For many aquarists, the joy of keeping an aquarium is not only about watching colourful fish dart around in the living room, it is also a way of learning more about the delicate web we call an ecosystem and how dead matter and living organisms interact with each other to create an environment where life…
European Union In December 2007, the EU commission presented their suggestion for a new law that would force car manufacturers to decrease the average carbon dioxide emissions from new cars down to 130 grams per kilometre by 2012. This draft does however come with one gigantic loop hole – the new law would only target…
Renowned wildlife photographer Mattias Klum, member of the Board of Trustees of WWF and fellow of The Linnean Society of London, has shared his top five green tips with Swedish newspaper Expressen. According to Klum, the birth of his two sons has made him even more environmentally conscious than before. “-I want my children to…
Divers enjoying the waters off Darwin, the northernmost island in the Galapagos, suddenly realised the presence of an amazing 33 feet (10 meter) albino whale shark (Rhincodon typus), and as if one sighting of an albino giant wasn’t enough, a snow-white southern right whale (Eubalaena australis) calf has now been spotted off the coast of…
Compared to just over a century ago, the pH-value of the sea’s surface water has gone down by 0.1 (i.e. 25 percent). This has caught the attention of Jon Havenhand and Michael Thorndyke, researchers at the University of Gothenburg, and they have together with colleagues in Australia studied if and how this decrease affects marine…
By moving from the surface of the sea down to deeper layers, Antarctic krill transport carbon down from the surface to the depths of the ocean. Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and Scarborough Centre of Coastal Studies at the University of Hull have now discovered that Antarctic krill venture between the surface and…
Raw fish, such as sushi and salmon tartar, is considered a delicacy and is served in restaurants all over the world. Before you decide to make your own raw fish dishes, it is however important to store the fish in the freezer for at least 72 hours prior to preparation. The recommended freezer temperature is…
An entirely new species of snake has been found in Fiji, The Fiji Times reports. The snake was discovered at Vuna on Taveuni, the third-largest island in Fiji. According to reptile expert Dr. George Zug of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., the snake is unlike any other described species of snake in the world.…
Scuba diving tourists are an important source of income for Egypt, but now the tourism sector might be sawing off the branch on which they’re sitting by over-exploiting the sensitive coral reefs of the Red Sea. According to a study by Hasler and Ott, heavily dived dive sites near the town of Dahab have a…
The June sucker, Chasmistes liorus, is a critically endangered fish endemic to Utah Lake and the Provo River. The fish was once plentiful within its range but is now facing problems with pollution, turbidity, drought, alteration of water flow, loss of native vegetation, and the introduction of new species, primarily the European carp (Cyprinus carpio)…
A lobster dinner is often perceived as the ultimate romantic meal, but while we happily utilize their bodies to promote our own chances of passionate encounters we actually know very little about the reproductive rituals that goes on deep down in the ocean. Did you for instance know that these super romantic creatures pee each…
I thought I would write a few words about some of the many good fish cams that are available on the net even though they sometime can be hard to find among all the bad ones. I would like to start by mentioning the Amazon River cam that is provided by the Smithsonian national zoological…
On August 25, a memo to members of his Cabinet revealed that United States president Bush is interested in creating two protected areas in the Pacific Ocean. One of these would be situated around the Central Pacific Islands and be almost as large as Alaska. If Bush goes through with the plan, this would become…
Word spell check has made writing a lot easier but sometimes it really makes some strange suggestions. Below you see a screen shoot of a suggestion I got while writing about the Lyretail Anthias for the new marine section of this site. I really can’t understand why word though pyrexia was the word I was…
This might not be news for some of you, but for those of you that has missed it: a new species of manatee might have been encountered by Dr Marc van Roosmalen in the Brazilian Amazon! Not only is this believed to be an entirely new species of manatee; it is also the smallest living…
Two fish species, one frog species and a number of bat flies – all previously unknown to science – are believed to have been found in Guyana during the filming of a British TV series. While working on the three-part series “Lost Land of the Jaguar” for BBC One, a team of researchers and wildlife…
Marine biologists being filmed for a BBC TV series about the ocean have managed to find no less than 13 species of fish previously unknown to science. The group also reports having 15 other animals in their possession that they suspect to be new species. The newfound species have been gathered during deep reef dives…
The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has temporarily suspended shellfish harvesting from a portion of the Delaware Bay. The suspension began at August 19 after health officials had confirmed two cases of illness linked to oysters harvested from the bay. The illness was caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus, a bacterium that can cause symptoms such as…
I have updated AC with a brand new saltwater section as a step on the way towards become the most complete aquarium websites on the web. There is still a lot of marine fish Ac don´t have information about and I will add more as I can. For now you have to be satisfied reading…
