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Madden Science

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David Madden
Science Education + Adventure
🎥 youtube.com/@maddenscience
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@maddensciencestudio

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WHALE SHARKS | [Rhincodon typus] | Bahía de los Ángeles, Baja, Mexico

“Look down! Look down!” yelled Roberto. This was after jumping into the Sea of Cortez, catching a wave and big gulp directly to the face, and looking around trying to figure out where the shark had gone. And then there it was - a fish the size of a bus, swimming peacefully beneath us.

Whale sharks are the largest fish on Earth (and likely the largest fish ever)! These giants feed on the ocean’s smallest organisms: plankton, fish eggs, tiny crustaceans, and small fish. *All those floating specks in the video - yup, that’s the plankton.

Whale Shark spots and patterns are just like a fingerprint where each shark carries its own unique constellation. Here’s the most excellent thing ever → the technology used to compare those patterns grew out of algorithms originally designed to match patterns of stars in celestial constellations. 🌌💫▵🦈Full circle - the two most amazing experiences in Baja. Connected. We spent our nights beneath an incredible canopy of stars and our days searching the sea for another kind of constellation moving just beneath the surface.

When I think back on that day, the science is only part of the equation. There were the furious kicks trying to keep up with cruising whale sharks, followed by those few beautiful moments of interbeing and tranquility when we could just be in their presence. There was Jayne lending me her fins after mine broke. And most memorable was sitting on the side of the panga with our legs dangling over the edge, eager with childlike anticipation — waiting for what would become a transcendent, soul-filling experience.

The work done by the folks at the Vermilion Sea Institute is beyond extraordinary (MEGHANN!)! They are real life bio rock stars. Whale sharks are currently classified as endangered globally. Protecting them requires everything from global agreements and safer fisheries and shipping practices to protecting special places like Bahía de los Ángeles where they gather to feed.

IMMENSE GRATITUDE: Thank you @vermilionseainstitute @huracanecotours @claire.tours and @projectdragonfly + @hauaboutadventure for the additional clip! taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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21 days ago

THE BEAUTY OF BAJA

Vermilion Sea Institute + Rancho San Gregorio | Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition

Photos by David Madden | @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @miamiuniversity @creatusanacion

#Baja #SeaOfCortez #OceanAdventure #MaddenScience taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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a month ago

Baja Paddleboarding + Ocean Adventures
“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or THE SEA.” - Isak Dinesen

Awake each day at 5 a.m. and on the ocean before first light - tranquil, still, and soulful. Such a joy to wake up with the sea creatures as the sun rose above the mountain islands of the Sea of Cortez. The wonder and peace of adventure above and below the waves. 🌅

I get by with a little help from my friends: 🐡🐠🐬🐢🐦 + @gr6cel 🏄🏻‍♀️📷

📍Vermilion Sea Institute + Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @miamiuniversity
#Baja #SeaOfCortez #Paddleboarding #OceanAdventure #MaddenScience taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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a month ago

🌊 → 🐟 → 🐦 → 💩 → 🌵 → 🪲 → 🦂
Baja Birds + Ocean-Powered Islands!

Can we talk for a minute about biogeochemical nutrient cycling?

From a distance it almost looks like snow. But once you get a little closer you can see that the white-coated cliffs are due to guano! Visible in these photos is ocean abundance being transferred to the desert via a series of interactions (see emojis ⬆️ 😆)

There’s a wild ecological word for what’s happening: ALLOCHTHONOUS! Difficult to pronounce, while also highly specific and helpful. Now say it with me: uh-LOK-thuh-nus 😆 It means: originating somewhere else and transported into an ecosystem from an outside source. Allo = “other” + chthon = “earth”

The islands around Bahía de los Ángeles sit in one of the most productive marine ecosystems on Earth, surrounded by dry desert. The ocean helps power the islands.

It goes like this → Seabirds (like these Blue-footed Boobies) feed on fish at sea and then transport those marine-derived nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus + others) onto land through guano, food scraps, and carrion. Those nutrients fertilize plants and provide food for decomposers and scavengers, with effects that ripple up through the terrestrial food web. This is a rad example of bottom-up ecology. Ecologist Gary Polis called these “ocean-powered islands.” Research by Polis and Sánchez-Piñero found about 5× more beetles on islands with seabird colonies, and 6× more within the colonies themselves compared with areas outside them. These allochthonous nutrient transfers support intricate food webs of plants, beetles, spiders, scorpions, lizards, and other island life.

Birds in these photos:
Blue-footed Booby [Sula nebouxii]
White-winged Dove [Zenaida asiatica]
Brandt’s Cormorant [Urile penicillatus]
Brown Pelican [Pelecanus occidentalis]
Ducks!

Location; Vermilion Sea Institute + Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.
All photos by David Madden @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @miamiuniversity

#allochthonous #oceanpoweredislands #maddenscience #bajadesert taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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2 months ago

BAJA REPTILES:
Southwestern Speckled Rattlesnake [Crotalus pyrrhus]
Zebra-tailed Lizard [Callisaurus draconoides]

I love these pictures. Not because of the picture quality or anything technical but because of the memories they hold and stories they tell. Lemme explain this most excellent adventure.

