.

Tim Dwyer waving at us.

Tim Dwyer continued to impress during his presentation on diving underneath the Antarctic ice. He told us about a phenomenon called polar gigantism where some animals can grow to humongous sizes. In the Southern Sea, one sea star can grow a meter long! His photography was breathtaking and we were all impressed at his ability to swim in water less than 32 degrees Fahrenheit.

We then wrapped our day up by judging ice cream! We channeled our inner food critic and tasted the different types of ice cream created by the residents of the Friday Harbor Labs. Saffron, Jalapeno Face, and Cherry Limeade were all popular flavors. Pina Kelplada was made by the Botany class and won the class competition. Congrats Botany team on your prestigious accomplishment!

After a long day of science and silliness, we are ready to sleep and excited for the hike tomorrow!