The sea monster - Photo by Larry Kenner

There has been a lot of buzz surrounding the serene Lakeside Park, most specifically the exciting developments in its pond. This isn’t the kind of location where you would expect to find a lot of excitement, as it is quite tranquil and many people go there to get away from the stress of the day.

However, there is something strange lurking beneath the waters of the pond… It is unknown what exactly it is at this time, but it has been dubbed the “Lakeside Nessie”.

This mystery creature doesn’t really fit the bill of being a full fledged sea monster, however it is rather large and doesn’t seem to be too fish-like.

A lone dog walker a few weeks ago, Hannah Ramsey, was walking along the pond, when she saw a very large fish-like creature on the banks.
“It was really weird,” Ramsey said. “It had a snake’s tail. It was really long and really big in the middle and it had fish scales.”
Ramsey continued by saying that she was within arms reach of the creature, but that it didn’t make any sudden moves.
“It stayed there for a couple of minutes, but it wouldn’t turn so I could see its face. It was acting like it was strangling a fish or something.”

However, Ramsey’s mother, Laura, has said that she believes that the creature on the banks was a giant carp. Lots of people feed things to the local wildlife, such as ducks, and the food sinks attracting the fish to the shoreline. She goes on to state that in the last she has seen two really large carp close in to the shore of the pond.

However, that doesn’t explain the snake-like tail, or the other odd features of the creature… Is it possible that Nessie has a cousin? Or maybe its just on a well deserved vacation? Whatever the answer is, the populace of Lakeside is eagerly awaiting the outcome.

My money is on a carp or other large scale fish because, lets not fool ourselfs, that is what it looks like.

Now this is an interesting development! Two female zebra sharks, located at the Vinpearland Park Nha Trang, laid eggs without the need for male sharks! After a long wait of 5 months of incubating the eggs, the very first unisex baby shark was born!

Zebra Shark Pup

The tank where the two female sharks have made their home for the past year has no male sharks in it. However, the first female shark, much to the surprise of the keepers, laid her eggs and a baby shark was born near the end of June.

The Oceanography Institute researchers in Nha Trang have explained that this is a very rare occurrence in nature and this is the very first time that a unisex shark has made an appearance in Vietnam. Not to be outdone by her tank partner, the second female shark laid close to a dozen eggs, of which over half of them didn’t have citellus. The others with citellus can actually develop embryos, and, with great excitement, the scientists at the Vinpearland Park are incubating these eggs to see what develops.

An expert at the Oceanography Institute has shed some light on the aspects of asexual reproduction. They explained that asexual reproduction occurs when the eggs develop an embryo without any interaction, or contact with sperm from a male. This is rather common in the insect world, however it is extremely rare is fish and reptile species, and has never been seen before in any kind of mammal. “Until now sharks have not been listed as animals with asexual reproduction. This phenomenon has only been recorded once in the US and only a few times around the word. We need to perform a DNA test to verify what happened,” the scientist continued.

The sea holds many mysteries for us, one of which was the mating habits of the deep sea squid. This mystery has now been unraveled, as scientists have discovered a male squid with a humongous elongated penis.

The male squid’s penis is almost as long as its entire body, making it one of the oceans’ studliest creatures…

With this discovery, it really comes as no surprise to learn how the male deep-sea squid impregnates females of the species. He simply uses his well hung penis to shoot out blobs of sperm, which then make their way into the female’s body.

This discovery may also shed some light on just exactly why these giant squid mate in the depths of the ocean.

Dr. Alexander Arkhipkin, a deep-water fisheries expert of the Falkland Islands Government Fisheries Department, has explained how he and his team made this momentous discovery, “The mature male squid was caught during a deep-water research cruise on the Patagonian slope. We took the animal from the catch, and it was moribund with arms and tentacles still moving, and chromatophores on the skin contracting and expanding. When the mantle of the squid was opened for maturity assessment, we witnessed an unusual event. The penis of the squid, which had extended only slightly over the mantle margin, suddenly started to erect, and elongated quickly to 67cm total length, almost the same length as the whole animal.”

This sudden arousal of the deep-sea squid specimen really took the scientific team by surprise, however, it did help us solve the age old mystery of just how exactly deep-sea squid procreate.

All cephlapods are hard put to actually “get down to business” as their bodies are comprised of a closed hood-type feature, which forms a cephalopods body and head.

The creatures utilize this hood-type feature to move about in the water, and they need to ventilate to breathe, to top it off, they also hide their sexual organs inside this structure!

Shallow water cephalopods got around this problem by developing an arm to go about the task.

