Homework Help - Invertebrates

So everyone in my Marine and Freshwater Invertebrates class is doing SO horribly that the teacher has gone against his "no extra credit" rule and has offered an extra credit assignment worth one whole exam grade! I NEED to do this, but I need some help.

The assignment is to go out and find an invertebrate (aquatic, marine or terrestrial, doesnt matter), bring it in for approval, and write a report on it. We have to state where we found it, the taxonomy, natural history, reproductive system, anatomy, blahblahblah all this stuff. We also have to do an anatomical drawing which means it has to be something large enough that I can take it into lab and do a dissection on it (that rules out anything I find in my tank). It also cant be anything commercial. He specifically ruled out fish stores and grocery stores. (though not going to Red Lobster and picking one from their live tank "to go" lol jk... kinda)

You guys go to the beach and lakes to scavenge pretty often. Where can I go to find a decent sized invertebrate? Im thinking a starfish, a large snail (aquatic or terrestrial), a washed up jelly.... one kid is gonna try to do a conch. I guess I could go catch a crab, but... they pinch. Im open to suggestions though.

Mangoman might have some good suggestions for you, as he scavenges more than the rest of us.

You can probably find washed up jellies at any of the beaches around here (Indian Rocks, Indian Shores, Reddington, etc.). We made a trip to Ft. De Soto in October, but didn't find a whole lot (nothing big in size really). We did find sea slugs and some shrimp, though. That might work.

How big is large? lol

Conch's are about the biggest out there size-wise.. I come accross some that are over a foot long but i'm not sure about how legal it would be..

BUT if you're doing it in the name of science it would probably be fine.

There's lots of marine hermit crabs that are about golfball size or bigger if thats big enough..

Starfish that are bigger than a few inches around aren't easy to come by (i've never caught one)

Jellies would work I guess.. kinda hard to find though.. I would reccomend low tide when they get caught in the bays..

Can you catch a fish and use that?

You could use a small pinfish/baitfish..

I'm going to the beach sometime in the next week, if I see anything or you want me to try to catch you something let me know

Oh wait, invert.. hmm guess that rules out baitfish.

stingray won't work either then.

IF its legal, a horseshoe crab would be interesting.. gotta check that one..

How bout a crayfish?

Yeah, it needs to be an invert lol. I think size-wise anything over an inch would do. I would like to do a slug as their anatomical drawing would be relatively easy I could do a hermit crab, even though we haven't learned about them yet. I'd just have to do extra research. I would also have to do research for a starfish, but I really like starfish so as long as I could find one over an inch, I'd take it.

Horseshoe crabs creep me out :/ I could probably get over being weirded out by shrimps enough to do this project. I dunno about crayfish though. Their dissection would be really messy. I just imagine them being bigger and... well, messier.

We're going on a field trip after spring break to some bridge or something where we have to collect and catagorize animals taxonomically. Im going to try to catch something there.

Ok

If everything falls out i'm sure you can get a bait shrimp really easy. Just find one a few inches long and it'd be pretty easy to draw too..

Just to update you guys:

On the field trip we found all sorts of things and I initially wanted to take home the king conch we found but this kid Mark also had one and when we learned we couldnt do the same organism he "called it". We also found huge tulip conchs but by the time I realized I needed a new organism, we had released them. I did manage to keep a fiddler crab though and that was my plan until this weekend.

I went camping at Ft Desoto and waded off shore. I found TONS more little king conchs again, but I also found hermit crabs (which Jon has called). Luckily I found one hermit crab with a huge (like 1inch diameter...) anemone on his back. I only needed the anemone for the project, but I couldnt get him off the crab shell so I took them both hostage and they're chillin in the lab tank. At least my project has some defense against the other projects I'll try to get pictures before I dissect the anemone but I have no idea what to do with the hermit crab... Anyone want one? His been in a sorta-quarentine since Saturday and he's available Thursday!

I heard Mangoman found something for me too, but I didn't get a chance to respond in time. Sorry about that but thank you for thinking of me!!!

Cool, Ashley! You'll have to post pics!

I'm not interested in the crab, though...

nahh no crab for me either

the anemones on their back are really pretty when put into your reef too
especially under actinics

good luck with the disection!