I made an evolutionary tree of all the animals and a few of the plants you are likely to see out

there. I did it for my own enjoyment and knowledge after our trip last year. I thought it might be fun to use it as a sort of scavenger hunt to see what you can find. I coloured it so that green = easy to find blue = hard/annoying to find red = impossible to find (or conspicuously absent!) gold = very cool but rare Anything that I write could be wrong since I mostly learned it from a first year text and Wikipedia rather than an actual university class but Im sure somebody on your trip could show my errors. This stuff below is just a quick blurb about some of the different animals you might see out there based on just my own small knowledge. Enjoy yourselves out there! Monera: A group consisting of the Bacteria and the Archaea. It is most likely paraphyletic but I guess nobody really knows for sure. You probably wont be able to observe cells directly because I dont think they have stains for you to use and they would be polluting, but you will be able to observe biofilms. Cyanobacteria (bluegreen algae) might be found infecting coral or growing in macroscopic filaments but Im not sure how you could distinguish it. Archaeplastidae: A large group containing the plants, as well as many types of algae. The line distinguishing green algae from plants is so thin that its common to just refer to them collectively as Virdiplantae, which is the plants plus all the green algae. Palmae: The coconut tree, Cocos nucifera, will probably be the first site you see of Half Moon Caye! These trees compete with and encroach on the islands littoral forest, but also provide a buffer for it during hurricane season. Alismatales: All of the sea grasses fit into this group. Other than sea grass, the seaweed you see is not generally a plant, but an alga, cyanobacterium, or even a cnidarian. You shouldnt have any problem finding examples of this group. Green Algae: A paraphyletic group of about 9 different taxa, most of which are either as closely or more closely related to plants than they are to each other. A lot of the algae growing on coral are green algae. Mangroves: The mangroves arent actually on the picture I made but youll see a lot of them on the boat ride out and on other islands. There are a whole bunch of unrelated lines of mangroves that all occupy the similar niche of growing in salt water, so mangroves are highly polyphyletic. Mangroves are very important in island formation!!!

Rhodophyta: Also called the red algae. Very commonly covering rocks on the shore and easy to identify by its colour. Some species of red algae actually precipitate calcium carbonate and are very important in reef building. Chromalveolata: A very large group with a few members you might see. A whole bunch of algae including diatoms and brown algae, or kelp, are part of Chromalveolata. Apicomplexa, a group of obligate parasites, is also a member of Chromalveolata. You almost certainly wont encounter the Apicomplexan Plasmodium, which causes malaria, but about half of you are likely already infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite associated with cats. The most important member of Chromalveolata for reefs is a dinoflagellate called Symbiodinium, commonly called zooxanthellae. These symbionts of cnidarians are photosynthetic and give coral the energy to live. Eumycota: Usually called fungi. You wont find much in the water, possibly some infecting some coral, but you should be able to find some in the littoral forest. Choanozoa: You wont be able to see any of these, but they are the closest evolutionary relative of animals. Porifera: Also called the sponges. They are probably paraphyletic and resemble the first animals to evolve. Youll see many different types of these! Cnidaria: The group includes corals and jellyfish. Cnidarians are known for their nematocytes, a unique stinging cell used for protection and predation. Hexacorallia: This group of Anthozoans contains most of the corals on the reef, as well as the anemones. You should be able to find dozens of examples! Most of the coral is abiotic calcium carbonate skeleton, but in many of the holes the actual living polyps are hiding and they often come out to feed. Although coral are sessile, they can actually be quite active. Octocorallia: This group of Anthozoans has fewer representatives than Hexacorallia. You can tell if a coral is an Octocorallian if its polyps have eight tentacles. The octocorals are the blue corals or Coenothecalia, which have a cool-looking blue colour; sea pens or Pennatulacea, which look like quill pens; and Alcyonacea or the soft corals, which do not have calcium carbonate skeletons. Hydrozoa: Named after Hydra, a very distinctive genus that is known for being immortal. However, the Hydrozoans that you are most likely to see (or feel!) are the Milleporidae, or fire coral, which are very sharp and covered in nematocysts.