Wednesday was the first day of another school year - one more in a continuous line of first days of school that started for me back in pre-K and somehow has never stopped. This school year and these pictures bring me back to one of my favorite quotes (from Sir Isaac Newton):

“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”

I’ve always loved that image: a kid wandering, exploring, captivated by nature and its wonders, paying close attention to ordinary things. It reminds me of my own childhood curiosity, and of how much my parents encouraged it, and how much of that I see in my students.

On the second to last day of our Earth Expedition, our boat ran up onto the sand on a remote island in the Sea of Cortez, and we jumped out to explore. We searched for chuckwallas, learned about mangrove sacrificial leaves, and investigated giant fish skeletons washed up on the shore. Just as the boat was ready to leave, I spotted a cave in the distance. *I promised I was only going to take a quick peek. 😉 It seemed disappointingly unremarkable, until I turned my head to hike back and something caught my eye. In a dark corner, a pattern emerged from the sand - a snake? A rattlesnake!! Perfectly camouflaged in the shadows of the cave.

[continued in comments]

Location; Vermilion Sea Institute + Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.

All photos by David Madden @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @miamiuniversity

#rattlesnake #lagartijas #maddenscience #bajadesert taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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2 months ago

BAJA DESERT NIGHT LIFE

It’s amazing to see how the desert transforms once day turns to night. We found these wonderful creatures on a night hike bio-blitz at Rancho San Gregario. Hiking through the desert at night brings a unique quality of both peace and tranquility along, awe and excitement - not to mention heightened senses as you balance searching for sought-after species (see pictures!) with avoiding getting impaled by one of the many species of cactus along the way. We had a blast during this wild nocturnal scavenger hunt! Here are some of my favorite pictures from the adventure. Thanks to all the folks who helped find these animals and helped me hold flashlights and UV lights.

1. Baja Tarantula (Aphonopelma sp.)
2. Rosy boa (Lichanura trivirgata)
3. Western black widow (Latrodectus hesperus)
4. Giant hairy scorpion (Hadrurus sp.)
5. Giant longhorn beetle (Derobrachus sp.)
6. Giant longhorn beetle (Derobrachus sp.)
7.Baja Tarantula (Aphonopelma sp.)
8. Wolf spider (family Lycosidae)
9. Spotted orb-weaver (Neoscona sp.)
10. The Milky Way!

Location; Rancho San Gregorio + Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.
All photos by David Madden @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @creatusanacion @miamiuniversity

#tarantula #fluorescence #maddenscience #maddensciencemacro #bajadesert taken in San Gregorio, Baja California, Mexico by @maddenscience

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2 months ago

CALIFORNIA SEA LIONS!
[Zalophus californianus]

This is some of what was going through my mind: What a wild and triumphant experience swimming with these fun and playful marine mammals. I hope you get a sense of their agility and inquisitiveness and their effortless movements. My team had to practically drag me out of the water when it was time to move on (stay tuned for what we moved on to...)

Sea Lions are magnificent animals and one of the most playful mammals. They displayed all of their aquatic acrobatics here in the shallow waters surrounding this island in the Sea of Cortez. Darting, diving, twisting, blowing bubbles, they seemed to be flying more than swimming.

Other than marveling at their movements and playfulness, I couldn't stop thinking about their keen hunting and perceiving adaptations, namely their hydrodynamic sensors called vibrissae (whiskers). Evolution has honed these super sensors to be able to detect water flow and movement. They have extraordinary sensitivity, allowing them to detect the water wakes and tiny vortices left behind by fleeing fish. These specialized mechanoreceptors even reduce interference from the sea lion's own swimming, allowing them to detect the subtle hydrodynamic trails left by prey.

All pictures were taken at The Vermilion Sea Institute and Rancho San Gregorio during Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.

All footage by David Madden @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @miamiuniversity @huraconecotours @claire.tours @yeyos.tours

#sealion #maddenscience #vibrissae #playful #bajasealions taken in Vermilion Sea Institute by @maddenscience

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2 months ago

LESSONS FROM THE DESERT:

Attention is the beginning of devotion - Mary Oliver

The desert was created simply to be itself - Thomas Merton

Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads - Henry David Thoreau

A person could get lost out here and find themself - Edward Abbey
__________________

Here are a few of my favorite photographs from the Baja desert, paired with short reflections from some of my favorite poets.

All pictures were taken at The Vermilion Sea Institute and Rancho San Gregorio during Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.

