Commercial, recreational and party/charter boat fishermen from Maine to North Carolina have all rallied together to deal with an out-of-balance population of predatory spiny dogfish sharks that threatens the recovery of New England groundfish and several others fish stocks living along the U.S. East Coast.
The following new articles have been posted on the site. Fish articles: False Harlequin Rasbora, Lambchop Rasbora, Trigonostigma espei Fire Rasbora – Rasboroides vaterifloris
According to WWF Canada, excessive bycatch* of cod is undermining the cod moratorium imposed in 1994. On the southern Grand Banks near Canada, cod bycatch is now at least 70 percent higher than target levels and this is hampering the recovery of one the world’s best known fisheries.
The Florida legislature has unanimously passed a bill to create the “Florida Coral Reef Protection Act”. The new act will protect Florida’s coral reefs from boat groundings and injuries caused by anchoring by providing penalties for anchoring on a coral reef or making any other vessel damages the corals. Depending on the nature and extent…
A study of the molecular phylogenetic interrelationships of south Asian cyprinid genera Danio, Devario and Microrasbora has resulted in a reclassification of the group and the creation of a new genus: Microdevario. The study, which has been published in a recent issue of the journal Zoologica Scripta, was carried out by Fang Fang and his…
According to the journal Surgery, a 50 cm (20 in) eel was removed from a man’s rectum at the Kwong Wah Hospital in Kowloon, Hong Kong. The 50-year old man was admitted to the Accident and Emergency Department complaining about abdominal pain.
Filtered cigarette butts should have new requirements for disposal, says Public Health Professor Tom Novotny after a San Diego State University (SDSU) study revealed filter-tipped cigarette butts to be toxic to marine and fresh-water fish.
According to a new report from Ningaloo Reef, the number of whale sharks in its waters is on the increase. The study, published in the journal Endangered Species Research (ESR), was made possible thanks to ECOCEAN – a new type of online photo-identification technology.
New laws proposed for managing the seas around Scotland include a year round ban against killing seals. If passed by MSPs, the new laws will make killing or injuring a seal an offence except under licence or for animal welfare concerns.
After a request from the Mexico Fishery Management Council, NOAA’s* Fisheries Service announced an emergency rule to protect the threatened sea turtles living in the Gulf of Mexico. The emergency rule, which was announced on April 30, will take effect on May 18. …..
According to University of Washington geologist and tsunami expert Jody Bourgeois, the idea that chevrons – a type of large U- or V-shaped formations found along certain coasts – were caused by mega-tsunamis is pure nonsense.
The members of the genus Synodontis, commonly known as the squeaker catfishes of Lake Tanganyika, evolved from a single common ancestor according to a paper* published in a recent issue of the Journal of Evolutionary Biology.
Two new species of the genus Leporinus has been described from the Araguaia-Tocantins River system in the Amazon basin: Leporinus unitaeniatus and Leporinus geminis. Brazilian ichthyologists Julio Garavello and Geraldo Santos describe them both in a paper* published in the most recent issue of Brazilian Journal of Biology. Leporinus unitaeniatus Leporinus unitaeniatus derives its name…
A new species of the genus Chromaphyosemion has been described by Jean-Françcois Agnèse and his co-authors in a paper* published in a recent issue of the journal Zootaxa. The new species, who has been given the name Chromaphyosemion campomaanense, belongs to the A. calliurum species group and was collected from the the Ntem River drainage…
As part of a reef restoration study, researchers removed 20 specimens of the Caribbean giant barrel sponge from the Conch Reef off of Key Largo, Florida and then re-attached them using sponge holders consisting of polyvinyl chloride piping. The sponge holders were anchored in concrete blocks set on a plastic mesh base. Some sponges were…
Japanese eel (Anguilla japonica) larvae have amazing buoyancy compared to other oceanic plankton, and the reason may be a type of gelatinous goo contained within the body. When researchers from the University of Tokyo measured the specific gravity of Japanese eel larvae, they found it to be as low as 1.019, rising to 1.043 –…
The discovery of three new species of fossilized octopi in Lebanon has caused scientists to suspect that the first octopus appeared tens of millions of years earlier than previously thought.