Cubozoa: Usually small, transparent, and hiding sea grass. Theyre hard to see and they can give pretty painful stings, so they are more annoying than interesting. Try to be careful when you wade through shallow grass. Scyphozoa: Also called true jellyfish. There are a few dangerous ones that you should avoid but for the most part they float passively through the water. Lophotrochozoa/Ecdysozoa: I dont know too much about this but the relationship of these groups is pretty controversial for taxonomists. Bivalvia: Includes clams, mussels, scallops, and oysters. Easy to find! Gastropoda: Very common! All of the slugs and snails, including conchs, belong to this group. Decapodiformes: Includes the squid. They have eight small tentacles and two big ones. Very quick and rarely seen but you might find one out there. Octopodiformes: Includes octopodes, which have eight tentacles. They camouflage extremely well and are probably even harder to find than squid. Annelida: This group includes oligochaetes such as earthworms and leeches. However, you are more likely to spot polychaete worms on the reef, some of which form large mucoid tunnels in the sand. Platyhelminthes: Also called the flatworms. You might see Turbellarians, which can be fairly large and can be distinguished by their characteristic flatness. However, most Platyhelminths are obligate parasites. Nematodes: Extremely diverse and abundant but usually either parasitic of barely macroscopic. To see them you would have to examine a plankton sample or a benthic sample under a microscope. Chelicerata: This shouldnt be too hard to find, since it includes spiders and dust mites. There arent too many spiders around though and even though mites are everywhere they are too small to see! So maybe you wont see any. Myriapoda: This would include centipedes and millipedes! If that grosses you out dont worry because you probably wont see one, except maybe in the littoral forest. Cirripedia: These crustaceans look like molluscs but actually have modified legs that pull in water for filter feeding. You can easily find them on the dock but try finding them in other places, like on crabs!

Copepoda: A near-microscopic component of the plankton. Youll definitely see a lot but it would be hard to distinguish them without a microscope. Although they are harmless to people, in certain life stages in large numbers they can be as voracious as piranhas! Dont worry though you are a bit too big for them. Stomatopoda: Also called mantis shrimp, these tiny crustaceans can often be beautifully coloured. Watch out though, because they are known for creating surprisingly deep gashes. Euphausiacea: These are better known as krill. Theyre quite small, but you should be able to find large groups of them in the water column. They look like tiny shrimp. Astacidia: These are the lobsters that people usually eat. You probably wont find these at Half Moon Caye as far as I remember but you can see them in the Maritimes or BC! Achelata: These are the spiny lobsters. They are fairly different from Astacidia, especially since they dont have the two big front claws, but have the same capability to very quickly fire themselves backwards with their tails, which you might see if you get close to them. Anomura: These make up the hermit crabs, along with a few others. Youll see more than you ever wanted to on land, but try and find them in the water as well. Brachyura: These are most crabs besides hermit crabs and king crabs. They are abundant in the water, but try finding members of genus Ocypode on land! Also called ghost crabs, they are the same white colour as the sand, spend most of their time burrowed under the beach, dont come out during the day, and run extremely fast. However, if you walk along the beach at night with a flashlight, you might be able to find them! They tend to be very common in the places that people dont usually walk. Hexapoda: Includes insects and a few wingless arthropods. Youll see a lot of these, but fortunately none from family Culicidae, the mosquitoes, at least not on Half Moon Caye. Echinodermata: These kind of creep me out. Theyre so weird. The have pentaradial symmetry, as well as bilateral symmetry split marked by a dot called the madreporite. Asteroidea: These are starfish, and they are very plentiful in the water. Ophiuroidea: Brittle stars have five arms like starfish, but are a lot more mobile. They are also fairly common. They are also very gross in my opinion.

Holothuroidea: The sea cucumbers. Theyre one of the odder animals out there. They litter the sea floor just sitting around looking odd. You definitely have to get a picture holding one! Echinoidea: Also called the sea urchins. They can be found in all sorts of coral cracks and crevices and occasionally in the open. They include sand dollars, which basically look like cookies with patterns on top. Batoidea: The skates and rays. They are fairly good at camouflaging and arent very numerous, but chances are you will be able to see one or two of them. Selachii: Sharks! They arent easy to find but you should be able to see them at their usual hiding places since Half Moon Caye is a rare safe haven for them. Theyre definitely dangerous but as long as you keep safety in mind you shouldnt have to worry about getting attacked. Teleostei: Includes the vast majority of fish, besides chondrichthyes and a few oddities like gar pike, sturgeon, and sarcopterygian fish. One of the things that make teleosts so successful is their unique skull. Their modified maxilla and premaxilla allow them to protrude the jaw very far (sometimes their own body length) and very quickly, creating a massive inescapable suction force. Its very hard to observe because its so quick but see if you can find a butterflyfish grazing on coral and watch how it feeds. The jaw is also highly modified in many fish like needlefish and parrotfish. Most teleosts also have modified the lung from the ancestral form found in fish like polypterus into an air bladder, giving them fine control over buoyancy. Elopomorpha: A lot of fishes including eels. They arent that common but youll more than likely at least see a few. Belonidae: Needlefish are easily identified by their large sharp-toothed mouths. Small needlefish swim in large schools along the surface and you can easily miss them if you are fixated on the bottom. Balistidae: Commonly called triggerfish. Many of them such as Balistes vetula, the queen triggerfish, are big but very narrow. Their head shape and fin orientation is very distinctive. Scorpaeniformes: The scorpionfish are often quite beautiful and simultaneously very well camouflaged. They can pull their fins and spines close in to become nearinvisible, or splay them out to become very colourful. If you observe one closely for an extended period, you might see it extend its fins out lazily without getting it excited. Genus Pterios, or lionfish, are invasive to the Atlantic and are highly toxic.

