Day 9 proved to be a good day for me. To top it off we began in the lab, dissecting the dog sharks. Next we discussed these two very interesting articles, one concerned porpoises and their ability to use echolocation by sending clicks and the other was over temperature change affecting elkhorn coral embryos.
As mentioned earlier we finished up the dissections. Today my partner and I began observing the sharks brain. For such an intelligent creature it had a small brain, the size of a walnut. To get to the brain it took a lot of precise work on behalf of my partner, the shark has very thick muscle and skin which made it hard to cut. Over all the shark dissection was a great learning experience. Now when I see sharks on tv and hopefully at the British Virgin Islands, I will not look at them puzzled wondering how these kings of the ocean function to be so precise, because I will already know their unique anatomy.
After lab, we returned into the class room to discuss the articles we were assigned to read, one of them I had to present. So the first article concerned porpoise and research on the efficiency of their echolocation. One of the interesting points brought up by the research was how these creatures kept sending their clicks even after they had caught their prey. One of the conclusions for them doing this was because often, there might be a school of fish and it goes for more than one fish.
Next my partner and I presented our article over elkhorn coral. There are many things affecting this species or coral but this article focused on how temperature affects embryo/larvae development. By reading and presenting this article I learned that these embryo are most sensitvie in the gastrulation stage. In conclusion, the results did prove that temperature is having a major role.
