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Visit to Edwards Reef, San Juan Island, San Juan Co., WA, July 18, 2009

I visited one of my old study sites, Edwards Reef, on the west side of San Juan Island	Sea lemon	A very calm excellent low tide
-	-	Cryptochiton stelleri (that were under rocks) and Pisaster ochraceus
My quest was to find a chiton, Leptochiton sp., which I had previously studied as Leptochiton rugatus	DNA studies have revealed that this species is one of about six northern Pacific species in the Leptochiton rugatus species complex	Leptochiton sp. is a lepidopleurid chiton, a group that is mostly deep water worldwide
At Edwards Reef these chitons are under submerged rocks that are sunken into the sediment	I was actually in the San Juans to work with my collborator on the seastar genus, Henricia. In this image, Pisaster ochraceus is in the upper left and two Henricia spp. are in the center	This is the "mottled brooder," a Henricia n. sp. Eernisse, M. Strathmann, R. Strathmann, manuscript accepted in Zootaxa with minor revisions.
-	This is another species we plan to separate from Henricia leviuscula, with which it has been confused. Informally, we have called this species "grey armpit" for obvious reasons.	-
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Lottia scutum	-	-
-	Leptochiton sp. has a liver-red colored foot, due to hemoglobin in its tissues. See Eernisse, Terwilliger and Terwilliger, 1988. Veliger 30: 244-247.	-
-	A mottled brooder placed on a Cryptochiton	-
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-	We left Edwards Reef in time to catch our ferry off San Juan (sob!)	-
-	-	Friday Harbor Labs from the ferry
The Whitely Center, where I was working, is right behind the taller mast of this sailboat; the cottage where we stayed is right behind the shorter mast.	-	Arriving at Anacortes

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