Sea Lemons

January 11, 2010   

Gallery-Antarctic-Sea-lem-010

A picture of a Sea Lemon (marseniopsis mollis) a kind of Mollusc as the shell is internal.

We collect them to go into the aquarium where they are used to address the question

We kept our animals in enormous aquariums until we needed them for research. One of the research questions we address is the temperature range these animals could withstand so they are taken to their thermal limits and weighed wet and dry. Normally the temperature in the waters around Antarctica is a very stable low temperature (-1.8 to 2 degrees Celsius). It is important to explore whether animals can adapt to higher temperatures because of global warming.

 

2 Responses to “Sea Lemons”

  1. Hi Ashley, Love your daily blog – all SO interesting and how fascinating for you. Love the pictures and what you are telling us. Keep it going. How do you dive in such cold waters. I swim in 65 + degrees with a heavy wetsuit. Maybe you dive inside cages or something. Keep us posted. All is great. Love, Joanne Kirwin

  2. When I first got here it was cold but now I have got use to diving maybe my nerve endings are dead! We dive in drysuits and full face masks.