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New ‘marine life encyclopedia’ launched

September 12, 2011 by Leave a Comment

I think there might be another great bookmark to add to your ocean facts files! Please spend some time reviewing this great new resource, a marine life encyclopedia, compiled by Oceana. Over 500 creatures, places, and concepts can be explored. The pictures are bright and colorful and the information is up-to-date and easy to digest. It seems fantastic if you want a quick answer to a question.

Even if you think you know all the answers, test yourself with this Ocean IQ quiz!

The content on the marine life encyclopedia site has been licensed to Dorling Kindersley, one of the world’s leading educational publishers.

Filed Under: Algae (Seaweeds), Animal Homes, Arthropods, Atlantic Horseshoe Crab, Beach, Biodiversity, Birds, Bivalves, Bony Fishes, Cephalopods, Cnidaria, Coral Reef Ecosystems, Crustaceans, Echinoderms, Egg Cases, Fish, Jellyfish or Jellies, Marine Mammals, Mollusks, Ocean, Penguins, People, Places, Plants, Random Fun!, Reptiles, Sea Turtles, Seashells, Sharks, Skates and Rays, Test Your Knowledge, Univalves, Weather, Wrack Line Tagged With: , ,

Top 5 beachcomber questions answered

August 23, 2011 by Leave a Comment
Sea urchin

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!)

1. How do fish give birth?

2. How do flamingos get their color?

3. What is the biggest fish in the sea?

4. What eats sea urchins?

5. Do sharks have bones?

Anytime you have a beachcombing or ocean related question feel free to email us at info@beachchairscientist.com.

Filed Under: Atlantic Horseshoe Crab, Beach, Birds, Echinoderms, Fish Tagged With: , , ,

Scientists discover new living fossil. What is a living fossil?

August 22, 2011 by 2 Comments

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.”

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13 apps for your day at the beach

August 17, 2011 by 2 Comments

It’s time to get the most out of that last trip to the beach!

Whether you’re ready for a day out on the boat, lounging, beachcombing, catching some waves, or preparing a feast there is an app to get you more involved in your marine environment. Apps are not only a great way to learn something new on the fly but can be a useful tool for engaging one another in settings where you may not have common ground. (OK, at the very least apps settle many ‘discussions’.)

Here is a list of useful and rather attractive apps that can connect you to your inner marine biologist.

AUDUBON FIELD GUIDES: Audubon Fishes of the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico and Audubon Fishes – A Guide to North American Fishes include photos, geographic ranges, and concise yet detailed descriptions of appearances. Coming soon is the field guide for the Mid-Atlantic shoreline. ($9.99)

OCEANOGRAPHY STUDY GUIDE: If you are into fun oceanography trivia and want to learn more about the geography of the sea than download this app. It isn’t an endless list of “did you know?” facts but rather a large range of topics with well written articles for the serious beach chair scientist. ($4.99)

OFFICIAL APP OF ISSF: The International Seafood Sustainability Foundation (ISSF) was founded in 2008 when leaders of industry, scientists and environmental champions voiced concern over the future of tuna fisheries. This app provides a glossary of terms, videos, and a list of the status of stocks. (Free)

SEA TURTLE APP: This app was created by the Sea Turtle Conservancy and allows you to follow read the latest on sea turtle news but much more exciting you can track the global migration of different sea turtles with interactive satellite tracking maps! (Free)

Enough sitting around – it’s time to get out there and do something:

MOBILE APP FOR IGFA: The International Game Fishing Association created an app for weigh station locations, angler rules and regulations, customizable quests, and advice for trip planning. What more does a sport fisherman need?

MARINE DEBRIS TRACKER APP: This collaboration is brought to you by the Southeast Atlantic Marine Debris Initiative. The reporting of where you find marine debris can help to focus and prioritize federal efforts. The app uses GPS and allows you minimal work of sorting through lists of common marine debris. (Free)

CRAB APP: This app is an offshoot from the marine wild lab and allows you to collect horseshoe crab species data that will be used in scientific research. Horseshoe crabs are of enormous importance to 1) the drug industry due to their blood, 2) to fisheries for bait, and 3) to migratory shorebirds for its eggs.  (Free)

TIDE GRAPH: I found out that there are many, many apps out there to help you monitor the tides. Tide Graph will work for both coasts in the US and provides graphs to help you see how the tide changes over the day and the month. ($1.99)

If you are preparing a feast or gorging on some dockside seafood:

SEAFOOD WATCH: For years the Monterey Bay Aquarium has produced adorable pocket-sized regional cheat sheets so you can get a quick overview of what species are considered over fished or not in your neck of the woods. They continue to produce this application for your iPhone and use GPS tracking to discover where you are so you can get the most relevant information. (Free)

PROJECT FISHMAP: Monterey Bay Aquarium also gets you more involved by asking you to submit information when you find a restaurant or market that advocates sustainable seafood. As the map grows you can see what spots you’ve not uncovered in your neighborhood. (Free)

FISHPHONE APP: With one quick text (example: “fish salmon”) to 30644 Blue Ocean Institute will fed you intel on your species of choice. For instance, they’ll rank the sustainability and toxicity levels and send an overview of its conservation status. (Free)

SAFE SEAFOOD: This app takes information from ten different seafood rankings (including Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Environmental Defense Fund) to create its list. The app outlines choices in an easy to review “best to worst” list. I particularly like that fish with multiple different market names are listed by each of common name too. ($0.99, but 10% of the proceeds go to EDF)

I am certain I missed many wonderful apps. Please do not hesitate to email at info@beachchairscientist.com to share!

