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.

Deborah Fellner sued Tri-Union Seafoods LLC under the New Jersey Product Liability Act for failing to warn her of the dangers of eating the company’s canned albacore tuna. She claimed that the Tri-Union Seafoods tuna products that she ate from 1999 to 2004 contained methylmercury and other harmful compounds which caused her injury.

California-based Tri-Union Seafoods LLC, who market their products under the “Chicken of the Sea” brand, said the company was not responsible for her claimed illness, arguing that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does not consider canned tuna fish worthy of mercury warnings to consumers. The company referenced a 2005 letter the FDA sent former California Attorney General Bill Lockyer* that said state-mandated mercury warning labels were pre-empted by federal law.

The law suit was thrown out by U.S. District Court Judge Dennis Cavanaugh, but the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the class action.

“State law is not pre-empted whenever an agency has merely ‘studied’ or ‘considered’ an issue; state law is pre-empted when federal law conflicts with state law,” 3rd U.S. Circuit Senior Judge Walter Stapleton wrote for the appeals court.

In response to the ruling of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Tri-Union Seafoods asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case and the justices have now allowed the appeals court ruling to stand. The U.S. Supreme Court has not commented on their decision.

* Lockyer was trying to sue three tuna producers (one of them being Tri-Union Seafoods) for not complying with California’s Proposition 65. According to Proposition 65, businesses must provide “clear and reasonable” warnings before exposing people to known carcinogens or reproductive toxins.

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.

While studying the effects of weightlessness in water to learn more about how humans are affected in space, Dr Hilbig sent up a mini aquarium with 49 fish in a plane that went into a steep dive. Steep diving is a way of simulating loss of gravity; the kind of loss astronauts are exposed to during space travel.

During the steep dive, eight of the 49 fish started to turn around and around in circles.
“They completely lost their sense of balance, behaving like humans who get seasick,” says Dr. Hilbig. “The fish lost their orientation, they became completely confused and looked as if they were about to vomit. In the wild such a “seasick” fish would become prey for others because they are incapable of fleeing from danger.”

When the aeronautic adventure was over, the eight circle-swimming fish were culled and their brains were examined to investigate the exact cause of their behaviour. Dr Hilbig says the loss of eye contact with water movement and vibrations probably played a large part in their disorientation.

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Here at AC Tropical fish we would very much like to know what a fish looks like when it looks as if it is about to vomit. If you have any pictures, please send them to admin@aquaticcommunity.com and we will post them here on the blog.

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.

Clean Seas Tuna announced on April 20 that their tuna broodstock had spawned continuously during a 35-day period from March 12 to April 16, and that the company now had succeeded in raising 28-day-old 2.5 cm tuna fingerlings. During the breeding period, over 50 million fertilised eggs and 30 million larvae were produced by the captive held tunas.

“This is equal to Armstrong walking on the moon,” says an elated Hagen Stehr, chairman of Clean Seas Tuna. Clean Seas Tuna now hope to breed tuna in their facilities off Port Lincoln. “The achievements are world firsts and major stepping stones to present the world with a sustainable tuna resource for the future. There are a number of other hurdles to overcome, but Australia can now achieve total sustainability in tuna.“

According to Fisheries Research and Development Corporation executive director Dr Patrick Hone, farm raised tuna can be a solution to the problem of falling world-wide fish stocks and increased seafood consumption.

“Australia uses 450,000 tonnes of fish a year of which 70 per cent is imported,” says Dr Hone. “Our goal is to lift farmed finfish production from about 50,000 tonnes to 100,000 tonnes annually by 2015.”

Large-scale commercial fish farming is however not a completely unproblematic endeavour from an ecological point of view and farmers will be forced to find solutions for sustainable water management, run-off handling, and food procurement if they truly wish to make farmed tuna an environmentally friendly alternative to wild caught fish.  It is however no doubt that it could provide the wild tuna population with a well needed chance to recover.

Mars Fishcare, owner of Rena, Aquarian and API, is pulling out of aquarium production and sales due to increased competition in the aquarium market.

