Questions from Mrs. Waldrop's class

Hello all! I got some questions from Mrs. Waldrop's fifth graders, and so here are some answers:

Garrett asks, "What's the tallest seaweed you ever saw?"

Sometimes, I dive in Monterey, CA, which is about two hours south of Berkeley. There is a species of kelp there, the giant kelp Macrocystis, which can grow very tall. I have seen some that are more than 40 feet long! But they can grow to more than 60 feet. They are very beautiful and huge!

Payne asks, How big are the crabs there?"

There are a lot of different types of crabs here on Moorea. The ones in the water can be very big (more than 8 inches across) to very, very tiny (a few millimeters). The hermit crabs also have that size range. Last night, we went out on the small island beside Moorea and collected large adult hermit crabs. They were the size of pool cues!

Charlotte asks, "Do crabs have ears?"

No, not like ours. Sound in water travels very quickly, and as a result, it is very hard to tell where a sound is coming from. Crabs and other crustaceans do use sound in water to communicate sometimes, and they can feel the sound vibrations with tiny hairs (almost like your arm hairs) on their shell that move back and forth with the vibrations. It's kind of like how our ears work, but very different at the same time!

Maria asks, "Why do you like to study crabs?"

I like to study crabs because they are very different than people and other animals that I've seen a lot. They don't have a backbone (like us), they sniff really differently too. It is very fun for me to think about what it would be like to be a crab!