Red hake (er...spotted hake)

Hake you may have when the cod failes in summer, if you will fish in the night.

John Smith (yes, that John Smith)

I should be clamming at the moment. I trusted the National Weather Service, though, and decided that lugging a bucket of clams in an open hatch on a kayak in a 20 knot breeze might not be wise.

I did, however, get a little bit of protein for dinner tonight. I tossed a few bits of clam out into the Delaware Bay, and exchanged them for a couple of red spotted hake (ling).

They are beautiful creatures, a muddy red, with dashing ventral fins now modified as whiskers tasting the bottom of the sea. The eyes are golden and sharp. Even in death, they look wise.

The books (always "the books") will tell you they forage at night. Three of us on the ferry jetty today can confirm that they feed during daylight as well.

***

We can also confirm that gulls are clever. A large gull ambled between us--if a gull is ambling by whistling Dixie, watch your bait.

Mr. Gull got a chunk of clam, but left the ling alone.

Later today I'll toss the guts and heads back into the bay. Mr. Gull can add ling to the stolen clams resting in his belly.

***

Leslie and I went back to toss the viscera, and to (perhaps) catch one more.

The water is an opaque green today--the light is a thousand shades of gray and green as a storm threatens in the southwest.

I get one more, and take him home, still very much alive.

I behead it in the sink, and the head still gasps, looking as surprised as I am that the body still flails.

Reflexes. Say it like a prayer. Reflexes.
I try to grab the tail, it flicks once more.
Reflexes.

A potato on the counter falls against my leg--I jump thinking the hake, now a ghost, has attacked me.

***

I forget things. Important things. Like how sweet fish flesh is when you eat it within two hours of its life.

Red hake, turns out, tastes real good.
Red hake with your lover's home made butternut squash soup is even better.

Thank you, Creator.

Note to self: running around a wet jetty in bare feet is fine; walking around the same wet jetty in sandals is treacherous.
I have a nice muddy red bruise on my rump to match the catch of the day.

Wharf roaches

July on the jetty

The young man had the requisite tattoos and low hanging day-glo surfer trunks. His girlfriend looked bemused as he lifted a chunk of granite over his head.

"Got it!"

I figured he'd pegged a rat, he was so dang proud of himself.
Guess it doesn't take much to impress his girlfriend.

He had slaughtered a sea slater, an aquatic roly-poly. Sea slaters, alas, are also known as wharf roaches, a fatal misnomer for this particular critter now splattered on the jetty.

I'll give the guy's girlfriend this much credit--she wasn't half as impressed as he was.

***

When I think crustacean I think food: crabs and shrimp and lobster and crawfish! All crustaceans, all delicious.

While most of us think crustaceans live in the sea (and they are indeed the most numerous animals there), a few species have managed to poke their way out onto land. The roly-poly (pill bug, potato bug, woodlouse--all the same cute critter) is a crustacean in the isopod order. It needs moisture to breathe through their gills, which is why they tend to hang out in damp places.

The "wharf roach" is also an isopod, a cousin of the roly-poly. They can be found scampering around the jetties in Cape May, and except for the occasional H. sapiens impressing his girlfriend, their biggest concern is crabs munching on them.

***

The books will tell you that sea slaters are nocturnal. I will tell you that they are quite busy during the day as well, but are quick to scurry into crevices if they see you approaching.

If you sit still on the jetty for a few minutes, they will come out. A few may even wander over to your bare foot. I've never been bitten by one, can't imagine that they could bit if they wanted to.

They can be tough to see--they can change their coloration to match their background, and the experts will tell you they get paler at night. I have no idea. At night I am too busy trying not to fall off the jetty to concern myself with sea slaters.

***

One reason science has become so alien to most of us is that science is more about advancing careers than it is about advancing knowledge. If a species has no commercial value, little is known about it.

If you want to advance your science career, find an organism few folks write home about, kill it, and peek into its DNA.

I bet Lars Podsadlowski is a decent bloke. He writes papers about the DNA found in mitochondria of various critters. Here's an example of one of his articles:

The complete mitochondrial genome of the common sea slater, Ligia oceanica(Crustacea, Isopoda) bears a novel gene order and unusual control region features (2006)

He's also written about the mitochondrial DNA of mantis shrimp, sea spiders, and bristletails. My guess is he has access to a fancy genome sequencer somewhere in Berlin, and he's made a career out of it.

I am also guessing he's not spent a whole lot of time watching sea slaters wander around the tidal zone.

Or maybe he has. And maybe he's tried to publish articles about the meanderings of sea slaters. If he googles himself, maybe he'll see this and let me know. But I bet I've spent more time watching live sea slaters than he has.

Seems to me we ought to spend more time studying live sea slaters before we chop them up to study their DNA.

***

I am not likely to ever get a scientific paper published, and even less likely to get one published on the activities of a live sea slater. But here's something they can do that's pretty neat.

If you have the time (and too few of us do these days), go find a puddle on a jetty in Cape May. Set yourself down, dusk is a good time--the sun settles nicely over the Delaware Bay. You might even bring your favorite beverage.

After a few minutes, the slaters will accept you as part of the scenery, and go about their business.

Occasionally one will hit the edge of the puddle, and usually it will decide to walk around it.

Wait until a few are near the puddle's edge. Then scare them. (Doesn't take much, you don't even have to say "boo!" Just wave your arms over them. Or just put on your best crab face.)

Most will run away over the dry jetty. A few will run through the puddle, as though it's not there. I think they're actually running underwater, but I am still not sure. Maybe they're running on the surface.

Give me a few more sunsets, a few more ales, and I'll know enough to write my scientific paper.

***

If you've read this far, you have more than enough time to go find your own sea slaters. But one more sea slater story.

Sea slaters are sociable. (OK, to be more scientific, sea slaters exhibit behavior that shows some sort of communication between them.)

When one sea slater is near another, it will make an effort to touch it. They briefly meet, wiggle antennae, then part. I don't speak slaterese, so I've no idea what just happened.

But I know it happened.

***

OK, some folks actually do spend time with live sea slaters. Here's a video of work by Mersiha Niksic, who studies sea slaters while their still breathing. This is a fun video--she's busy chasing "bugs" while seals bark in the background. At least I think they're seals.

Anyone who can ignore seals for isopods is truly dedicated to her work.