“Mars Fishcare Europe is taking steps to refocus its European business in aquarium equipment and water treatment, and to strengthen its position in the European fish food market, ” the company says in a statement. “In recent years, the sharp rise in competition in the tank market has made it difficult for Mars Fishcare to optimise its resources in this area.”

Mars Fishcare has pledged to provide after sales service for all Rena Aqualife aquariums already sold in Europe and to honour the five year guarantee that comes with all recent Rena Aqualife models. Up until now, Rena has been an important player in the European aquarium market, especially in the UK, with its Aqualife range of modern high-quality aquariums intended for customers interested not only in functionality but also in sleek eye-pleasing design.

Chinese ichthyologists Yang, Chen and Yang have described three new species of snow trout in a paper[1] published in the journal Zootaxa[2]. All three species have been described from material previously identified as one single species, Schizothorax griseus. True trouts belong to the Salmoninae subfamily in the Salmonidae family, but snow trouts are members of the family Cyprinidae.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Cypriniformes
Family: Cyprinidae
Genus: Schizothorax

New species: Schizothorax beipanensis

Schizothorax heterophysallidos

Schizothorax nudiventris

Schizothorax beipanensis

Schizothorax beipanensis is found in southern China where it inhabits the Beipan River drainage, a part of the Pearl River drainage. It has been encountered in both slow-flowing deep pools and fast-flowing rivers with clear water and over a wide range of different bottom substrate, from mud and sand to rocks, boulders and pebbles.

Schizothorax beipanensis differs from its close relatives by having well-developed upper and lower lips (the lower lip is actually tri-lobed), no horny sheath on the lower jaw, and a continuous postlabial groove with a minute median lobe.

Schizothorax heterophysallidos

Just like Schizothorax beipanensis, the snow trout Schizothorax heterophysallidos is found in the Pearl River drainage in southern China, but it lives in the river drainage of Nanpan, not Beipan. Schizothorax heterophysallidos lives in small streams where the bottom consists of sand and pebbles.

The name heterophysallidos is derived from the unusual swim bladder of this fish; physallis is the Greek word for bladder and heteros means different. In addition to the swim bladder (the posterior chamber of the air bladder is three to six times longer than the anterior chamber), Schizothorax heterophysallidos can be recognized on its well-developed and trilobed lower lip, thin upper lip, and blunt snout. It has a continuous postlabial groove with a minute median lobe and the last unbranched dorsal-fin ray has a strong lower part. In mature specimens, the abdomen lacks scales.

Schizothorax nudiventris

Schizothorax nudiventris also lives in southern China, but in the upper parts of the Mekong River drainage. The Mekong basin is one of the richest areas of biodiversity in the world. More than 1200 species of fish have been identified here and the number is believed to increase as the area becomes more thoroughly explored by science.

Schizothorax nudiventris has a well-developed and trilobed lower lip, thin upper lip, blunt snout, and continuous postlabial groove. The body is decorated with irregular black spots on the sides, and the last one-quarter of the last unbranched dorsal-fin ray is soft. In mature specimens, the abdomen has no scales, and it is this feature that has given the fish its name nudiventris. Nudus is the Latin word for naked, while venter means abdomen.

No, this fish is not animated by Pixar – it is a very real fish created by Mother Nature deep down in the ocean. Its name is Macropinna microstoma and it has puzzled ichthyologists since it was first described by Chapman in 1939.

Macropinna microstoma, also known as the Barreleye fish, has a fluid-filled dome on its head through which the lenses of its barrel shaped eyes can be clearly seen. The fish lives at a dept of 600-800 metres where it spends most of its time hanging almost completely still in the water.

Even though the Barreleye was described by science in the late 1930s, the transparent dome is a fairly new discovered since it is normally destroyed when the fish is brought up from the deep. Old drawings of the fish do not show the see-through part of the head and the species was not photographed alive until 2004.

