So, probably the most exciting moment of my day (maybe of my life) was finding these little jellyfish in the tanks in Darwin 4. I didn’t actually find them, some of my students did, but I isolated them and managed to get some decent photos. At first, I assumed they were babies, but after poking around a bit, I think maybe they’re just a very small species. I’m thinking they’re in the genus Cladonema, but I can’t really identify them any closer than that. To me, they look a bit more like the introduced C. pacificum, but maybe they’re the native californicum? Or some other species entirely? They’re really small – maybe 2mm in diameter.

Either way, we had a GREAT time in lab today – in addition to the jellies (and, of course, the Echinoderms), there were copepods and worms (probably polychaetes), and adorable tiny crabs (at least four species of crabs altogether between the two tanks, including the big crabs). Awesome.