Their penises are short and produce smaller blobs of sperm, and then one of their available appendages is then used to transfer this sperm into receptacles located on the female of the species.

The actual location of these receptacles varies, and is either on their skin, or internal.

However, the deep-water male squid have a much more direct method, which was just injecting the sperm right into the waiting female. This was the giant mystery, as up until now, the general assumption was that these deep-sea squid had penis sizes comparable to other squid.

However, it appears that not all squid are created equal, and unlike their small penis bearing brethren, they have developed a huge cannon for the job of impregnating the females.

The squid uses his impressive member to actually reach inside the female, and inject the sperm directly to where it needs to go, to prevent it from being washed away.

However, how the sperm actually gets to the female’s reproductive organs, is still shrouded in mystery.

In a rather interesting turn of events, scientists have just released a robotic fish, which appears to be able to influence the behavior of other fish in the aquarium.

This “Robofish” has produced some rather interesting results in testing. Not only was it able to get three-spined sticklebacks to join its group, but it also seems to be able to influence their movements about the aquarium.

This amazing innovation was created by John Dyer, Dean Walters, and Natalie Holt, by utilizing a plaster mould and of a stickleback, and then spruced up with authentic patterns and coloring.

The Robofish is guided by pulleys and magnets located underneath the aquarium. This effectively allows the Robofish to move about in programmed patterns. In preliminary testing, Jolyon Faria and some other team members managed to get the Robofish to lead a wild stickleback away from its hiding place and then execute a right-angled turn.

It is awe inspiring to say the least. This is the first time that a robotic fish has managed to have an effect on its natural counter-parts. It is interesting to note that large groups of stickleback were less likely to follow the Robofish, but lone stickleback seemed ready to accept the leadership offered by the creation. It is not known why the Robofish would have a greater effect on lone sticklebacks as opposed to groups, but it is assumed that the lone sticklebacks took comfort in the assertiveness of the Robofish.

More research is needed, however Robofish could have some rather interesting applications in the world today.

This is definitely one for the history books, at least when it comes to wines. There are some wine-makers which are set to uncork a brand new vintage of custom wine with they have just drudged up from the bottom of the sea. This is a rather unique idea, and is the first time that a wine maker has attempted such a feat.

The wine they will be debuting is known as the Abyss sparkling wine, and it has been matured at the bottom of the sea off the Italian coast for a year. The reasoning behind letting the wine mature in that location, is that they believe that the natural currents in the area moving the bottles constantly, along with the temperature changes, will make for a supreme flavor enhancer.

There were more than 6,000 bottles of the Abyss sparkling wine dragged to the surface by divers this week. They utilized special sea bed cages which finally found there home 200 feet beneath the waves near Chiavari.

All this is rather interesting, but how does it taste? One diver had this to say on the flavor of this unique vintage, “It’s delicious. Really fruity and with a very distinctive taste”

The wine maker came up with this unique idea for making wine, after having sampled a bottle of wine which came from a shipwreck that had been at the depths of the ocean for over a decade.

(admin notes=I must admit that the wine would be interesting to try but I am guessing that it might become hard to come by with a mere 6000 bottles produced.)

Concept of the recycled vac

Electrolux Launching new “Vac from the Sea” Initiative:

Stockholm, Sweden – It is a well known fact that the Pacific Ocean is chock full of garbage, so much in fact that there are actually “islands” which are comprised entirely of it. Electrolux has the intention of gathering up the plastic out of the worlds’ oceans, and converting it into brand new vacuum cleaners. This initiative, is known as “Vac from the sea”, has taken on the goal of bringing attention to the issue of plastic pollution in the Pacific Ocean, while at the same time combating the problem of the scarcity of recycled plastics which are needed to create sustainable home goods.

The Vice President of Floor Care Environmental and Sustainability Affairs at Electrolux, Cecilia Nord, enlightens us on the plans over at Electrolux, “There are plastic islands, some several times the size of the state of Texas, floating in our oceans. Yet on land, we struggle to get hold of enough recycled plastics to meet the demand for sustainable vacuum cleaners. What the world needs now is a better plastic karma”

The general plan is to create a limited quantity of “green” vacuum cleaners from the plastic debris which is being collected from the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, as well as the Mediteranean, Baltic and North seas. Anyone who is interested in the project can follow its progress on the Blog as well as on Facebook and can also find full details on how to become involved, should they wish to do so. These “green” vacuum cleaners are set to be put on display, in order to drum up support for the project.

We at AC tropical fish applaud the idea for its great symbolic value!!

Fish raining down on you from the sky is rare, but fish raining down on you two nights in a row is just plain eldritch. The unlikely two-night fish rain occurred last week in a small Australian town called Lajamanu in the Northern Territory.