Acanthuridae: A fish that I forgot to put on the diagram but is very common. Includes surgeonfishes such as blue tang. Im not sure exactly where it would be phylogenetically but it would be somewhere between sphyranidae and pomacentridae. Sphyranidae: Includes the barracuda. Not too easy to find but youll likely see a few lurking in water column waiting for a meal. Serranidae: A large group that includes epinephelinae, the groupers. A lot of these are critically endangered but still present at Half Moon Caye. Some get quite massive. A few species more common and youll definitely see them. Chaetodontidae: Also called butterflyfish. If I remember right they have a reputation for mating in pairs for life. Theyre really acrobatic swimmers and kind of fun to watch and follow, if you can keep up with them. Pomacanthidae: Also called angelfish. They are really bright, usually big, and not really scared of people for the most part so theyre really easy to observe and look really nice. Lutjanidae: Snappers are extremely common and travel in huge schools. Theyre easy to find but kind of annoying to identify, since a whole bunch of them look alike and they are fairly variable in their appearance. Haemulidae: The grunts. They are actually named after the sound they make, which is a grinding sound that might be hard to hear. Gobioidei: Includes gobiidae, the gobies, and a few others. Theyre quite common but not as common as you might think. The problem with gobies is that theyre hard to tell apart from each other as well as the juvenile forms of other fish. There are a few distinctive ones that you should be able to identify. Other than those select few phenotypic plasticity makes them pretty hard to differentiate without looking at the fine details. This goes for a lot of fish in fact! Pomacentridae: The damselfishes and clownfishes. You wont see any clownfishes since they are not found in the Atlantic. However, the damselfishes are very common and have fascinating behaviours. The most entertaining are genus Abudefduf, the sergeant majors, which of everything you see out there are probably the fish most likely to attack you. Scaridae: The parrotfish are really easy to identify and quite common. Listen for a crunching sound followed by excretion of sand as they feed on coral by taking full chomps out of it.

Labridae: The wrasses are very common. Their sexual development and their behaviours are quite odd and diverse. If humans were like this relationships would be way more interesting. Lissamphibia: Im fairly sure you wont see any of these on Half Moon Caye since they need fresh water to reproduce, but its possible there are amphibians there. Probably should be coloured red on the picture. Reptilia: Basically reptiles are not really a meaningful group with respect to evolution but basically they are all the sauropsids except for birds plus some extinct mammallike reptiles like Dimetrodon. Rodentia: Hopefully you wont have to see any of these, but they certainly arent difficult to attract if you have the desire to! Cetacea: Seeing a whale or dolphin would be quite unlikely but certainly possible if you get lucky! Cryptodira: Youd need to be really lucky to spot a sea turtle swimming, but it could happen! You might have more luck spotting a nest (or at least a fake nest.) I believe they are more common at the blue hole if you visit it. Crurotarsi: Luckily you wont have to worry about alligators or crocodiles on Half Moon Caye, but the larger islands may have them. If youre wondering, dinosaurs would be a paraphyletic group between birds and crurotarsi. Passeriformes: The majority of birds are passerines. The most common on Half Moon Caye would be the grackle, genus Quiscalus, which will likely give you potentially annoying wakeup call. It has a keel-shaped tail. Fregatidae: Includes the frigatebird, Fregata magnificens. Definitely the most common bird and easily identified by its distinctive paired fail feathers. They have all sorts of entertaining behaviours if you watch them hunting. Sulae: Sula sula is hard to spot in the air on Half Moon Caye, since it flies far out to hunt away from the annoying frigatebirds. Gekkota: Geckoes are not too common but really neat to see. Larger ones will be hiding on trees, but smaller ones might be found on the ground and are even more difficult to find but extremely cool. Iguania: A few lizards should be fairly easy to find sunbathing on trees in the forest. They arent especially numerous but they can be quite large.

Serpentes: Snakes are not present from Half Moon Caye, which is part of what makes it a great habitat for marine birds like Sula sula. Amoebozoa: Amoebozoans would be mostly very difficult to find and impossible without a microscope. However, if you know where to look you might find some slime moulds such as myxogastria.