Genetic and morphological analysis has now confirmed the existence of a second species of manta ray, and possibly a third one as well. Up until know, the scientific community only knew about one single species of manta ray and all encountered manta rays were viewed as variants within the same species. PhD marine biologist Andrea…
Koi carp worth almost £40,000 (=80 000USD) was stolen from a garden center in Stapleford UK. The thieves cut their way into the facility through metal fences and stole the expensive Koi carps. The thieves are believed to have know carps and the facility well as they only stole the most valuable carps living the…
Many of us may think about clown fish as commonly found reef fish but the fact is that many clownfish species might becoming endangered in some areas such as of the coast of Australia at least if we should believe Dr Billy Sinclair, University of Cumbria.. A big culprit is the aquarium trade. Just five…
A study done on Perissodus microlepis, a cichlid from Lake Tanganyika in Africa shows that opposites attract. The cichlid is a scale eater that eats scales from other fishes. Specimens have a mouth that either open to the left or the right. This adaptation makes it easier to tear scales from other fishes when feeding.…
A large wells catfish tried to eat a football (soccer ball for you Americans) in the city of Würzburg, Bayern, Germany. The catfish couldn’t swallow the football and go its teeth stuck in the ball after biting down on it. It is believed that the wells catfish couldn’t get the ball out of its mouth…
A series of photos have been published of an orangutan fishing using a spear while hanging out over the water from a branch. The orangutan in the pictures is a male living in a sanctuary on the island of Kaja in Borneo. This reserve offers home for animals that have been displaced and homeless by…
It has long been now that ghost nets (lost nets drifting in the ocean) are a serious problem to the marine environment but no one has ever really known how big the problem is until now. Scientists working for the Northwest Straits Initiative have monitored ghost nets in Puget Sound and the impact they have…
Today I thought I would report on some happy news, animal babies being born in aquariums around the country. The first happy occasion is that a beluga whale in the Vancouver Aquarium has given birth to a health young female. The whale gave birth during open hours and the staffs as well as visitors watch…
Todays post will not report on any news. Instead I have choosen to post two videos that I think some of you might find interesting. They are from a invasive species symposium and are all about invasive species and what can be done about them. The first part is a about invasive species regulation and…
Well not really but it is close enough to report on even if it isn’t fish related. In a nature reserve in Italy in the town of Prato, Tuscany, there is a deer that has only one horn in the center of its head. The dear, named unicorn, was born in captivity in the research…
Today we have a special feature here at the AC fish news blog. An interview with Dr Dean Pomerleau who train fish to do tricks. I posted about her work about a week ago in the post “Playing basketball with your goldfish?” and he has been kind enough to answer a few questions about his…
Working together WWF and Greenpeace have obtained evidence that the tune fleet working in the central Mediterranean is using airplanes to find tune. This practice is internationally banned in the Mediterranean as it allows the oversized fishing fleet to catch to much tuna and make to big damage to the tuna population. Read more about…
Almost everyone have heard about fugu, and how fugu and fugu liver is considered a delicatessen in Japan. In case you haven’t I can tell you that Fugu is a type of pufferfish and if it isn’t processed correctly it can kill you due to being poisonous. However now there is an alternative. Farmed fugu…
Dr Dean Pomerleau has managed to teach his two year old goldfish Comet to play football, basketball, push a rugby ball over a set of posts, play fetch with a hoop, limbo dance under a bar, and zigzag through a series of poles. Dr Dean Pomerleau used positive reinforcement to teach the fish. Positive reinforcement…
A technology that can be used to prepare nutrition enriched ice cream using fish has been developed by Central Institute of Fisheries Technology (CIFT), one of India’s leading fishery research institutes, Newindpress.com reports. The technology can also be used to enrich noodles. Just like most other modern ice-creams, the “Maricream” produced by CIFT contains water,…
There have been a lot of controversy around the Beijing Olympics, People being removed from their homes to make room for the Olympic village, Homeless people being shipped out of the city to hide them from the visitors and of course the situation in Tibet. This time the controversy is about animal cruelty. No it…
The lionfish is native to the tropical Indo-Pacific region, but this fish – also known as Dragon fish or Turkey fish – has now invaded the warmer coral regions of the Eastern Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea. To combat the problem around Bermuda, 31 volunteers have been issued special licenses by the Ministry of the…
A 380 million-year-old pregnant fossil has been discovered by researchers from University of Western Australia. The fossil was unearthed in the Kimberleys and contains a 6 cm embryo with its umbilical cord intact. Mother and baby belong to an extinct species of shark-like fish that could be found in lakes and seas for almost 70…
A newly investigated 290 million year old fossil may be an evolutionary missing link in the amphibian family tree. The fossil was collected in Texas by a palaeontologist with the Smithsonian Institution in the mid-1990s. The fossil eventually ended up at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., where it was re-discovered and…
English fire crews were called out to aid dying fish in Northampton, BBC News reports. Members of the public noticed that fish had died in a lake in Abington Park and notified the authorities. The fire crews pumped up water from the lake and then sprayed it back in an effort to increase the oxygen…