Added October 27, 2011: An app for water quality and to get the most up-to-date grade for your beach presented by Heal the Bay in California.

Filed Under: Fish, Ocean, People, Places, Random Fun!, Sea Turtles, Test Your Knowledge Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Save Our Seas Foundation

June 29, 2011 by 3 Comments

In case you didn’t notice, every month I like to share one of my favorite marine science conservation website or blogs. And, even though I just posted on The Daily Ocean I want to highlight the Save Our Seas Foundation.

This is the organization (or ‘organisation’ since they are based in Switzerland) that produces the Naked Oceans podcast (one of the 8 great podcasts listed on the right sidebar). The website for this major player in the fight to save the world’s oceans manages to be in-your-face while still maintaining class and a jovial nature. They cite important messages in large font in the center of the page followed up with bullets and lists (see the threats page for a great example of this).

Also, the blog for Save Our Seas Foundation posts pertinent information (in an easy to digest language) about the research projects their own science team is conducting with pictures they actually took in the field. A lot of the focus of their research is on sharks. Recently they hosted a Dutch film crew doing a documentary between the relations of sharks and surfers (no, they aren’t cousins).

All in all, it seems as though the people working with the Save Our Seas Foundation are dedicated, passionate, and fun and I hope you follow and support them in the future.

Filed Under: Ocean, People, Places, Random Fun!, Sharks Tagged With: , ,

5 facts about fish farming

May 24, 2011 by 5 Comments
Fish farming on Lake Titicaca.

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.

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Test your knowledge: National Ocean Science Bowl biology

May 22, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Here are some more sample questions from the Consortium for Ocean Leadership‘s popular National Ocean Science Bowl (NOSB). These questions come from the Biology section.

Good luck!

1) Northern elephant seals come ashore during the spring and summer to do what? a) Mate b) Eat c) Give birth d) Shed their fur

2) The habitat of blue whales, tunas and swordfishes is best described as: a) Benthic b) Littoral c) Estuarine d) Pelagic

3) Intensive aquaculture of which of the following organisms has contributed to loss of mangroves around the world? a) Tilapia b) Cod c) Salmon d) Shrimp

4) Lophelia (LO-fee-lee-ua) coral reefs in the North Atlantic are being primarily damaged by: a) Pfiesteria b) Poisoning c) Rising temperatures d) Trawling

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Filed Under: Bony Fishes, Marine Mammals, Random Fun!, Test Your Knowledge Tagged With: , , , ,

“Always read something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it.” P.J. O’Rourke

May 20, 2011 by Leave a Comment

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

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Arnie ain’t no anglerfish

May 17, 2011 by 1 Comment
The Humpback anglerfish uses a modified dorsal...

Image via Wikipedia

Well, well, well, Arnold Schwarzenegger has a love child. As a newlywed I shook my head when I heard the news and said “surely they’re not all like that.”

I decided to investigate to find out if there are any truly monogamous species out in the blue sea.

Also, I did watch March of the Penguins. As much as I admire the Emperor penguins for staying together to raise their young, they are not lifelong monogamists. Each season they usually procreate with a different partner.

However, one group of anglerfish, from the family Ceratiidae, has a very faithful male (a little to clingy though if you ask me). Highly sensitive olfactory adaptations have evolved in these male anglerfish that allow them to smell out females. This is very useful as they are in the desolate landscape of the deep sea. Once they sniff out a mate, the males basically bite into the flesh of the females and fuse their mouth into her bloodstream. After that, these males will degenerate and simply be a source of sperm for the females.

Without this process the males would not be able to survive. The males of this family do not grow ’em tall due to the lack of a alimentary canal, essential for feeding. The males are scientifically smaller than the females and several males can be attached to one female. It took researchers some time to uncover the mystery that is the male anglerfish. For the longest time they couldn’t figure out why they were only collecting females specimens. But, unbeknown-st to them, the males were there too.

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Farting on a school bus – bad; Farting as part of a school of herring – ok

May 13, 2011 by Leave a Comment

Recently two Ohio middle school boys were suspended from riding the bus for farting on the bus. If these boys were part of a school of herring they’d have no repercussions. In fact, they’d be making the grade in language arts.

Back in 2003 an article published in the U.K. science journal Biology Letters explained a phenomenon discovered by scientists at the Bamfield Marine Science Centre, British Columbia, Canada, where herring produce high-frequency sound bursts followed by a fine stream of bubbles, dubbed Fast Repetitive Tick (FRT).

The noise can be up 22 kilohertz.

It is suspected that these FRTs are not to be a call to hunger or a call to breed but rather are triggered while the fish are swimming at night while in large densities as a means of communications. According to a National Geographic article on the subject, “It might seem an amusing idea to us that herring communicate using farts. But for herring and the mammals that prey on them, FRTs may signal safety—or the next meal.”

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