On Thursday around 6 pm hundreds of small white fish started falling from the sky, to the shock and surprise of the local inhabitants who live on the edge of the Tanami Desert, hundreds of kilometers from Lake Argyle and Lake Elliot and even further away from the ocean. To make things even more bewildering, the same thing happened around 6 pm on Friday as well.

Christine Balmer, an aged care co-ordinator working at the Lajamanu Aged Care Centre, said her family interstate thought she had lost the plot when she told them about the event.

“I haven’t lost my marbles,” she said to local media. “Thank god it didn’t rain crocodiles.”
Balmer also managed to snap some photos of the fish littering the ground.

“They fell from the sky everywhere”, she explained. “Locals were picking them up off the footy oval and on the ground everywhere. These fish were alive when they hit the ground.”

Lajamanu has a population of less than 700 people, of which a significant amount are of Aboriginal origin. Its only accessible by air or dirt road and governed by a combination of community government council and local tribal council.

The town is no stranger to fish rains. Back in 2004 Lajamanu experienced a similar downpour and there are also reports of fish falling from the sky in 1974. This is however the first recorded incident of fish raining down on Lajamanu two evenings in a row.

Fish rains are normally caused by tornadoes that sweep up fish, and fish captured in this fashion can travel far distances and still be alive when they land.

According to Ashley Patterson, senior forecaster at the weather bureau, conditions were perfect on Friday for a tornado in the Douglas Daly region. However, no tornadoes has been reported to the authority.

“It’s a very unusual event,” he said. “With an updraft, (fish and water picked up) could get up high – up to 60,000 or 70,000 feet. Or possibly from a tornado over a large water body – but we haven’t had any reports.”

The small white fish has been tentatively identified as spangled perch (Leiopotherapon unicolor ), one of the most widely distributed Australian native freshwater fishes.

An unusual road accident put traffic to a complete halt today on the E6 highway outside Strömstad on the Swedish west coast.

A truck loaded with sill herring offal dropped its smelly cargo after a tailgate had opened up as the truck passed over a speed bump. The fish offal flew out of the truck and into the grill of a passing truck, causing a complete engine failure.

No one was injured, says SOS Alarm, the Swedish Emergency Service, but the Swedish road administration expects the clean-up work to take several hours.

Herring
Herring is a fairly small oily fish native to shallow parts of the North Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, including the Baltic Sea. Herring has been an important part of Swedish cuisine for thousands of years and the fish is still served year round. Herring becomes especially sough after around Christmas and Midsummer when it is served in its traditional pickled fashion and chased down with hard liquor made from grain or potatoes. Herring caught in the Baltic Sea can also be fermented for 6 to 12 months to produce surströmming. Several airlines have banned canned of surströmming on their flights, deeming the pressurized containers a safety hazard.

78-year-old Florida resident Russ Sittlow has spotted something big swimming in the canals of Madeira Beach at the coast of Pinellas County in western Florida.

The retired engineer first spotted the creature in April, and has now seen two of them – one bigger and one smaller. He estimates the largest to be at least 30 feet long.

“His head come up out of the water, and then he rolled up in a double roll behind him and he was long he was huge,” he said of that first sighting.

Sittlow think it might be a sea serpent and has nicknamed it Normandy Nessie since he lives on Normandy Road.

“This is a snake I guarantee you, or a serpent like thing that looks like a snake,” he explained, adding that it might be an anaconda or a python or “a mutation there of.” He believes the creature to be dangerous and doesn’t recommend anyone swimming in the canal until the thing has been positively identified.

In order to capture the creature on film, Sittlow set up a surveillance camera and has now recorded “Normandy Nessie” three times. (see the video here) The video shows a dark form that appears to be 30 feet long swimming close to the surface. There is also a sequence where the creature is splashing in the water.

Sittlow’s neighbour Maria VanAiken and her husband have also encountered the elongated animal in the canal.

“I looked up and I saw this like huge-looking creature,” VanAiken said, adding that it wasn’t a manatee or dolphin.

She spotted the creature from her back porch which overlooks the canal. “This huge thing just came out of the water,” she said.

State wildlife officials that have seen the video do not give much for the sea serpent theory; they believe the animal is a manatee.

According to NBC News Channel, someone has placed a shark pup on top of a toilet in a public restroom in Beaufort, South Carolina. When the young shark was discovered by two women who needed to use the facility, it was already dead. The women shot a picture of the shark and alerted the facility manager.

Beaufort is a small city located in a marshy estuary adjacent to the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of South Carolina. The species of shark has not been identified, but it was probably caught nearby.