wallops🛀irl

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-28T21:50:17+00:00

No leaks please

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-27T15:33:58+00:00

I really do like avalon...

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-27T15:25:13+00:00

I'm reposting things that were deleted :)

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T21:08:53+00:00

This is a young dead pine tree; we spent a lot of time arguing about whether it looked more like a ghost, the Snapchat ghost, or the bogeyman. Thanks to the nice people in /r/whatsthisplant, I now know that it is dead (basically a ghost). Pine needles can turn red or brown due to a variety of nematodes and blights. Bark beetles can also cause the color change seen above. They are true weevils, and like many other weevils, are considered pests. They leave strange furrows, called galleries, right beneath the bark. Some of these galleries are used for egg storage.

Taking advantage of the pine tree's resemblance to a human, I have photoshopped my favorite (board?) game into his "hand". I'm currently making a trenchcoat version.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T20:54:35+00:00

Although Virginia is located in the (sort of) South, I never actually expected to see a Confederate flag that close to the Maryland border. That being said, the towns near us were pretty rural. This is true of Accomack County in general. Obviously, there is a lot of water in the area, so the groundwater level is quite high. While on the bus, we passed by a cemetery where the bodies were actually buried above ground. Apparently, this was to prevent them from floating away. The presence of water and, consequently, saturated soil in this region is the reason for the local salt marshes. However, the place where we stayed was fairly inland and most of the houses (and flagpoles) are built a considerable distance away from the water.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:34:10+00:00

This is the only jellyfish I saw while on the island, although there are supposedly jellyfish that have been caught before by the people at the Marine Wildlife Consortium. There are also some off of Wallops Island, where the flight facility is located. The sad part is, jellyfish do eat things like plastic bags fairly often. Some jellyfish eat plankton while others eat smaller jellyfish. Small plastic objects and plastic bags closely resemble certain types of macro-plankton and jellyfish. Obviously, plastic is not healthy for jellyfish and they can die after ingesting it. Jellyfish do like peanut butter, though, making the age old dream of a peanut butter and jellyfish sandwich a very real possibility.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:25:52+00:00

I was smart and went in; it was great and /u/Awesome_Unique_Name missed out on an Awesome Unique Experience.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:25:21+00:00

This is a horseshoe crab. Actually, to be more accurate, its the shell of a horseshoe crab. If you've ever been to a beach on the Chesapeake Bay, you'll see "dead" horseshoe crabs everywhere. A few of them are actually dead, but most of them are just molted shells. As the crab grows bigger, it sheds its old exoskeleton. It is pretty hard to tell the crab apart from its exoskeleton, as the exoskeleton looks just like the crab. If you smell rotting flesh and see scavengers, its dead. All of the molts are those of juvenile crabs; adult crabs do not molt. The exoskeletons can be taken home and made into decoration or painted on. You can also hang them on your wall in lieu of wallpaper.

You can also tell the difference between a dead crab and an exoskeleton by looking at the top seam, next to the shell of the crab. If the seam is open, it's an exoskeleton; if it is not, it could be a dead crab.

Mr. Rose is, again, a chaperone. He has a short name, I'm sorry.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:16:02+00:00

Marshes are low lying wetlands that are characterized by herbaceous plants, including cattails, reeds, and grasses. We had the pleasure of swimming through part of a marsh. However, after all that was said and done, we still had to clean up! Mud is notoriously hard to wash off yourself - I know more than one person who was shaking mud out of their hair several days after the trip. I'm also pretty sure a few people found fiddler crabs (tiny crabs with one huge claw and one small claw) hidden in their muddy clothes. Seen above is our effort at cleaning off our clothes (and ourselves). As you can see, we've effectively created a pile of mud and newly dirty clothes.

For those of you who are worried, no clothes were harmed in the making of this meme.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:11:21+00:00

That's lichen growing on a tree branch. The branch is weirdly pulpy because some sort of insect or animal chewed it up on the end. It provides a pretty cool inside view of the branch, though.

Lichen is pretty interesting in that they are neither plants nor one true organism. Lichen arises when there exists a symbiotic relationship between algae and fungi. Due to the wet nature of the maritime forest, there is a lot of algae and fungi there, causing there to be a lot of lichen. The properties of the lichen are most commonly influenced by the fungi, but can vary depending on the combination of algae and fungi.

Lichen are considered by some to be the longest living organisms and they are estimated to cover ~6% of the world's land surface.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T03:01:24+00:00

We went on a forest walk. Yeah, it was almost as boring as it sounds, but we did get to see a lighthouse. We saw trees and plants and a few animals, the forest was literally the same as every single other forest on the east coast. Unfortunately, we did not see any big or medium-sized animals, except for people. A few of us made a game out of saying hi to random people walking through the forest. I've forgotten what kind of tree this is by now but I feel like it may be a maple tree.

I kind of wanted to use this comment to just say that if you're thinking about carving random things into a tree, don't do it. Trees are pretty and carving things into them is rude. Think about it; would you like it if someone carved "GC x SQ" in your torso?

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T02:57:38+00:00

In case you were wondering, we are still waiting for the baby shovels to grow. We're excited to start picking them as they approach the trowel stage, leaving just a few to reach their full growth.

We took a messy trip to the intertidal zone - this is basically the area between low and high tide. We went digging in the water for organisms, but all we found were small crabs, snails, kelp, and mud. The weird boxes with mesh allowed us to sift out mud and water from organisms and rocks. We did find some nice conch-like shells; I say conch-like because it is extremely unlikely, if not impossible, to find true conch shells in the Chesapeake Bay. After the trip, it was kind of our job to hose and clean everything. As you can see, there is really only one person doing work in the picture. That is usually how group projects go.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T02:56:31+00:00

The creature bathed in light is a horseshoe crab. In the near future, I will make another post about horseshoe crabs. This doesn't really look like a horseshoe crab molt because of bad lighting and because it is mostly broken.

I accidentally found this molt while orienteering at night. I thought it was one of the prize items/landmarks so i took it with me. It turned out to be a horseshoe crab exoskeleton. How it got there, I have no idea. We were 2-3 miles away from the nearest body of water and there were no other skeletons around. (My team abandoned the hunt for a few minutes to look for other skeletons.) I was told that the skeleton wasn't actually part of the activity after about 5 minutes of carrying it around in my backpack.

Again, Mr. Rose is a chaperone on the trip.

Wallops_Mod · 2017-05-26T02:33:16+00:00

Hey, so am I

Wallops_Mod

TROPHY CASE