Green Pages

Part #6:  “Monster” Cells Story & Photos By Dr. Eric Cole As glaciers of the Late Pleistocene (our most recent Ice Age) melted, raising sea levels around the world, they lifted the water table within each of the Turks & Caicos Islands. A marine elevator of sorts rose up through the Islands’ porous limestone interiors, ultimately breaching ...

Encounters with a polka-dotted octopus in the Turks & Caicos Islands. By Emily Lekas ~ Edited by Dr. C.E. O’Brien ~ Photos by Dr. C. E. O’Brien & Center for Marine Resource Studies Students & Staff Dots have pleased the human eye for centuries, inspiring a sense of whimsy. Today, they adorn everything from bow ties to ...

TC Reef’s new facility redefines research and education in the Turks & Caicos Islands. By Alizée Zimmermann, Turks & Caicos Reef Fund The Turks & Caicos Islands are not currently known as a hub for marine research, yet our waters are home to one of the largest barrier reef systems in the Caribbean Atlantic region. This expansive, ...

Investigating the Turks & Caicos Rock Iguana. By Sally C. Dowd As the heat thickens and the wind subsides, biologist Jimmy Wehsener carefully steps around dozens of cacti on the southern reaches of Big Ambergris Cay, one of hundreds of remote islands scattered in the Atlantic that together form the Turks & Caicos. The flat turquoise sea ...

Watching what octopus do all day and night. Story & Photos By C.E. O’Brien, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Tropical Marine Ecology, School for Field Studies Center for Marine Resource Studies South Caicos How does an octopus spend its time at home? That’s what I and two researchers from Brazil teamed up to determine in a recent study ...

Queen Conch and the Graveyard Hypothesis By Emma Boling, Sofia Gonzalez, David Marsh, and Emma Pranger, Spring 2025 students ~ Edited by C.E. O’Brien, Associate Professor of Tropical Marine Ecology and Dani Backman, Waterfront Assistant, The School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies, South Caicos ~ Special thanks to Fall 2024 Grave Conch-erns research team: Zachary ...

TCI is home to the spineless ancestor of all creatures with a spine. By Dr. Eric S. Cole Sometimes scientists get it so right it’s almost magical. In 1999 Neil Shubin and a small team of paleontologists began flying to the furthest north stretch of land above the Arctic Circle, Ellesmere Island, to excavate an exposed bit ...

Mutant ninja pupfish. By Dr. Eric S. Cole Most residents and visitors to the Turks & Caicos Islands are naturally drawn to their magnificent beaches and open waters. A few rare and restless souls explore the more remote—and perhaps less inviting— inland marine ponds. These “Anchialine” ponds are unique in that they provide refuge and habitat to ...

Marine research for our changing climate. By Danielle Backman, Waterfront and Program Assistant ~ Edited by Yuqian Zhang, Ph.D., Resident Lecturer in Marine Conservation Governance, The School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies, South Caicos For over 40 years, The School for Field Studies (SFS) has been transforming lives by inspiring students to become global ...

The oddly shaped boxfish. By Lydia A. Harris ~ Edited by C.E. O’Brien, Ph.D., The School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies, South Caicos Ask someone to draw a fish, and you can probably guess the basic shape they will draw:  a horizontal oval with a triangle on one end for a tail. Easy enough, ...

Eels of the Turks & Caicos Islands Story & Photos By C.E. O’Brien, Associate Professor of Tropical Marine Ecology, The School for Field Studies, Center for Marine Resource Studies Eels are members of the order Anguilliformes, a group of mostly marine fishes characterized by their elongated bodies without scales. They also lack the pelvic and (usually) the pectoral ...

Gauging sustainable spiny lobster fisheries. Story & Photos By Marta Calosso & John Claydon, Founders & Directors, FisherFolkFirst The majority of commercial fishers in the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) are free-divers, and their fishing techniques have remained largely unchanged for almost 50 years. This fact should be celebrated as a testament to the quality of the ...

Part 2:  Menagerie a trois Story & Photos By Eric S. Cole, Biology Department, St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota The life cycle of a jellyfish, and in particular the upside-down jellyfish (Cassiopea) involves something called alternation of generations, going between a swimming form, (the “medusa” that most of us recognize as a jellyfish), and a tiny anchored ...

Keeping Turks & Caicos “Beautiful By Nature” through storytelling and art. By Teresa Tomassoni, Amy Avenant and Katharine Hart Art and storytelling are powerful tools our ancestors have used from the beginning of time to preserve cultural heritage, pass on generations of wisdom about nature and advocate for her protection. They are tools that help us humans ...

Developing ocean stewardship and sustainable livelihoods for fisherfolk. Story & Photos By Marta Calosso & John Claydon, Founders & Directors, FisherFolkFirst The Caribbean spiny lobster (Panulirus argus) is the most important fishery in the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI). It also has the potential to be one of the most sustainable fisheries in the world. Almost all ...