{"id":7495,"date":"2026-03-03T23:06:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/?p=7495"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:06:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:06:32","slug":"the-bath-rhodoliths-3mar2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/2026\/03\/03\/the-bath-rhodoliths-3mar2026\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bath Rhodoliths 3Mar2026"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pic I. Algal Ball, better descibed as a “Rhodolith” on hard bottom\/loose, coarse sand just\u00a0 inside “The Platform” at Bath, Mar 28, 2024. View iNat Record<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

Early on in my studies of seagrass beds at Bath on the east, windward coast of Barbados in the years 1967-1970, I encountered and was fascinated by what I called “Algal Balls”: golf-ball- to cricket ball- and\u00a0 softball-sized spherical structures with a bumpy surface.<\/p>\n

They were pink to reddish color, which I recognized as coralline algae<\/a>; when I broke them apart on shore using a hammer and chisel, there was always a core of a coral fragment with the coralline algae in layers around it.<\/p>\n

Clusters of these algal balls occurred in depressions on hard surface (formed largely by coralline algae) seaward of the seagrass beds in an area subject to constant heavy wave action. I speculated that the spherical shape was due to regular disturbance and movement of the algal balls by the wave action.<\/p>\n

I am glad to say that though much else has been lost at Bath, most notably the once flourishing seagrass beds, I still observed these Algal Balls in my recent ventures to Bath (2024 and 2025). Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early on in my studies of seagrass beds at Bath on the east, windward coast of Barbados in the years 1967-1970, I encountered and was fascinated by what I called “Algal Balls”: golf-ball- to cricket ball- and\u00a0 softball-sized spherical structures … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bath"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7495"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7500,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7495\/revisions\/7500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versicolor.ca\/barbados\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}