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Ohio Northern University Environmental & Field Biology The Environmental and Field Biology major at ONU is a unique, hands-on major that allows students to pursue careers in ecology and environmental science.

Hi it’s Brooklyn! For our last night of Marine and Coastal Bio we went night trawling. While trawling we caught a few of...
10/17/2026

Hi it’s Brooklyn! For our last night of Marine and Coastal Bio we went night trawling. While trawling we caught a few of these cool Scrawled Cowfish (Acanthostracion quadricornis). They are ray-finned fish found in the West Atlantic Ocean and belong to the family Ostraciidae, the boxfishes. Their body is covered and protected by hexagonal dermal plates that are fused together to make a carapace. The name cowfish comes from the spines on this fishes head above its eyes, resembling cow horns.

Hello, it’s Andi again! 🎣This here is a baby/juvenile Longnose Batfish (Ogcocephalus corniger) and we found it along wit...
10/17/2026

Hello, it’s Andi again! 🎣

This here is a baby/juvenile Longnose Batfish (Ogcocephalus corniger) and we found it along with many other fish while trawling with a pontoon boat!

The Longnose Batfish is a bottom-dwelling marine fish. It has a flattened, disc-shaped body with a triangular head and an elongated, pointed snout (rostrum). It grows to a maximum length of about 12 inches and weighs up to 60.8 grams. It is found in the Western Atlantic Ocean, spanning from North Carolina and the northern Gulf of Mexico down through the Bahamas, the Caribbean Sea, and along the coast of Central and South America to Colombia.

They typically inhabit soft, sandy, or muddy ocean bottoms at depths ranging from 78 to 216 feet, occasionally entering brackish shallower estuaries where prey is abundant much like the Apalachicola Bay system.

Our Marine and Coastal Conservation class wrapped up our Florida adventure with a trip to ANERR (Apalachicola National E...
10/17/2026

Our Marine and Coastal Conservation class wrapped up our Florida adventure with a trip to ANERR (Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve) and a night trawl on the Gulf with FSU!

At ANERR students learned about how estuary health is tied to the freshwater feeding into the Apalachicola Bay. They walked their beautiful boardwalk through the coastal pine forest and visited their gorgeous nature center.

Seining, cast netting, and night trawling with Cullen and Grace from FSU was epic as always! Marine catfish, Scorpionfish, sea robins, gulf toadfish, cow fish, and bluntnose stingrays! What a way to end the trip!

10/17/2026

Hello again! This is Emma, and I want to tell you about the polka-dot batfish (Ogcocephalus cubifrons) that we caught during a night trawl! 🦇

The polka-dot batfish is a cool, weird-looking fish in the deep-sea batfishes family. They inhabit nearshore water with soft and textured ocean bottoms along the US East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico. Instead of swimming like a typical fish, batfishes use modified pectoral and pelvic fins to walk along the sea floor. Being relatives of anglerfish, batfish also have an illicium they use to lure and catch prey!

We brought out the black light and saw that the batfish’s tubercles showed some biofluorescence! Bioflourescence occurs when an organism absorbs light and re-emits it at a longer, visible wavelength.

Hello this is Grace and I am here with another fish! This is an Atlantic Croaker (Micropogonias undulatus). These fish a...
10/17/2026

Hello this is Grace and I am here with another fish! This is an Atlantic Croaker (Micropogonias undulatus). These fish are silvery-gray in color and iridescent on their heads. They have wavy lines on their upper sides and small barbels on their lower jaw. They have a very strongly serrated preopercle (cheek bone) and a distinct deep notch in their dorsal fin. Young Atlantic croakers are generally found in estuaries whereas the older fish inhibit deep waters. Adults will move into bays and estuaries during the spring, summer, and fall. During the fall season these fish will move back toward deeper waters to spawn. These fish are found all along the Atlantic coast from Massachusetts to the Gulf of Mexico. They prefer sandy/muddy bottoms with vegetation where they can feed on small fish, mollusks, and crustaceans. They are highly tolerant to a variety of environmental conditions since they migrate to estuaries to spawn. Atlantic croakers get their name from the identifiable croaking sound they make by vibrating their swim bladder. This croaking is used for communication, particularly during spawning, and can sometimes be heard above water. Female Atlantic croakers can produce many eggs (~150,000 eggs in a season) which are buoyant and will float to the water's surface. Larvae will hatch after about 24 hours and float with the current to an estuary. These fish are important economically to humans as they are both food fish and bait fish.