Thanks to new technology, it is now possible for researchers to explore the deep sea much more efficiently than ever before and we are therefore learning more and more about the weird and wonderful creatures that inhabit these baffling parts of the planet. It has long been known that the tubular eyes of the Barreleye are good at collecting light; an adaptation to a life deep down in the ocean where light is scarce. The eyes were however presumed to be fixed and the fish was therefore believed to have a very narrow upwards-facing tunnel-vision. Researchers Bruce Robinson and Kim Reisenbichler from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) has now changed this notion completely by providing evidence suggesting that this fish can rotate its eyes within the transparent dome in order to see both upwards and straight forward. Robinson and Reisenbichler observed that when suitable prey, e.g. a jellyfish, is spotted, the fish will rotate its eyes to face forward as it turns its body from a horizontal to a vertical position to feed.

Robinson and Reisenbichler were able to get close to five living Barreleyes using Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) at a depth of 600-800 meters off the coast of Central California. In addition to observing and filming the fish in its native habitat, the researchers also captured two specimens and placed them in an aquarium for a few hours in order to study them more closely.

Live specimens of Macropinna microstoma turned out to have beautifully coloured green eyes; probably in order to filter out sunlight from the surface of the ocean since this would make it easier for the fish to spot bioluminescent jellyfish. Robinson also suggests that Macropinna microstoma might be using its supreme eye sight to steal food from siphonophores[1].

If you want to know more about the intriguing Barreleye fish, check out the paper BH Robison and KR Reisenbichler (2008) – Macropinna microstoma and the paradox of its tubular eyes. Copeia[2]. 2008, No. 4, December 18, 2008.

Remember the strange fish discovered by divers off the Indonesian coast in January 2008? This fish has now been scientifically described and given the official name Histiophryne psychedelica. Well, what else would you call a fish that that looks like this and moves like it was permanently and irrevocably under the influence?

Histiophryne psychedelica, also known as the Psychedelic frogfish, was scientifically described by Ted Pietsch[1] and Rachel Arnold[2] of the University of Washington, together with wildlife photographer David Hall[3].

The University of Washington has released videos where you can see the Psychedelic frogfish swim, or rather hop, skip and jump, over a coral reef. http://uwnews.org/article.asp?articleID=47496

Each time the fish strikes the reef, it uses its fins to push off while simultaneously expelling water from tiny gill openings on the sides of the body to aid in propulsion. The fish is well suited for life on the reef and has for instance been blessed with protective thick folds of skin that keeps its gelatinous body out of harms way among the sharp-edged corals. Just as on the other members of the frogfish group, the fins on both sides of the body have evolved into elongated protrusions more similar to legs than fins. Histiophryne psychedelica does however distinguish itself from other frogfish species by having a flat face with eyes facing forward.

Frogfishes are a type of angelfish, but unlike most other anglers Histiophryne psychedelica does not have any lures on its forehead to tempt its prey with. It also seems to keep its vibrant colours in all sorts of environments, unlike most other anglers who prefer to adapt every inch of their body (except for the lures) to the surroundings in order to stay undetected by prey. According to Hall, the psychedelic colouration might be a way for the fish to mimic corals.

When a Psychedelic frogfish is killed and preserved in ethanol, it looses its lively colours and patterns within a few days and takes on a dull white appearance. This made Pietsch curious about two specimens sent to him in 1992 and he decided to take a closer look at them in a microscope. In the newly caught specimen, the distinctive striping of the fish could still be seen through a microscope and this prompted Pietsch to re-examine the two preserved ones in search of patterns. As it turned out, these two fishes had the same characteristic striping as Histiophryne psychedelica – Pietsch had been storing two specimens of the psychedelic fish for 17 years without realizing it.

