Natural Perspectives -- Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray

Vic Leipzig and Lou Murray

I hope your Valentine’s Day involved candy and roses. We usually go

out for a romantic dinner or enjoy a weekend away. Not this year.

Vic had to teach a Goldenwest College Biology 101 lab the evening of

Valentine’s Day. The next morning he was leaving for a three-day weekend

to lead an Audubon birding trip to the Salton Sea. It looked like romance

was out.

Vic had a solution to this dilemma. I had been working on a guide to

the invertebrates of the Bolsa Chica. Vic said we could see each other on

Valentine’s Day by combining a field trip for his biology class with my

need to find and photograph invertebrates. He said he’d meet me at 6 p.m.

with his class at the public fishing dock in Huntington Harbour’s Percy

Park near Warner Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.

We had an early dinner at home -- filet mignon cooked on the grill --

and headed off for our respective assignments. He was to gather the

students and I was to gather whatever was available at low tide.

I searched the area near the fishing dock for bay mussels, oysters,

and cloudy bubble snails. This is a bumper year for bubble snails and the

smooth brown mollusks littered the mudflats. A big school of topsmelt

darted under the dock, black-crowned night herons flew in for their

nightly fishing fest and lined shore crabs crawled everywhere. The

wetlands were alive with a different set of organisms than what I had

been seeing in the daytime.

Vic called me on my cell phone to make sure that I had found suitable

invertebrates before he brought his class over. He called as I was

sinking into the mud. The tops of my rubber boots were a mere fraction of

an inch from the waterline. I hurriedly told him that there were plenty

of animals. I dropped my cell phone into my shirt pocket and extricated

my boots just before the water went over the top.

Soon, Vic’s class arrived. I told them about some of the strange

reproductive behavior that goes on under water. After all, it was

Valentine’s Day. First I showed them slipper shells. These single-shelled

mollusks form stacks on solid objects such as rocks, with big slipper

shells on the bottom, mid-size ones in the middle and smaller ones on top

in stacks that can be several deep. The large ones on the bottom are

females. The small ones on top are males. But we don’t know about the

ones in the middle, because in midlife, the males change sex and become

females. The kids were fascinated. I don’t know what Vic usually tells

them, but apparently it isn’t stuff this good.

I asked who wanted to hold a bubble snail. These shelled sea slugs are

the size and shape of a chicken egg. The body is too big for the shell,

so it’s always out. They are cold, wet, and extra slimy. No one wanted to

touch them. After some coaxing, one girl reluctantly held out her hand. I

deposited a big bubble snail onto her palm. It did its slime thing. She

screamed and tossed it. I forgot that these kids were not biology majors.

Eventually other bubble snails got passed around, sliming everyone who

touched them.

Vic wanted to show the kids some tunicates. They are cylindrical

animals several inches long that attach with a stalk to something solid.

They have two openings on top through which they siphon water. If you

hold them right, they’ll squirt unsuspecting observers. I volunteered

that tunicates were growing on the underside of the dock. Vic volunteered

me to collect a few. Some romantic Valentine’s Day this was turning out

to be.

I don’t mind touching slimy, squishy things. But it was night and it

was hard to see under the dock. I know that there are two-spotted

octopuses and several species of sharks in the waters of Huntington

Harbour. But in the name of science, I forgot my fear, lay down on my

stomach and reached under the dark depths of the dock to grab a tunicate.

Unfortunately, I also forgot that my cell phone was in my breast pocket.

With a slither and a kerplunk, it went into the drink. Like Luca Brazzi

in “The Godfather,” my cell phone now sleeps with the fishes.

Other than that, our evening out was a success. The kids had fun and

learned some biology. We even caught a Pacific staghorn sculpin, a long,

slender, bottom-dwelling fish. Our work on the docks was done, so we put

the bubble snails back into the bay and took some of the other animals

across the street to the Bolsa Chica Conservancy’s Interpretive Center.

The mussels, tunicates and sculpin went into their marine aquarium. The

new animals would either become part of the exhibit or lunch, depending

on how the other fish and invertebrates in the tank felt about them. Word

is that the Conservancy’s starfish and spiny lobster loved the mussels.

Such is life on the food chain.

Vic owes me for this one. I risked life and limb climbing on muddy

rocks in the dark to get mussels and oysters. I got slimed by bubble

snails. I lost my cell phone. And groping for tunicates under a dock at

night is above and beyond the call of spousal duty. I deserve a nice

romantic dinner out. I’m not having seafood.

* VIC LEIPZIG and LOU MURRAY are Huntington Beach residents and

environmentalists. They can be reached at o7 vicleipzig@aol.comf7 .