Marine & Freshwater Environmental Education
Image via Wikipedia
Take a look at this quarter’s top 5 reasons folks end up on our site. (Due to the amazing power of WordPress I can see what you’re typing into a search that would lead you here!)
2. How do flamingos get their color?
3. What is the biggest fish in the sea?
Anytime you have a beachcombing or ocean related question feel free to email us at info@beachchairscientist.com.
A living fossil is not Russell Johnson (the professor from Gilligan’s Island) or dear Zsa Zsa Gabor (God bless you for holding on!).
I’ll chop it down to say that a living fossil is an organism that more closely resembles a fossil than anything living. For instance, the Atlantic horseshoe crab resembles the fossil record of trilobites more so than anything living. You can also think of living fossils as animals that have gone unchanged after millions of years therefore resembling the fossil record of their ancestors very closely. For instance, alligators and crocodiles haven’t evolved much in the past 230 million years. Horseshoe crabs have gone unchanged in the past 450 million years.
Most recently, a team led by Smithsonian scientists discovered a new living fossil, a primitive eel (Protoanguilla palau), from 10 specimens gathered from a cave in Palau. Palau is an island located in the Pacific 500 miles east of the Philippines and 2,000 miles south of Tokyo. What the scientists noticed was unique to this species (setting it apart from the 800 species of living eels) was the presence of a second upper jaw bone, fewer than the standard 90 vertebrae, and a full set of bony toothed gill rakers. Also, according to the press release from the Smithsonian, “The team’s analyses of total mitochondrial DNA indicate that P. palau represents an ancient, independent lineage with an evolutionary history comparable to that of the entire order of living and fossil eel species.”
No. Sea pens resemble a quill pen and that is how they got their common name. Most amazing is that when brought to the surface the plume will light up green – glowing the entire sea pen! This is really the sea pen’s nervous system responding to predators.
Sea pens (just like their relatives the sea whips, sea feathers, and sea pansies) are cnidarians. This group is characterized by their specialized cells that are typically used for capturing prey.
Some of the specialized cells in sea pens are used to capture plankton for nutrients and others are used for transferring water in and out of its body. These types of specialized cells are the building blocks for the polyps that make up the colonies that then make up the long plumes of the sea pen.
Sea pens range in size from 4 inches to 6 feet. They are distributed worldwide in the temperate and tropical zones. There are 14 families within the order Pennatulacea.
Pictured is an orange sea pen.
Image (c) wierdseamonster.com.
It’s the end of another National Oceans Month. And, on this most lovely of lovely days I’d like to Speak Up For Blue and name 30 reasons to be grateful for the ocean! (OK, and it just so happens to be this Beach Chair Scientist’s birthday)
In no particular order, here are some reasons to appreciate the ocean (and all its glorious ecosystems):
Estuaries (Although the course may change sometimes, rivers always reach the sea. – Led Zeppelin)
Intertidal Zone (including littoral zone)
Coral Reefs (Pollution, overfishing, and overuse have put many of our unique reefs at risk. Their disappearance would destroy the habitat of countless species. It would unravel the web of marine life that holds the potential for new chemicals, new medicines, unlocking new mysteries. It would have a devastating effect on the coastal communities from Cairns to Key West, Florida — communities whose livelihood depends upon the reefs. – Former President Bill Clinton.)
Pelagic Zone, Euphotic Zone (Open ocean)
Mesopelagic Zone, Twilight Zone (Open ocean bathyal zone)
Deep Sea (Abyssal)
Polar Regions
And, without it we’d be nothing. Oceans cover about 70% of the earth’s surface, and we rely on it economically, environmentally, and scientifically.
Obviously this is a very personal list and it could go on and on forever. I am looking forward to hearing your reasons to be grateful to the ocean and hope we can get to 100 by the end of the year!
