365Caws is now in its 14th year of publication, and was originally intended to end after 365 days. It has sometimes been difficult for me to find new material, particularly during the winter months, but now as I enter my own twilight years, I cannot guarantee that I will be able to provide daily posts. It is my hope that along the way I may have inspired someone to a greater curiosity about the natural world. If so, I can rest, content in the knowledge that my work here has been done.
Friday, November 20, 2015
See? Urchin Spines!
Day 38: Seriously, it doesn't take much to keep me amused. Just give me a jar of sand from an "exotic" east-coast location and my microscope, and I'll be occupied for hours.
See those little green bits at the end of the built-in pointer? Those are sea-urchin spines, almost invisible to the unaided eye and barely visible under a hand lens. Under the microscope, they're revealed as textural beauties, ridged longitudinally. Occasionally, you can catch one in cross-section, and in those moments, you might think you'd found a faerie's zucchini dinner. Proportionally, this "sand" seems to be an almost equal mix of rock and shell fragment. A riot of colour, unlike the Pacific Northwest's drab grey grit, bits of opalescent mother-of-pearl and purple mussel-shell catch the eye amid the softer tones of cream and tan.
Sand was not the only thing in my mailbox yesterday. The friend who sent it included two lichen samples as well. See? Presents don't have to be pricey to be fun!
Labels:
Maine,
microscopy,
Patty,
sand,
sea-urchin spines
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