Christmas related organisms!

To get into the Christmas spirit I thought I would have a quick countdown of my top 8 Christmas related marine organisms. So, here they are!

8. Shepherd's beaked whale (Tasmacetus shepherdi)

7. Angel sharks (Squatina spp.)

6. Western snowy plover (Charadrius nivosus)

5. Christmas wrasse (Halichoeres ornatissimus)

4. Jingle shells (Anomiidae family)

3. Candy cane goby (Awaous flavus)

2. Snowflake moray eel (Echidna nebulosa)

1. Christmas tree worm (Spirobranchus giganteus)

It's not a big surprise that the Christmas tree worm gained my number one spot! They are one of the most beautiful marine invertebrates you will ever see and they come in such a wide variety of colours.

Thanks for reading!

A new species of pufferfish...you may just recognise!

One really interesting piece of scientific research I fell in love with recently was the discovery of a new pufferfish species, Torquigener albomaculosus. The common name of this new species is the white-spotted pufferfish.

The discovery of a new species of animal has always interested me. I particularly loved the discovery of T. albomaculosus as it displays a very unique behavioural characteristic which you can view by clicking here. So, you probably gathered from the video that T. albomaculosus was featured on the hit BBC series 'Life Stories'. 

The story behind the discovery of T. albomaculosus is a really interesting one. For about 20 years, strange circles were appearing on the seabed around the Amami-oshima coast of the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. SCUBA divers had no idea what was creating these weird and wonderful patterns such as this one:

These underwater 'crop circles' are about 2 metres in diameter and are easily characterised by their spoke-like appearance. But what was creating them? It wasn't discovered until 3 years ago when an underwater photographer, Yoji Okata, managed to capture one of these pufferfish of the Torquigener genus actually constructing the circle.The photographs taken by Yoji Okata were clear enough to identify that this was however a new species of Torquigener based on their colour pattern.

A team of researchers then went out in May, 2014 and were able to collect a male and female of this species so that they could properly study the morphology of T. albomaculosus. If you want to read further into the actual study, here is a link to the paper by Matsuura (2014). 

I found this article really interesting as I recently saw quite a lot of different pufferfish species whilst I was on a field course to Egypt. These species like the masked pufferfish (Arothron diadematus) and the bristly pufferfish (Arothron hispidus), which is shown in this picture I took:

Many thanks again for reading!

Reference: Matsuura, K. 2014. A new pufferfish of the genus Torquigener that builds "mystery circles" on sandy bottoms in the Ryukyu Islands, Japan (Actinopterygii: Tetraodontiformes: Tetraodontidae). Icthyological Research. 1-6.

Who I am and what I do...

Why, hello everybody! My name is Jamie and I am a 4th year student at the University of Glasgow.  I study Marine and Freshwater Biology and I absolutely love my degree.

When I entered into the big bad world of biology at university I had no idea the journey I would be in for. A lot of people simply think that marine biology is "looking at fish". This however is far from the truth! So what exactly is marine biology?

I would class marine biology as being a variety of other subjects all brought together. The main component of marine biology is indeed animal biology but it's not just fish. You also get a vast number of invertebrates, marine mammals and turtles but to name a few.
Other areas of marine biology include: oceanography, water chemistry, geography, environmental law, speciation, ecology, conservation, microbiology, animal physiology, statistics, experimental design and even a bit of politics. Again, this is only a few aspects of marine biology as the list goes on and on!

So, what parts of marine biology am I interested in? I have a really big soft spot for invertebrates and seabirds. A project I am currently doing is looking at how the morphology and fitness levels of a reef-building marine polychaete worm varies across different parts of its reef ecosystem.

I hope to go on to do postgraduate study once I have completed by BSc (Hons) and my ultimate ambition is to become a research lecturer at a university. I hope one day, after all the hard work, to achieve this dream.

I hope this blog will help me express my scientific views with the world (which can be a bit loopy at times). I also hope to post about current research that I find interesting and host chats with my fellow university students as to what they are up to, what they find interesting etc. I will also post about any projects that I am currently doing.

Please check out Kirsty's blog as well. She is a good friend of mine from university: http://kcmcwhinnie.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/to-start.html?spref=tw

If you feel this blog will be interesting to you then please follow me! Many thanks for reading!

P.S. this is a photo I recently got whilst on a field course to Egypt!