Image via Wikipedia
Here are five facts about the glory and challenges of fish farming. Fish farming and aquaculture has really stepped up due to the demand for the world’s fish consumption, but maybe not in the most sustainable manner like Linda Thornton.
1.) It’s polluting our water
It seems as though large fish farm like to cram fish to live in very tight spaces. A large amount of fish would lead to a large amount of waste produced by the fish. Also, the unfavorable conditions often lead to disease. Fish farmers tend to treat the disease and infection with harmful antibiotics which further harm the surrounding waterways.
2.) It brings untested chemicals to your dinner plate
It seems as though many of the antibiotics used to treat diseases on foreign fish farms are commonly made of chemical banned in the US. Since there is no regulation often these harmful chemicals make their way to your dinner table.
3.) It’s tearing apart mangroves
Shrimp farmers are tearing apart the mangroves to make way for their new crop of this popular crustacean. However, this destroys a delicate nursery ground for many local fish species. In turn this depletion in resources severely affects local economies. What makes matters worse is that often these shrimp farms are abandoned in order to find better producing areas.
4.) It’s often counter-productive
Fish farms can be tough to maintain, especially for salmon and other carnivorous species. They tend to eat more food than they actually produce! This is turn leads to a lot of waste that can disturb the balance of the surrounding waterways.
5.) It does good things!
Some fish farms raise species that are actually clear out pollutants from the water. Bivalves (oysters, mussels, etc.) are filter feeders and cleanse their aquatic habitat! Also, tilapia are herbivores and do not require as much input as the carnivorous farmed fish need.
Today Ira Flatow discussed summer science reads on Science Friday, my favorite radio program. So, I got to thinking about two very special books that I always wander back to when I want to reconnect with the ocean. Henry Beston’s, The Outermost House, and Jennifer Ackerman’s, Notes from the Shore, are two books written in the spirit and tradition of Thoreau’s, Walden. Beston and Ackerman are alone with their thoughts in a remote marine environment (Beston is on Cape Cod while Ackerman is on Delaware’s Cape Henelope) for an extended period of time. They both contemplate how the ocean can be a metaphor for our existence.
After his return from World War I, Beston built a writer’s cabin on Cape Cod. He called the home Fo’castle and there he wrote The Outermost House published in 1928. This book was an inspiration to Rachel Carson as she wrote The Sea Around Us. Fo’castle was unfortunately destroyed by high tides in 1978.
Here is an excerpt from The Outermost House that I come back to often (especially when I am coveting the latest smartphone): “Touch the earth, love the earth, her plains, her valleys, her hills, and her seas; rest your spirit in her solitary places. For the gifts of life are the earth’s and they are given to all, and they are the songs of birds at daybreak, Orion and the Bear, and the dawn seen over the ocean from the beach. ”
Let’s face it. Beston is not for everyone. Jennifer Ackerman is a bit most contemporary in
her text and prose. After all, Notes from the Shore was published in 1995. Her outlook on man altering nature is spot-on, “It’s in our nature to see order and when we don’t see it, to try to impose it. We have to put things through our minds to make sense of them, and our minds crave pattern and order. So maybe what we glimpse is only what we desire.” A statement that reminds me sometimes we should just allow nature to take its course and see what happens.
Another reason I gravitate to Notes from the Shore is that she spends a considerable amount of time writing about my favorite animal, Limulus polyphemus. She even reviews her experience counting horseshoe crabs during the late nights in May and June, an activity this Beach Chair Scientist did quite often during undergraduate internships. With that I will leave off with Ackerman’s description on the incredible nature of the horseshoe crab‘s ability to remain so steadfast and unchanged, “These creatures so durable that they antedate most other life-forms, so adaptable that their survival as a species may, for all we know, approach eternity.”
