Paua census 2

Another busy week was spent at Mahanga Bay helping with the paua census. This time as well as measuring length and weight of each paua their shell and foot colour was also assessed.

Visually each paua was ranked for shell colouring - ranging from white to dark blue, and foot colouring - ranging from cream to green/cream to black.

The colour of the foot was also recorded with a machine that measured brightness and green, yellowness.

The Asian paua market demands shells of a bright blue colour and white feet so research is being done to farm the paua to achieve these criteria. The measurments we helped do on 3500 paua will help work out which families are producing these characteristics the best.

NIWA Invertebrate Collection Website

While working at NIWA I have updated the Invertebrate Collection website. Lots of scientists come to visit the collection and the aim is to provide information that will help them know what facilities are here.

Still to come is the Fun Facts page which is aimed at the general public to explain a bit about what the collection is about. I am nearly finished this this should be live soon.

Baby Crayfish

Today I got to see some very cute baby crayfish. Each of these little critters are only about 3cm long. The photos below show the various stages. They youngest, clear one is on the right and the oldest dark on is on the left.



Crayfish eggs hatch out at sea and then as they form into the clear ones they make their way closer to shore.

As crayfish mature they outgrow their shells and moult (come out of their shell). They then grow a new shell.

The best thing I learnt today was that crayfish actually swim backwards - and I saw them doing it too!!