Personal opinions

rhamphotheca:

mad-as-a-marine-biologist: Baby Frogfish (family Antennariidae), Tulamben, Bali, Indonesia

(photo by Paul Rudder)

rhamphotheca:

Siphonophores - The longest animals on the planet

(time 03:55) - Cousins of corals, siphonophores are colonies of specialized individuals called zoids. Some catch and digest their prey, others swim, or lay eggs or sperm.

(via: Plankton Chronicles)

rhamphotheca:

Pteropods (Sea Butterflies) - Swimming Mollusks

Planktonic snails known as sea butterflies build fragile shells. Will they survive an acidifying ocean?

(via: PlanktonChronicles)

jtotheizzoe:

Did you know there are lakes within the oceans?

The photo above shows a rippled lake, lapping against a sandy shore, surrounded by salty deposits and eroded coral formations. What might NOT be readily apparent is that this lake is underwater.

Off of the coast of the Yucatán peninsula, in the Gulf of Mexico, there exist a number of undersea brine lakes. Way back in the Jurassic, the Gulf of Mexico was a shallow, mineral-rich sea. For a time, it was cut off from the ocean and dried up, leaving loads of salt deposits behind. Many years later, as the ocean reformed and the geography continued to evolve, we were left with the Gulf that we see today.

Some of those salt deposits remained buried, a valuable commodity to be later mined by us humans. One particular salt dome along the Gulf, Avery Island, is the tasty origin of Louisiana’s famous Tabasco sauce!

But much of that salt remains buried deep under ocean sediments. When it is exposed, super-salty brines are formed, far saltier than seawater. And just like the deadly brinicles that send starfish scurrying for their lives beneath the Antarctic ice, these super-concentrated salty pools are denser and heavier than the seawater around them. So they “sink”, forming lakes within the ocean devoid of all but microbial life, slowly lapping salty waves onto the ocean shore around them.

Check out more at Ocean Explorer

(via rhamphotheca)

rhamphotheca:

Solar powered sea slug

Elysia chlorotica not only obtains chloroplasts from the algae it feeds on, it has incorporated algal genes into its own genome.

More on this animal: http://eol.org/pages/450768/overview

(photo: Patrick Krug, via Catologing Diversity in the Sacoglossa)

rhamphotheca:

braingels: Marrus orthocanna, a deep sea siphonophore. The combined digestive and circulatory system is red; all other parts are transparent.

ichthyologist:

World’s fastest punch vaporizes water

The Peacock mantis shrimp (Odontodactylus scyllarus) is capable of firing its clubbed claws at over 80 km/h (50 mph), with an acceleration similar to a .22 caliber bullet. The shrimp uses its club both for defense and offense, and can generate 90 kg (200 pounds) of force. The strike is so fast, it boils surrounding water, creating cavitation bubbles that immediately collapse under water pressure, striking the prey a second time. The collapsing bubble also creates a short lived flash of light and temperatures of several thousand kelvin.

Gifs are made from this BBC YouTube video:

Fastest animals on Earth in slow motion - Animal Camera - BBC

Credit goes to BBC

(via rhamphotheca)

rhamphotheca:

The Deep Sea Mystery Circle – a love story 

by Johnny, at The Spoon and Tamago

Introduced to life under the sea in high school through snorkeling, Yoji Ookata obtained his scuba license at the age of 21. At the same time, he went out and bought a brand new NIKONOS, a 35mm film camera specifically designed for underwater photography. He devoted all his spare time – aside from his day job – to perfecting his art of underwater photography. Then, at age 39, he finally made the transition. He quit his office job and became a freelance underwater photographer.

But even for a man who spent the last 50 years immersed in the underwater world of sea life, the ocean proved infinitely mysterious. While diving in the semi-tropical region of Amami Oshima, roughly 80 ft below sea level, Ookata spotted something he had never seen. And as it turned out, no one else had seen it before either…

(read more and FIND THE ANSWER TO THIS MYSTERY!)

rhamphotheca:

CLOCK TICKING DOWN TO SAVE POLAR BEARS

Scientists warn that we could lose more than two-thirds of the world’s polar bears by 2050, yet these majestic animals are still being hunted to supply a burgeoning commercial trade in their body parts. Two polar bear pelts recently fetched a record $16,500 each at auction in Canada.

Please call on President Obama to once again support a ban on this gruesome global trade, before the next meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

www.PolarBearSOS.org

rhamphotheca:

Mutant Fish, Eyeless Shrimp & Clawless Crabs: Fallout from the BP Spill (with Video) 

by Brian Merchant

Last September, a fisherman pulled nearly 400 pounds of mutated, eyeless shrimp out of the Gulf of Mexico. That was shocking and unusual. But because the media seems to feel that nobody’s interested the aftermath of the 2010 BP spill, the biggest offshore oil disaster in US history, you probably didn’t hear about it.

Since then, we’ve seen a similar tale play out: more mutated shrimp. More deformed shellfish. More fish with repulsive-looking lesions stretching across their scales.

Federal agencies are mum as to what’s causing the deformities, but a number of researchers and locals, mustering all of the common sense they’ve got, think they’ve uncovered a suspect. I won’t give it away, but here’s a hint: it spewed 4.9 million gallons of crude into the Gulf ecosystem…

(read more: TreeHugger)