Such nice due to all who helped with the choice of pictures for my 2024 WILD calendar. They’re now out there and may be ordered at this hyperlink.
My WILD Calendar is aimed toward creating consciousness in regards to the variety and fragility of life hidden within the chilly, darkish, life-sustaining northeast Pacific Ocean. It’s the waters darkish with plankton which have extra life, produce extra oxygen, and buffer extra carbon dioxide.
It’s the fifteenth 12 months I’ve made a WILD Calendar. I’m so grateful to all who put these calendars into the world. You’re serving to improve connection and understanding of our reliance on the Ocean. That’s wanted to make the choices, day-by-day, that take into account future generations. 💙
Every month’s picture has an in depth descriptor included in regards to the featured marinelife. The calendars are $28.50 (consists of tax).
They’re massive and printed on sturdy paper on Vancouver Island, coil sure with a gap to hold them. 33 x 26.5 cm closed and 33 x 53 cm open (13 x 10.5″ closed /13 x 21″ open).
There are BIG areas to put in writing your each day adventures.
Reflection: A Water Jelly and Bull Kelp mirrored on the interface of ocean and sky. The pulsing of the Water Jelly strikes plankton to its mouth, which is the white construction close to the centre (Aequorea spp. to 17 cm throughout). The far-reaching advantages of Bull Kelp forests embrace manufacturing of meals and oxygen; habitat for therefore many species; decreased carbon dioxide; and nice magnificence. The stipe of Nereocystis luetkeana may be 36 metres lengthy. Development must be 17 cm/day on common to achieve this size in a 210-day rising interval (supply: Druel & Clarkson, 2000). If the fronds are included, the common development fee is ~25 cm/day (supply: Duncan, 1973).
February 2024 picture and textual content
Barnacle magnificence: I feel Nakwakto Barnacles are one of the achingly and terribly lovely animals on our planet. The crimson is hemoglobin within the barnacles’ blood! They want EXTREMELY excessive present to get sufficient oxygen onto the hemoglobin. Thereby, they dwell in solely a only a few locations. Essentially the most are recognized to be at Nakwakto Rapids, north of Port Hardy. In shallow water, these barnacles are usually not crimson as a result of they’ve black pigment to guard them in opposition to solar publicity. Nakwakto Barnacles are perceived to be a variant of Gooseneck Barnacles with the identical species identify, Pollicipes polymerus. Stalk may be 15 cm and physique 4.5 cm.
March 2024 picture and textual content
Emerald Ocean: Chilly water has extra dissolved oxygen. In high-current areas, comparable to this, there may be a lot mixing and distribution of oxygen and vitamins. Thereby, there may be extra life. It’s the plankton that begin all of it; the soup of life that fuels the meals internet. Right here you see Widow Rockfish, Bread Crumb Sponges, Pink Smooth Corals, Big Plumose Anemones, Mushroom and Stalked Tunicates, Big Acorn Barnacles, and so forth. Look carefully. You may even see a Scalyhead Sculpin – a bit fish perched on the wall. The utmost recognized life expectancy for Widow Rockfish is 69 years. Some rockfish species dwell to properly over 100 years.
April 2024 picture and textual content
Gold Dirona: Not a flower. Not an anemone. This can be a sea slug. This can be a sea slug with uncovered gills so this species, the Gold Dirona, belongs to the sub-grouping of sea slugs named nudibranchs. All nudibranchs are sea slugs with “bare gills”. Nudi = bare and department = gillls. This Gold Dirona’s head is on the left. You possibly can discern the rhinophores, the projections by which nudibranchs scent their approach round. Species is reported to feed on bryozoans. Dirona pellucida to 12 cm lengthy. Oh, and there’s a second nudibranch species right here! Proper behind the Gold Dirona there may be an Opalescent Nudibranch, Hermissenda crassicornis to eight cm lengthy.
Might 2024 picture and textual content
Holding on: Rose Anemones are a HUGE anemone species, to 30 cm tall and 30 cm vast. They’re Urticina piscivora and certainly are “piscivora”. They’re the one anemones off our coast whose eating regimen often consists of little fish that get caught to their tentacles. It was distinctive that this Rose Anemone was holding on to the stipe of Cut up Kelp within the surf zone. It’s not uncommon to see smaller anemone species dwelling on the kelp, just like the Brooding Anemones within the background right here. However this massive Rose Anemone needed to safe its complete base across the stipe of the kelp because it cascaded forwards and backwards within the waves. Species is also referred to as the Fish-eating Telia.
