Yucatan

Scientists specializing in the area of underwater archeology, have just unearthed what appear to be four complete skulls of the extinct Arctotherium – a kind of stout faced bear which vanished off the face of the planet over 11,000 years ago – 42 meters beneath the waves, in an underwater cave on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico.

The skulls, which measured between 25 and 30 centimeters, belonged to two adult bears – one male and one female – as well as two bears which had not yet reached adulthood. It is not known whether these bears were a family unit or not, and that answer is not likely going to be easy to find out from just the skulls of the bears. A team of scientists, led by Guillermo de Anda Alanis, from the Yucatan Autonomous University, unearthed these skulls when they were making a dive through the underwater caverns.

Along with the skulls of the bears, the team also uncovered the skeletons of five humans not too far away. As soon as the dating of the human skeletons has been completed, they will be able to ascertain if the two finds are related.

The discovery of the skulls will help to initiate a change of thinking when it comes to the biogeography of bears in the Americas – Arcotherium was believed to have only made its home in South America. The only living descendant of these prehistoric bears is the spectacled bear which makes its home in Venezuela.

Great star coral (Montastraea cavernosa)

Researchers from the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology at the University and the Smithsonian have brought the first frozen Hawaiian coral bank into existence to try and prevent them from becoming extinct and to preserve their diverse population in Hawaii.

A faculty member over at the HIMB, and also a respected scientist with the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Mary Hagedorn, is leading the lab at the HIMB research facilities on Coconut Island in Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, which is storing the frozen cells of the coral.

“Because frozen banked cells are viable, the frozen material can be thawed one, 50 or, in theory, even 1,000 years from now to restore a species or population,” explains Hagedorn. “In fact, some of the frozen sperm samples have already been thawed and used to fertilize coral eggs to produce developing coral larvae.”

Many people tend to forget that Coral reefs are living, dynamic ecosystems which afford precious services: They are the home to many offspring for marine animals and other invertebrates; they give natural protection from storms on the coasts; they take carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere; and they even might be sources for future medical wonders.

So, is it any wonder that it would be a good idea to keep them alive? By freezing them, we are saving them, and can keep them alive for up to 1,000 years. Think of all the wonderful things will be accomplished, by simply saving the coral.. Imagine if we had the same initiative when it came to everything?

It has been reported that in the warm, sunny, and usually tranquil beaches of Spain that at least 700 tourists have been stung by small, transparent jellyfish this past week, leading the local officials to rapidly post up warning signs.

The wiggly little invaders have caused “a swimmer’s nightmare,” reports The Associated Press.

The majority of the attacks seem to be occurring the most often near the city of Elche in Eastern Spain, in an area known as Costa Blanca, a rather popular tourist destination for its remarkable white sand beaches.

This past Tuesday alone, 380 people felt the sting from these tiny creatures, comments Juan Carlos Castellanos of the Elche city department for tourism and tourism development.

“In the five or six years I have been in this job, I have never seen anything like this,” Castellanos calmly explains to the AP.

Besides putting up signs warning people of the dangers, officials from Elche are keeping a close lokout for the jellyfish from boats so they can warn the crowds on the beaches when a swarm is approaching.

Meanwhile, just off of the northern coast, in Cantabria and the Basque region, more menacing, and likely more painful, jellyfish-like Portuguese man-of-wars have been inciting their own wave of fear. More than 300 people have had the misfortune of being stun by on those bad boys during the past three weeks, AP comments.

No one knows for sure why the jellyfish are coming up in such immense numbers, but researchers are blaming it on global warming and overfishing practices in the region.

The area of the census ranges from Japanese to Australian waters.

Japan along with Australia have some of the world’s most diverse oceans, however thousands of the marvelous creatures in their deeps, remain unknown to man, and global warming is a major concern, suggests a newly performed census.

Both Japan and Australia are the proud owners of 33,000 some odd known species, according to a decade long scientific survey of the life in the sea, aptly dubbed “What lives in the Sea”.

However, there could be more than 200,000 species in the vast waters of Australia, which are surrounded by three oceans and four seas, which extend from the icy southern pole, to the coral-rich tropics.

“This constitutes a vast array of highly diverse habitats and ocean features, but many have received limited if any exploration,” wrote Alan Butler, from Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, who is the lead author of the work.

The majority of the 33,000 species which were noted for Australia were animals, including fish, seabirds and of course marine mammals, with an astonishing rate of new fish and shark species being found on a continuing basis. Butler has guessed that only about 20 percent of Australia’s total marine species have been discovered to date.

Life was most densely populated in the northeast, which is where the World Heritage-listed Great Barrier Reef makes its home, and is cock full of turtles, colorful corals, dolphins and dugongs.

“Australia is of tremendous ecological interest,” explained Jessie Ausubel, a representative for the marine census. “It is advanced in creating protected marine areas, around coral reefs but also around its deep-sea areas.”