10/15/2026

NOW HIRING — JOIN OUR ANIMAL CARE TEAM!
The Ohio SPCA & Humane Society Adoption Center is looking for dependable, hardworking individuals to join our team!
With students returning to school and changes in staff availability and schedules, we are looking to fill several important positions to help us continue providing quality daily care for the animals at our shelter.
We are currently hiring for the following positions:
* Dog Kennel Cleaner
* Cat Kennel Cleaner
* Dog Walker
Position Details:
* Approximately 30 hours per week
* 5 days per week
* Applicants must be at least 18 years old
* Must be dependable, responsible, and comfortable working around animals
* Must be willing to work as part of a team in a busy animal shelter environment
These positions are essential to keeping our shelter clean, safe, and comfortable while ensuring the animals receive the daily attention and care they deserve.

INTERESTED IN JOINING OUR TEAM?

For more information about available positions, please contact our Shelter Manager, Elaine.
Phone: 419-991-1775
Email: [email protected]
Ohio SPCA & Humane Society Adoption Center
3606 Elida Road
Lima, OH 45807

Please share to help us find dedicated individuals who want to make a difference in the lives of animals!

Yesterday the Tate’s Hell FIRE crew gave our Marine and Coastal Conservation class an immersive experience in using fire...
10/14/2026

Yesterday the Tate’s Hell FIRE crew gave our Marine and Coastal Conservation class an immersive experience in using fire for land management and also for wildland fire fighting. They provided presentations regarding PPE and safety (including fire shelter deployment), a surprise helicopter fly by, a drone display including the dropping of Dragon eggs (filled with potassium permanganate and injected with glycol to produce fire), and they introduced us to all of their Dragons (Red Dragon- that flys inside the chopper with the Burn Boss, Sling Dragon- that hangs below the chopper, Green Dragon- that rides on the back of the truck, and last but not least- the Terra Torch). This was followed up with a grown-up touch-a-truck moment with the dozers used to cut fire breaks.

The FIRE crew then took us to their St. James location and provided a fire exercise teaching us how to communicate clearly to the team using the Incident Command System, how to read the weather to provide vital information to keep the team safe, how to draw water from a standing water body to fill an engine, and how to run a hose lay. To wrap up the team learned how to effectively work as a hand crew to make a fire break- scraping the earth down to bare mineral soil.

It was an absolutely epic day of learning!

Hi it’s Brooklyn! This week we learned a lot about Horseshoe crabs! Specifically the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus po...
10/13/2026

Hi it’s Brooklyn! This week we learned a lot about Horseshoe crabs! Specifically the Atlantic horseshoe crab (Limulus polyphemus) and how to safely tag and release them. Horseshoe crabs usually emerge from water during high tide around full or new moons to mate. We arrived a little after high tide and found 3 pairs with no satellites. Satellites are males with no mate who surround a pair in hopes fertilizing eggs. In a pair the female is usually buried under the sand with the smaller sized male on top of her. When you pick the horseshoe crabs up to put in the bucket to go tag you want to make sure you gently pick them up with both hands on both sides of the prosoma. Never pick them up by their tail! The tail is not dangerous to you, it is just easily injured. The tail is called a telson and they only use it to help flip themselves back over when on their backs! Once you and a partner pick the female and male up, put them in the bucket with water in it and leave them there while you complete the whole area.
Before tagging these guys you first have to weigh them in a bag and the bag by itself. You then measure them at their widest point, check for missing claws or legs, and look to see how old you think they are. The differing options are young, medium, and old. After you do that you then tag them on the left side of the prosoma. Then you finally release them back!

Hello, it’s Gillian again. This fish is called a permit, also know as Trachinotus falcatus. This fish is part of the fam...
10/13/2026

Hello, it’s Gillian again. This fish is called a permit, also know as Trachinotus falcatus. This fish is part of the family Carangidae, Although this fish i’m holding is rather small, this species can get up to about four feet, and a max of nearly 80 pounds. These fish prefer somewhat shallow, brackish water, inhabiting the western atlantic. They tend to feed on crabs, shrimp, and various other invertebrates, as well as many types of small fish. Permit can live to around 23 years, reaching sexual maturity around 2-3 years, and they rapidly grow until they are around 5 years old. Small permits tend to school in groups of around 10, while larger fish tend to be solitary. Permit are often preyed on by sharks and barracuda. This fish is a popular game fish, and is caught for sport.

Great day with the Forestry team at Tate’s Hell! The Field Semester crew learned how to do a sustainable timber cruise, ...
10/13/2026

Great day with the Forestry team at Tate’s Hell! The Field Semester crew learned how to do a sustainable timber cruise, visited a RCW cluster, collected pond cypress cones in the dwarf cypress forest, and learned how much planning goes into the management of 212,269 acres of forest!

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