Carmel
A day in the intertidal zone at Carmel Point, California.
Hello fellow scientists!
My name is Larissa Lemon. I am a graduate student in the Applied Marine and Watershed Science Program at California State University Monterey Bay. Every person in our Marine Ecosystems class was given a Foldscope to use throughout the semester.
We recently took a trip to the rocky intertidal at Carmel Point, California. This was a fantastic opportunity for me to use my Foldscope in the field! I looked at pieces of iridescent algae ( Mazaella sp.) that I found floating in one of the tide pools. These algae have a range of colors from dark purple to greens and even black, but underwater they shimmer with an iridescence. It was quite common in the low intertidal, as seen in my quadrat photo below. Along with some fellow students, I decided to bring some floating algae and sea water back to the classroom for an extended exploration of organisms with my foldscope.

When we returned to our classroom, I wanted to look at the iridescent algae that I was observing in the field. So I prepared a slide for my Foldscope. I was a little disappointed with the result of this slide. I was hoping to see inside the cells of the algae, but the blade was just too thick! I knew that I had other specimens to look at. As my friend Cherisa and I began looking through the seaweed we had collected, we began seeing little amphipods jumping out onto the table!
A slide with the iridescent algae collected in the field
Iridescent algae under my Foldscope!
Amphipods belong to an phylogentic order (Amphipoda) with over 7,000 species within the Phylum Arthropoda . They have a segmented body with an exoskeleton like many other arthropods, but they are compressed laterally. The compound eyes of amphipods are different from other species of crustaceans because they are imbedded in their head rather than at the tip of stalks. Amphipods are ecologically important as a food source for many other animals in the ocean. Tiny amphipods that were hiding in our seaweed!

I was amazed at the detail I could see with my Foldscope!

I was even able to take a small video of my little amphipod!
https://microcosmos.foldscope.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20160412_1228061.mp4
I can’t wait for my next adventure!