Cave

 Lobster

    

There are many types of caves, some are small and narrow, most likely stressful for a neophyte in these matters, and others are huge and spacious, with rooms reminiscent of the Christian catacombs of the first centuries, but most are medium in size. There are long and dangerous ones due to their many labyrinthine recesses and many others, perhaps most of the ones I know, are simple cavities that go deep into the pierced rock, and where the entrance is never out of sight.

'Muñona' vuelve al mar

 'Muñona' returns to the sea

Well, like all turtles that recover, a subcutaneous chip has been inserted so that if it is ever treated again, the date and place where it was first recovered can be known.

The loggerhead sea turtle is the one that transits the Strait of Gibraltar the most and the one that CECAM recovers the most in collaboration with the Almadraba de Ceuta.

There is certain evidence that the Strait of Gibraltar is a passage for four species of sea turtles out of the seven that exist.

These are in order of size:

'Lute'. It is the largest sea turtle in the world, reaching a length of 2.3 meters and a weight of more than 600 kilograms. A male individual weighed 916 kilograms, although turtles of this size are rare.

In the last few days we have had news of the discovery of a dead 'lute' entangled in a net on a beach in Marbella. This represents a great loss for marine biodiversity and for the conservation of seas and oceans.

'Green'. It is large in size (smaller than the leatherback), with two distinct populations in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The common name of the species derives from the green color of its fat and not from the color of its shell

'Caretta caretta'. It is usually called 'boba' because of the ease with which fishermen caught it floating on the surface. This year it has nested on the Spanish Mediterranean coast 29 times, giving birth to a total of approximately 2,329 baby turtles, which thanks to the work of the associations and their volunteers have reached and will continue to reach the sea.

'Olivacea or Olive Ridley'. It is the smallest of the sea turtles. It measures up to 70 cm and weighs around 40 kilos. It feeds on a wide variety of marine invertebrates. Widely distributed in the world with the exception of the North Atlantic.

It is considered vulnerable just like the 'Caretta Road', the 'Leather' and the 'Green' Highway in danger of extinction by the IUCN.

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 What are the invertebrates?

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Now you can see the differents invertebrates in Ceuta, and learn about it.

A 'mud dragon' from Ceuta.

 A 'mud dragon' from Ceuta, at the National Museum of Natural Sciences

The objective is to form a reference collection in the MNCN of this interesting group of invertebrates, practically unknown to the public and also to the majority of biologists.

Javier Sánchez Almazán, curator of the collection, explains: "As a curator, I greatly value this contribution from Alberto González Casarrubios who, by donating material from a group that was not represented in the museum, enriches our natural history collections."

An adult male collected in 2013

The Ceuta specimen is an "adult male, collected on May 22, 2013 in Ceuta." It is part of the scientific project 'Kinorrincos de España III: Golfo de Cádiz and Mar de Alborán', says Graellsia.

Kinorhynchuses are a phylum of small marine invertebrates (0.2 to 1 mm) that, as far as is known, inhabit soft sediment environments around the world. Currently, there are around 340 species known to live mainly in muddy soils where they are able to move thanks to the action of special spines they have on the front part of their body.

In addition to the donor, Alberto González Casarrubios, Nuria Sánchez Santos, Dolores García Ordóñez, María Herranz Matesanz, Diego Cepeda Gómez, Ricardo Cardoso Neves, Jesús Benito Salido and Fernando Pardos Martínez, participated in the process of donation, collection and determination of the specimens. great Spanish specialist of this group and one of the most recognized worldwide.

The plague that affects Malaga and Ceuta

 The plague of jellyfish that affects the coast of Malaga could reach Ceuta

The easterly wind could bring closer to the city the thousands of invertebrates that have settled on the beaches of Malaga since last weekend, preventing bathers from enjoying the arrival of good weather.

About 8,000 kilos of jellyfish have been removed last weekend from the surface waters of the coast of the Costa del Sol-Axarquía between the beaches of Vélez-Málaga and Nerja, which have been affected by a plague of these invertebrates.

A plague that arrives just at the gates of summer and that seems to have its explanation in the turbulent climate of recent times. The rains and strong gusts of wind that have hit the Andalusian coast have caused these schools of jellyfish to move from the high seas to the shore.

According to experts, this plague could reach Ceuta if the east wind continues to blow. The weather forecasts announce that the east will blow this Wednesday with light gusts shifting to the west in the afternoon. However, the east wind will return on Thursday afternoon to stay until Sunday. The gusts will not blow strongly and that could delay the arrival of these invertebrates, but the only solution would be for the west to be the protagonist in the coming days.