In a study announced today by the Wildlife Conservation Society* (WCS) at the International Coral Reef Initiative** (ICRI) meeting in Thailand, researchers show that some coral reefs located off East Africa are unusually resilient to climate change. The high resilience is believed to be caused by geophysical factors in combination with improved fisheries management in…
A new study from Carl Meyer and Kim Holland of the Hawai’i Institute for Marine Biology encompassing four protected marine sites in Hawai’i reveals that snorkelers and scuba divers only have a low impact on coral reef habitants at these sites and that the impact is limited to comparatively small areas.
After a 1,100-mile voyage and more than ten years of planning and acquiring funding resources, the ex-military ship Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg finally arrived in Key West this Wednesday. The ship is scheduled to be sunk sometime between May 20 and June 1 and will eventually form the second largest artificial reef in the world.…
A recent study on intersex abnormalities in fish living in the Potomac River watershed carried out by researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Geological Survey showed that at least 82 percent of male smallmouth bass and in 23 percent of the largemouth bass had immature female germ cells (oocytes) in…
Madagascar, a large island situated in the Indian Ocean off the south-eastern coast of the African continent, is home to an astonishing array of flora and fauna. Madagascar, then part of the supercontinent Gondwana, split from Africa about 160 million years ago and became an island through the split from the Indian subcontinent 80-100 million…
Since the first specimens were spotted in the year 2000, the number of lionfish living off the coast of North Carolina is now so high that scientists fear it is too late to eliminate them. Instead, marine researchers are joining forces with sport divers and cooks to keep the fish population in check the old…
Fish females subjected to stress produce highly active offspring but the risk of abnormalities also increases, according to new research carried out by Dr Monica Gagliano, a research fellow with the AIMS@JCU joint venture, and Dr Mark McCormick from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at the James Cook University.
Modern seals, walruses, and sea lions are all descendants of animals that once lived on land but eventually swapped their terrestrial lifestyle for a life in the ocean. Until now, the morphological evidence for this transition from land to water has been weak, but researchers from Canada and the United States have now found a…
A research boat used by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a federal agency charged with protecting the endangered North Atlantic Right Whale, collided with one of the whales off the Massachusetts coast this Sunday.
A New Jersey woman whose diet consisted almost exclusively of canned tuna for five years can sue a tuna fish producer over the mercury poisoning she allegedly suffered from, the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday.
In Australia, a live shark was dumped on the doorstep of The Standard’s Raglan Parade office in Warrnambool shortly after midnight on April 22. Fortunately for the shark, a local resident passed by, saw the shark, and alerted the police.
Can fish get seasick? A German scientist now claims to have at least a partial answer to this timeless question. According to Dr Reinhold Hilbig, a zoologist from Stutgart, fish exposed to a steep dive will lose their sense of balance.
A record number of North Atlantic Right Whale (Eubalaena glacialis) calves have been found in winter nursery waters off the coast of Florida and Georgia this winter. No less then 39 calves have been confirmed by researchers, a number which breaks the old record from 2001 when 31 calves where spotted.
In a world first, the Australian company Clean Seas Tuna has managed to successfully rear Southern bluefin tuna (Thunnus maccoyii) in captivity. This breakthrough opens up the way for the development of an alternative to wild-caught tuna.
Nearly 40 miles (60 km) of beaches along the Australian east coast has been declared a disaster zone due to the massive amounts of oil and chemicals that leaked out from a Hong-Kong registered cargo ship on Wednesday.
The tiny whale shark caught off the Philippine coast near San Antonio on March 6 has been confirmed by WWF to be the smallest live whale shark on record ever to be captured and released in the Philippines and arguably also the smallest living whale shark ever to be scientifically recorded.
A new species of ghost knifefish has been described by ichthyologists James Albert and William Crampton. It has been given the name Compsaraia samueli in honour of Samuel Albert who presented the scientists with the type specimens.