Lunge-feeding humpback whales plunge into dense schools of small fish to feed on them. However, these small fish tend to be pretty fast. So, just how do huge whales sneak up on such speedy prey if they are as huge and overbearing as a ... well, whale?
This question became the focus of a study at Stanford University. Its findings was subsequently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal.
For the study, an international team led by researchers at KAUST's Red Sea Research Center collected a total of 88 mucus samples from the back and gill skins with lesions as well as from healthy skins of 44 wild-caught blacktip reef sharks caught in the wild around the Seychelles Islands.
Researchers sequenced the samples to identify the bacteria present in them, then compared the samples from the different sharks and tested them to detect changes in response to injuries.
Researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Centro de Investigaciones Marinas—Universidad de La Habana (CIM-UH) have discovered that offshore coral reefs that are also protected tend to be healthier than nearshore ones.
In the study, seawater from 25 reefs in Cuba and the Florida Keys in the US were tested for nutrients and other parameters that would give researchers a glimpse into the microbial community present.
Greek archaeologists have discovered the remains of a massive Roman vessel believed to be the largest classical shipwreck found in the eastern Mediterranean. Believed to have sunk some 2,000 years ago, the 35-metre vessel was discovered at a depth of around 60m during a survey off Kefalonia, one of the Ionian islands off Greece’s west coast. The site is situated 1.5 miles from the entrance to the harbour of Fiscardo, the island's only village to not be destroyed during World War II.
What a resurgence! I first saw this amazing resurgence in 2017.
Whether or not you have watched (or agree with) the movies Free Willy or Blackfish, the predicament of captive cetaceans is one that can spark off a heated debate from both sides of the fence.
Nonetheless, such movies and increased awareness have led to public calls for attractions and venues that keep wild animals captive to release them.
Marine-animal attractions like SeaWorld are particularly under fire due to their animal shows featuring captive cetaceans trained to perform for public entertainment.
In a study involving 378 orcas (or killer whales), researchers observed the first non-human example of the "grandmother effect" in a menopausal species.
This is when post-reproductive grandmothers (in this case, orcas) assist other members of the species with their offspring, thereby improving the young ones’ chances of survival. It was found that these post-reproductive orcas had the largest beneficial impact on their grandoffspring’s survival chances.
The wreck of the German battlecruiser SMS Scharnhorst, sunk by the Royal Navy during the First World War with the loss of all her crew and Admiral Graf von Spee has been found in the South Atlantic. SMS Scharnhorst, the flagship of the East Asia Squadron which was once the scourge of the Royal Navy, went down with most of the rest of the formation on December 8, 1914, in the Battle of the Falkland Islands.
The battlecruiser sank on Dec. 8, 1914, with more than 800 crew members on board, including German Adm. Maximilian Graf von Spee.
The survey was carried out by staff from the University of Southampton, Centre for Maritime Archaeology, as part of the Ancient Akrotiri Project, an ongoing collaborative research project on the peninsula conducted since 2015 and led by the University of Leicester.
Survey conducted by divers using underwater scooters, enabled wider coverage of the offshore approaches, identified new finds including numerous stone anchors and what appears to be the remains of a wreck carrying roof tiles, still of uncertain date.
Healthy coral reefs are full of sounds of life—with the whistles, pops and grunts of fish, the crackle of snapping shrimp, etc. These sounds travel out through the ocean currents, and “advertise” to young fish to come and settle down at this particular reef ecosystem.
However, when reefs are degraded or dying, the environment falls silent. Literally.
As a result, young fish do not find their way to such reefs, and this exasperates the reef's dire situation.
It was a beautiful day in Indonesia’s Banda Sea. Richard rolled back into the warm waters and swam over to join his wife, Florence. After exchanging signals, they descended together, heading for a patch of bright yellow sea fans on the reef wall at 30m, where their guide had promised to show them pygmy seahorses. The guide was already there below, searching for the elusive little creatures.
After studying humpback whales off Queensland's Peregian Beach, researchers discovered that the whales’ ability to communicate and socialise is adversely affected by the noise and presence of boats.
In some cases, the mammals’ communication range is reduced by a factor of four.
"It appears that groups of humpback whales tend to socialise much less in the presence of vessels—in this study, mostly small fishing boats—compared to when there aren't any present," said Rebecca Dunlop from The University of Queensland's Cetacean Ecology and Acoustics Laboratory.