If you wish to learn more about this mesmerizing fish, check out the paper Theodore W Pietsch, Rachel J. Arnold and David J. Hall. “A Bizarre New Species of Frogfish of the Genus Histiophryne (Lophiiformes: Antennariidae) from Ambon and Bali, Indonesia.” Copeia[4], February 2009. The study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Lophiiformes
Family: Antennariidae
Genus: Histiophryne

New species: Histiophryne psychedelica

The catfish L239 has finally been described by science and given a proper name: Baryancistrus beggini. Ichthyologists Lujan, Arce and Armbruster described the species in a paper[1] published in the journal Copeia[2].

Baryancistrus beggini lives in Venezuela and Colombia; in Rio Guaviare and at the confluence of Rio Ventuari and Rio Orinoco. The researchers found the fish in crevices amongst boulders. By analysing stomach contents, they were able to learn that this catfish feeds on periphyton and associated microfauna growing on rocks. (Periphyton is a mixture of algae, heterotrophic microbes, cyanobacteria, and detritus that can be found attached to submerged surfaces, e.g. stones, in most underwater ecosystems.)

In the aquarium trade, L239 is known as Blue panaque or Blue-fin panaque. The name beggini was given by Lujan and his colleagues in honour of Chris Beggin, the owner of an aquarium fish store in Nashville, USA who funded the research. The species has been placed in the genus Baryancistrus, but this might have to be corrected in the future as we learn more about the tribe Ancistrini.

Baryancistrus beggini sports a uniformly dark black to brown base colour with a blue sheen and the abdomen is naked. Along each side of the body you can see a distinctive keel above the pectoral finns; a keel formed by the strongly bent first three to five plates of the midventral series. The body also features two to three symmetrical and ordered predorsal plate rows and the last dorsal-fin ray is connected to the adipose fin.

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Actinopterygii
Order: Siluriformes
Family: Loricariidae
Subfamily: Hypostominae
Tribe: Ancistrini
Genus: Baryancistrus

New species: Baryancistrus beggini

A new disease has been discovered; a disease that effects both Leafy seadragons (Phycodurus eques) and Weedy seadragons (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus).

The disease, which as now been described by veterinary pathologists, is a type of melanised fungus that causes extensive lesions and necrosis of the gills, kidneys and other areas of the body in seadragons. The disease was discovered in seadragons kept in aquariums.

Experts from the Department of Pathobiology and Veterinary Science at the University of Connecticut has identified the presence of both Exophiala angulospora and an undescribed Exophiala fungus in sick seadragons.

You can find more information in the paper[1] by Nyaoke et al published in the Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation[2] in January this year.

The Leafy seadragon (Phycodurus eques) and the Weedy seadragon (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus) are both marine fish species belonging to the same family as seahorses and pipefish. The Leafy seadragon is covered in long leaf-like protrusions that serve as camouflage, while the Weedy seadragon is camouflaged by weed-like projections. Both species are native to Australian waters.

The Census of Marine Life[1] has now documented 7,500 species from the Antarctic and 5,500 species from the Arctic. A majority of the species encountered by the census was previously known by science, but at least a few hundred species are believed to be entirely new discoveries. Researchers did for instance encounter an impressive amount of sea spiders species where the adult spider can grow as big as a human hand.

These new findings may force us to change the way we think about the Polar Regions. “The textbooks have said there is less diversity at the poles than the tropics but we found astonishing richness of marine life in the Antarctic and Arctic oceans,” says Dr. Victoria Wadley[2], a researcher from the Australian Antarctic Division who took part in the Antarctic survey. “We are rewriting the textbooks.“

Dr. Gilly Llewellyn[3], who did not take part in the survey but is the leader of the oceans program for the environmental group WWF-Australia, agrees. “We probably know more about deep space than we do about the deep polar oceans in our own backyard. This critical research is helping reveal the amazing biodiversity of the polar regions.”

The survey was carried out by over 500 researchers from 25 different countries as a part of the International Polar Year which ran in 2007-2008. Thanks to newly developed top-notch technology it is now possible to carry out more efficient exploration of these harsh environments than ever before, and the researchers did for instance examine the Arctic basin down to a depth of 3,000 metres where they encountered tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans. The survey also led to the number of known comb jellies (ctenophores) species to double from five to ten.