Gelatinous organisms invade Fuente Caballos, Ceuta

 

Gelatinous organisms invade the shore of Fuente Caballos

Although it has caused surprise among visitors, it is not exceptional | They are gelatinous salpa-type invertebrates that sea turtles feed on.

The central beach of Fuente Caballos, in Ceuta, woke up this Wednesday with its shore plagued by some curious gelatinous pods that had been washed away by the sea, probably during these last days of the east.

These invertebrates usually live in “the open sea, although currents, wind or temperature changes can influence excessive production that ends up taking them to the shores, especially in the Alboran Sea area during this time, since the temperature The sea has not gone down much yet,” said Óscar Ocaña, marine biologist and director of the Ceuta Sea Museum Foundation.

They can be easily confused with jellyfish; However, their danger is not the same. That is their fundamental difference: they are totally harmless and they are exceptionally fragile.

Regulars of this central beach in Ceuta have been able to find these small, gelatinous and transparent organisms along its shore.

“More specifically, it is a tunicate (animal kingdom phylum chordates; subphylum tunicata) that associates or groups to form chains with sexual individuals; That is to say, they are aggregates but it is not a colony per se,” indicated the biologist, adding that their quantity has come to surprise those who have been able to observe this phenomenon early in the morning.

And when "they appear en masse it is because they are in their gregarious phase", that is, "they move in groups or chains for reproduction reasons", which is what could be seen this morning.

However, Ocaña has pointed out that "from an ecological point of view they form concentrations of chains that travel through the body of water and are part of the diet of many organisms, including some corals and vertebrates, highlighting that they are the usual food of many turtles present on our coastline, such as the leatherback turtle.”

You can see their similarity in appearance with the plastics found in our seas, which causes serious poisoning and buoyancy problems for the turtles, but the biologist has highlighted, above all, that "they are harmless, they do not sting and they are part of the food chain of these leatherback turtles, which are specialized in feeding on gelatinous plankton, which is the most prominent on our coasts.”

Some citizens, given their low risk of contact, have returned specimens to the sea, although their enormous quantity has made it almost impossible.

Iron limpet

 Marine invertebrates: iron limpet

The ferrugine limpet (Patella ferruginea) is a limpet (marine gastropod mollusk) striking for its large size and thick radial ribs, which lives exclusively in the western Mediterranean. It is one of the most emblematic species from the point of view of the conservation of the marine environment in the Mediterranean, as it is probably the species most threatened with extinction in this sea.

Currently, its known distribution is limited to the coasts of North Africa, from the Strait of Gibraltar (Ceuta) to Tunisia, and to some points in southern Spain (coasts of Cádiz, Málaga, Granada and Almería), the island of Alboran, Corsica and northern Sardinia, some small archipelagos in the vicinity of these two islands and in the Sicilian channel.

In Spain, it can be estimated that the total number of specimens of Patella ferruginea would be between 89,000 and 108,000, with the majority of them found, in order of importance, in the Chafarinas islands (more than 45% of the total), Ceuta (27-28 %) and Melilla (21%), where they constitute breeding populations. The total contingent of specimens existing in the south of the Iberian Peninsula can be estimated at around 700 specimens, to which we must add more than 350 specimens from the island of Alborán.

Due to human pressure, the species has been disappearing from large areas, especially from the northern Mediterranean basin and, over the past century, it has been relegated to the western sector of the North African coast and to isolated points in southern Africa. Spain, Corsica and Sardinia and some small islands in the central Mediterranean. The decline of the species continues alarmingly today and many of its populations are on the verge of disappearing. All of this has led to this limpet appearing on various lists of threatened species, such as the Habitats Directive or the Berne and Barcelona Conventions.

The species has been included since 1999 in the “endangered” category of the Spanish Catalog of Endangered Species. For this reason, and in accordance with the provisions of Law 42/2007, of December 13, on Natural Heritage and Biodiversity, actions must be carried out for the conservation of the species in the three communities where it lives (Andalusia, Ceuta and Melilla), as well as on the Chafarinas islands.

For this reason, and based on article 57 of the aforementioned Law 42/2007, the Ministry of the Environment launched a Working Group on the species in 2007, in order to prepare a Conservation Strategy proposal. For this, the information obtained through a collaboration agreement with the National Museum of Natural Sciences was used, whose work took place between 2004 and 2006.

Representatives of the Autonomous City of Ceuta, the Regional Government of Andalusia, the former General Directorate of Coasts of the Ministry of the Environment, the University of Seville, the University of Valencia, the Autonomous University of Madrid, the National Museum of Natural Sciences, the former General Directorate for Biodiversity of the Ministry of the Environment and the Autonomous Organization of National Parks.

Finally, the National Strategy was approved by the Sectoral Environment Conference on May 30, 2008.