Image (c) goodreads.com
A few days ago the Washington Post announced that the National Zoo in Washington, D.C. is now home to 10 giant clams of the species Tridacna crocea. You may think the National Zoo is a peculiar place for clams especially since the National Aquarium now has a branch in D.C., however the clams are suitably placed in the invertebrate exhibit and I highly recommend you spend time there if you ever make it to the National Zoo. It is one of the quieter exhibits, housed in air conditioning (what’s not to love about that?), and has an exhibit for chambered nautilus, a BCS species favorite.
With all that being said, it seems as though if you want to learn about T. crocea, smallest of all the giant clams species, you’ll have to come to D.C. (or simply read the article in the Post linked above)!
So, I am going to take this opportunity to brief you on a real giant clam. This posts features the largest and most elaborately colored of all the giant clam species, Tridacna gigas (pictured right). This being the largest of all living bivalves, T. gigas holds it own at a whooping 500 lbs, 3 ft 10 in length and 30 in wide. The average male American black bear is about that size. At 500 lbs, it’s no wonder they cannot shut their two shells together (It’s like when I to pack for a weekend vacation).
These hermaphrodites, found in the Indo-Pacific, are planktonic when young and sessile as adults. The diet of these placid creatures is algae as they are filter feeders.
There is concern among conservationists that T. gigas is being exploited as they are harvested for food (a delicacy in Japan) and is a popular acquisition in the aquarium trade.
I wonder what creature would win if pitted against each other: the giant clam, T. gigas, or the largest sea urchin, Sperosoma giganteum? Maybe that deserves further thought in a future post.
Image (c) manandmollusc.net.
If you’ve got some spare time this weekend, take some time to enjoy this fantastic documentary of one woman’s quest to transform shrimp aquaculture practices. Andrew Revkin of the New York Times helped produce this 16 minute documentary of Linda Thornton, a biologist who uprooted herself from her home in Illinois to Belize, and set out to farm shrimp in a sustainable manner (for instance, without antibiotics). It is quite a story, filled with some sad moments as well as uplifting ones. She partners up with the World Wildlife Fund in an effort to create the first set of standards for sustainable aquaculture and is trying to get folks in the US to adopt the practices as well. Please enjoy and share your impressions of her quest. I find the most fascinating parts of the video to be the overview of her aquaculture facility and how it all fits together.
Is it possible that squid can warn us of earthquakes? I say yes.
It was pointed out in the The Yomiuri Shimbun earlier this month that fishermen saw in increase of their catch of squid right before several major earthquakes, including this recent one in March 2011.
The article stated that “According to Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry statistics, squid fishermen in Tokushima brought in 491 tons of the cephalopods in 1994–just before the Hanshin quake–which was 1.4 times the 1993 catch and 1.9 times the 1992 catch.”
This is certainly an impressive increase in catch. As it was also when “There were amazing hauls of squid just before the 1946 Nankai Earthquake,” one veteran fisherman from southern Tokushima said. And, most recently the correlation can be noted when just before the March 11 earthquake “Squid fishermen in Tokushima Prefecture hauled in a bumper catch”.
Also, interesting was a small squid stranding right before a small earthquake in La Jolla, California in 2009.
Some questions have been asked that “if this increase in catch does occur right before a major earthquake has it ever been noted that there is a sharp drop in catch right after?” My instinct is to say that there would be a sharp decline in the catch since squid would not be as easy to catch. It seems to me that since this cephalopod is typically found near the bottom of the ocean floor (close to the Earth’s crust) they must be moving closer to the surface of the ocean where fishermen can catch them easier. According to a Tulane University website, since earthquakes “occur when energy stored in elastically strained rocks is suddenly released. This release of energy causes intense ground shaking in the area near the source of the earthquake”. It would seem as though squid can detect the grounding shaking phenomenon prior to the rest of us since it happens in their own backyard first.
That’s right! American lobsters can be blue (rather than the brownish/green color they typically are prior to cooking) due to either a genetic modification or an abnormal diet. Both colored lobsters taste the same. One in every two million lobsters can be blue. Enjoy this funny video from the folks at CapeCast.
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