Devious lil' Stingers

Sally taught us all there is to know about Cnidarians and Ctenophores today! The Phyla Cniria includes sea anemones, jellies, and corals and stands for "stinging thread". With 19 girls in the class there was a lot of "ooohhing" and "aaaahhing" at the pictures of all the cute little jellies! We had the pleasure of having Dr. Virginia Weiss come over from the OSU main campus and talk to us about the symbioses between Cnidarians and marine algae. To wrap up the day we spent alomst two hours in the field at Strawberry Hill collecting invertebrates to bring back to our laboratory at Hatfield. As a class we collected anemones, sea stars, nudibranchs, limpets, chitins, mussels, barnacles, marine worms, annelids, and more, and introduced them to their temporary home at HMSC! These animals will be our learning buddies (or teachers if you will) in the lab for the next week while we learn all there is to know about marine invertebrates!