Today marked the start of the final week of the in class portion of marine biology! We started off class with two brief discussions on butterfly fishes and marine mollusks. Alec Sims and Kells Koch led the first discussion. I tried to listen to it as much as I could, but I was a little nervous over having to discuss my article with the class next so my mind wandered to review that material. Paul Paris and I discussed how marine mollusks are so important for us to study but yet scientists barely ever study them. Marine mollusks are going extinct faster than any other fauna. So it is very important for us to study them and how we can conserve them before they all go extinct.
After these two articles, we went to the lab to dissect a squid and a starfish. I had already dissected a starfish before but I really didn’t know what to expect dissecting a squid. I had a lot of fun with the dissection as I always do and I look forward to do doing more experiments in the upcoming days in Dallas and the BVI!