All photos by David Madden @maddenscience

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @creatusanacion @miamiuniversity

#desertlandscapes #hummingbirds #attention #maddenscience #bajadesert taken in San Gregorio, Baja California, Mexico by @maddenscience

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2 months ago

SCORPIONS! 🦂

One of my top goals and bucket list shots for the Baja Earth Expedition was to shoot close-up macro shots of scorpions at night. I wanted to be able to capture the fluorescent blue-green glow and also shoot using visible light (flash) to see how impossibly camouflaged these scorpions can be. We set out one night on an epic desert bioblitz adventure. I wish there was a way for me to share with you the joy I had in exploring the desert + watching and sharing in the delight of others as they too explored the desert at night. The most beautiful part was being able to drop back a little bit and observe not only the creatures of the night, but the exuberant and joyful humans walking and discovering just ahead of me. I loved watching everybody search for tarantulas and count up to 32 different scorpions, some tiny, some large, some hidden, and some out in the open. It was truly a peak experience that allowed me to both enjoy the moment, eyes down, focused on wildlife, while also taking in the beautiful emergent properties of the experience, and from time to time just turning off all the lights and gazing into the heavens.

SCIENCE: Scorpion fluorescence is the ultimate integrated science phenomenon, hanging out at the intersection of biology, chemistry, and physics. Unlike bioluminescent organisms (we did get to swim at La Gringa with billions of bioluminescent dinoflagellates, every move left a fairy-tale streak of glowing dust), scorpions do not manufacture their own light; fluorescent molecules embedded in the hardened outer layers of their exoskeleton absorb high-energy ultraviolet photons and re-emit part of that energy as lower-energy, longer-wavelength blue-green light. Invisible (to us) UV energy is absorbed, a small portion is lost through molecular vibration and heat, and the remainder emerges at wavelengths our eyes CAN see. [continued in comments]

Rancho San Gregorio + Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.

Some photos were taken using a flash; others were captured with longer exposures and UV flashlights (thank you, Grace @gr6cel & Amelia @ajeana08 for your patience!)

All photos by David Madden @maddenscience taken in San Gregorio, Baja California, Mexico by @maddenscience

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3 months ago

This is what it is like to be the universe looking back at itself.

In Baja, I fell asleep each night on a cot outside - no walls, no ceiling - watching the Milky Way stretch across the desert sky. I would fight sleep just to keep gazing into the immensity. Above me the great glowing arc of our Milky Way Galaxy: stars, nebulae, dark rivers of dust, and distances almost impossible to comprehend.

And, oh, the things that crossed my mind: the deepest peace and wonder, and the joyful exuberance of connectedness.

There was also the consuming, childlike wonder of wandering around in the dark - alone, with friends, or with Loca the desert ranch dog as my protector - carrying tripods and flashlights, trying different settings and compositions, laughing and experimenting, and then suddenly becoming silent when we remembered to stop looking at the camera and simply look up.

To be one human on the shore of this one planet looking outwards at our galaxy of 100-400 billion stars - this insignificance balanced with and giving birth to the most holy significance.

The light near the center of the Milky Way had been traveling for ~ 26,500 years before reaching my eyes and camera. To look deeply into space is to look backward in time, and into the profound mystery of our own being.

These pictures were taken at The Vermilion Sea Institute and Rancho San Gregorio during Miami University’s Project Dragonfly Baja Earth Expedition.

The Milky Way
All photos by David Madden @maddenscience
I took these using 8-10 second shutter, 20 mm, f 1.8

@vermilionseainstitute @projectdragonfly @creatusanacion @miamiuniversity

#milkyway #wonder #maddenscience #maddenscienceastro #bajanightsky by @maddenscience

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3 months ago

Baby Barred Owls [Strix varia] by @maddenscience.

These pictures were taken at the Orlando Wetlands Park, home to tons of beautiful wildlife, including these curious owls. The park is the result of impressive human engineering and an exemplar and benchmark for ecosystem services. This biodiverse wetlands, a 1,650 acre living laboratory, helps filter ~15 million gallons of reclaimed water each day from surrounding communities. During its 40+ day passage through the wetlands, nature improves water quality (3-4x cleaner than the St. Johns River it flows into) while creating habitat for an astonishing diversity of life, including more than 220 recorded bird species.

@livewildlyfl
@audubonfl
@orangeaudubon
@fl_wildcorridor
@myfwc
@cornellbirds
@visitorlando
@orlandosentinel

#OrlandoWetlandsPark
#BirdsOfFlorida
#FloridaWildlife
#WetlandEcology
#EcosystemServices
#HabitatRestoration
#FloridaNature
#MaddenScience taken in Orlando Wetlands Park by @maddenscience

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4 months ago

How nature says, “DO NOT TOUCH!”
More Amazon Rainforest nighttime friends.

VENOMOUS CATERPILLAR
WALKING STICK VEROPHASMATODEA
PROBOSCIS BAT
ECUADORIAN BROWN VELVET TARANTULA
MANDIBULATE NASUTE TERMITES
PARARCTE MOTH
MANDIBULATE NASUTE TERMITES
GAUDY GRASSHOPPERS
TERMITES + SOLDIER
PERUVIAN ORANGE STRIPE TARANTULA

@actsperu @exploramaperu @morphoinstitute

#donottouch #maddenscience #perunature #maddensciencemacro #wildlifephotography taken in ACTS Field Station and Canopy Walkway by @maddenscience

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4 months ago