June 2024 picture and textual content
Leaping large: That is Inukshuk (BCZ0339). He typically rests through the day, just under the floor. Humpback Whales may also all of a sudden grow to be acrobatic or floor after lengthy dives. This will increase their threat of being hit, particularly if boaters have no idea the knowledge at www.SeeABlowGoSlow.org. Our work because the Marine Training and Analysis Society exhibits that particular person Humpbacks have sturdy web site constancy and feeding specialties. Inukshuk returns to the identical space of BC to feed yearly, to the place he is aware of greatest to construct up his reserves. He might be sustained by the richness of those chilly waters when within the breeding grounds. In his case, that’s Mexico.
July 2024 picture and textual content
Bountiful biodiversity: That is just under the floor in so many areas off our coast. That is what we’re linked to in a lot of our each day selections . . . a darkish ocean sustaining life in an intricate internet, from anemones to nudibranchs, from plankton to folks. The species right here embrace: White-spotted Rose Anemone (to 25 cm tall / 15 cm vast); Monterey Dorid (nudibranch species to fifteen cm lengthy); Whitecap Limpet (to five cm throughout) with a Crenate Barnacle on its shell (to 2 cm); juvenile Bering Hermit Crab (to 2.5 cm) in a shell as soon as made and inhabited by a Threaded Snail (to 2 cm); and species of crustose coralline algae (pink).
August 2024 picture and textual content
One other dwelling gem: Longfin Sculpins are highly effective ambassadors for the color in these chilly waters. Simply take a look at the patterns, the feel, and the gossamer fins. They crawl with their pectoral fins and might maintain on vertically, head oriented downward, like Spider-Man. They not often swim greater than 0.5 m off the underside and are most frequently solitary (besides when mating and egg guarding). They’re reported to be very territorial of areas which can be 0.3 to 0.5 metres squared (supply: Love, 2011). They darken at night time to match their environment = “nocturnal protecting colouration”. The males are additionally darker when courting females. Jordania zonope to fifteen cm lengthy.
September 2024 picture and textual content
Symbionts: Ochre Stars and Big Inexperienced Anemones within the shallows. This anemone species is vibrant inexperienced when the symbiotic algae dwelling of their guts obtain plenty of sunshine. Extra solar = extra meals by way of photosynthesis. The anemones profit from the vitamins made by the algae. The algae profit by being the place their predators can’t get them (grazers like limpets, chitons, and snails). This anemone species is Anthopleura xanthogrammica to 30 cm excessive / 30 cm vast. The symbiotic algae are zoochlorellae (inexperienced algae) and zooxanthellae (dinoflagellates). There’s additionally a inexperienced pigment within the pores and skin of the anemones.
October 2024 picture and textual content
Eight-armed trainer: For a bit levity, listed below are some classes I’ve realized from Big Pacific Octopuses. (1) Don’t worry what seems to be totally different. (2) Respect various intelligences. (3) Mix in to flee detection when crucial. (4) Belief your means to squeeze by way of tight areas and are available out the opposite aspect. (5) Ink out the detrimental and jet away, leaving it behind you. (6) Know the place your property is and preserve the rubbish outdoors. (7) Be big-hearted (octopuses have 3 hearts) and guard the subsequent era. (8) Use your beak when wanted. Enteroctopus dofleini to 7.3+ metres from arm tip to arm tip. After all there’s an octopus picture for October!
November 2024 picture and textual content
Fairly little predators: These Pink-gilled Nudibranchs are feeding on Bushy Pink-mouth Hydroids – colonies of animals with stinging cells (nematocysts). The white coils are the nudibranchs’ egg ribbons. The fuzzy buildings on the backs of the nudibranchs are the cerata. These operate as gills and now have a job in defence. The stinging calls from their prey find yourself on the ideas of the nudibranchs’ cerata. Sure, they “steal” the weapons of their prey and lay their eggs on prime of them. Bushy Pink-mouth Hydroids are Pinauay crocea to fifteen cm tall. The flabellina nudibranchs have undergone a lot reclassification. I consider these are Coryphella verrucosa to 10 cm lengthy.
December 2024 picture and textual content
No two alike: Rose Stars are also referred to as Snowflake Stars as a result of there may be a lot variety in sample and color. Even the variety of arms varies, starting from 8 to 16 (most frequently 11). They’re quick at 50 cm/minute (supply: McDaniel, 2018). You possibly can see 3 buildings on the floor of the ocean star: (1) spines; (2) pedicellaria = buildings that may nip off the tube ft of different species of sea star e.g. the predatory Morning Solar Star; and (3) papulae = the tufts which can be the gills / respiratory organs. Crossaster papposus to 34 cm however in BC most dimension is believed to be ~17 cm. One species. So many colors. That’s magnificence. That’s biology.
Backcover
Picture of yours really by Kendra Parnham-Corridor.
