Tuesday, April 17, 2012

The Age of the Fish

Tuesday was like any other day here at Hatfield started out with lecture like usual, we talked about different fish and which family they are in that are located here off the Oregon coast, after the lecture we had a little break before diving into the next lecture which was on age and growth of fish. With two lectures done for the day we moved to a well needed lunch break then right back into the third lecture thermal biology and talking about fish regulation of body temperature. All the lectures were very interesting but not as interesting as what was to come in the lab, today was the day we got to find out how old our fish were just by doing a technique called "break and burn" on the otoliths. Once they were put through the fire and prepared we then were able to use the microscope and count the rings on the otolith which gave us the age of the fish that we removed them from the day before.






Beginning of  the dissection and otolith removal




The prize from the fish, the otoliths
Trying to determine the age of the fish with the otoliths

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