The blitz
This week was the shrimp blitz, a series of eight sampling sites at high and low tide (sixteen samples total) and even more rapid shrimp processing. The Ph.D student running the entire shrimp project, Liam, drove us to subtidal creeks, the wide open marsh, and a handful of non-Hobcaw sites to collect a hundred shrimp per site. In the lab, we sorted all the shrimp by species and measured their full body and carapace lengths (which I could now do in my sleep) but also recorded which shrimp were carrying eggs and/or a parasitic isopod.
We spent three long days doing this and in total took data on over a thousand shrimp. (For anyone doing the math: some sites had zero shrimp and some sites had so miserably few that we abandoned them, such as a marsh pool with about 130% of the ocean’s salt concentration. Grass shrimp can withstand a lot, but they’re not roaches.)
Getting back to my roots
Around this week I also went on two trap-checking outings with a moth entomologist, Eric, who had the world’s jankiest field truck that I’m told everyone who knows him adores. I do as well. Eric took me on with minimal notice and answered every question I threw at him with the communication skills of a man who teaches classes, which he does. Half of the traps we checked were hanging mesh with yummy fermenting bait and half were buckets with light lures. Since he was only collecting moths and I showed such enthusiasm for the beetles, he started handing them to me and telling me their names without feeling the need to ask whether I would like to know. (The very impressive polyphemus moth laid eggs in her light trap, which Eric let me take home with the warning that they probably wouldn’t hatch.)
Also, Eric believes in entomologists taking spoils of war. I will pin these eventually.