A representative of Japan’s Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Katsunori Fujikura, has commented that somewhere in the vicinity of 155,000 species have been spotted in the waters surrounding Japan, which only accounts for a mere 30 percent of all estimated life, and only 33,000 have been officially recorded on the books.

“The reason why such high diversity occurs is undoubtedly the varied environments existing in Japanese waters,” explained Fujikura.

Japan’s waters are just about 11 times larger than the land area, and they feature coral reefs, ince bound seas and trenches (which can be up to 10 kilometers deep). The strong ocean currents in the area, mean that roughly 5 percent of the species found there are actually unique to Japanese waters.

By contrast, 19 percent of New Zealand’s 17,000 marine species are found only around the isolated island state, and Antarctica’s Southern Ocean also hosts many species not found anywhere else.

“Most species in the Southern Ocean are rare, with over half of the known benthic (sea-bed) species having only been found once or twice,” explainedHuw Griffiths, a report author, from the British Antarctic Survey.

The extremely remote, and even hostile, Antarctic region is the home to 8,000 some odd recorded species, with sponges, small crustaceans, and moss animals richly represented.

However, over 90 percent of the marine environment is over one kilometer below the waves, and less thn 10 percent of the total deep-sea area has been explored, “implying there are still a great many species yet to be described” Griffiths explained.

Humboldt Penguin

Five penguins species are finally getting a new lease on life, after being awarded protection under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. This protection is being awarded after a 2006 petition initiated by the Center for Biological Diversity, in conjunction with two lawsuits which were filed together with Turtle Island Restoration Network.

The decision made by the Interior Department will finally put the Humboldt penguin of Chile and Peru, and four different New Zealand penguins, on the threatened list.

“Protecting these penguins under the Endangered Species Act gives them a renewed chance at survival,” explained Shaye Wolf, Center biologist “Unfortunately, in today’s finding the Obama administration failed to acknowledge climate change as a threat. This administration won’t be able to help penguins survive the climate crisis if it doesn’t admit that it’s a problem.”

These penguins are acing some very real threats from things such as ocean acidification, climate change, and commercial fishing. The designation handed down today will hopefully raise awareness about the situation these penguins face on a day to day basis, increase funding for research and conservation, and provide additional scrutiny of any U.S. government approved activities which could cause harm to both the penguins and their respective habitats.

With the oceans warming up, the sea ice melting, and overfishing, the penguins food supply of kril and fish is more scarce then ever..

It’s about time something was done about the problem, let us hope it isn’t too late..

The Lynx Nudibranch, known in scientific circles as Phidiana lynceus, is a rather interesting marine animal. It can be amazingly efficient at getting rid of hydroid pests, but it must have access to a continuous source of food. After this amazing sea creature digests the stinging hydroids, the Lynx Nudibranch is actually able to incorporate the eaten (and thus digested) hydroid nematocysts into its own set of spiked cerata, which it then turns around and uses it for its own protection.

It’s almost as if you were to eat a king cobra, and then somehow survived the ordeal, and then became deadly like the king cobra… Well, sort of but not really.. If you would like more information on the matter, there are many marine biologists who can explain the process to you.

Anyway the Lynx Nudibranch in question was recently captured on high definition video by Coral Morphologic. The video, placed on Vimeo’s HD Channel, shows the lynch nudibranch chowing down on hydroids on top of an oyster, known as Spondylus americanus.

The clip which was recently put up there by the crew over at Morphologic was so stunning it was given the honor of being among the best, and who can argue with that? Congratulations are in order all around.

The temperature of the ocean is key in determining just how productive and how much biodiversity there is in the ocean and also where it is.

There have been two separate studies in which researchers discovered that the ocean heating up has caused a massive decline in the amount of plant life in the ocean over the past 100 years. The studies also indicated that there is a link between the ambient temperature of the water of the ocean and the different patterns of marine biodiversity.

“We are just now understanding how deeply temperature affects ocean life,” explained Boris Worm, a biologist of Dalhousie University, and also co-author on both reports published in the July 28 edition of Nature. “It is not necessarily that increased temperature is destroying biodiversity, but we do know that a warmer ocean will look very different.”

In one of the studies performed which took a look at the historical amounts of algae concentrations over the last century, Worm and his associates have discovered that the rising temperatures of the oceans are directly related to the massive decline in marine algae, commonly know in scientific circles as phytoplankton. These phytoplankton also happen to be the base of the food chain for the ocean, and were responsible for creating oxygen on Earth.

The research seems to indicate that the marine algae has declined by about 40 percent since the 1950’s.
“I think that if this study holds up, it will be one of the biggest biological changes in recent times simply because of its scale,” explained Worm. “The ocean is two-thirds of the earth’s surface area, and because of the depth dimension it is probably 80 to 90 percent of the biosphere. Even the deep sea depends on phytoplankton production that rains down. On land, by contrast, there is only a very thin layer of production.”

The study focused on the phytoplankton is the first study to have looked at the changes over the past 100 years, on a global scale and using data from as far back as 1899. Some similar models have been made using the newly available data from satellites, however that data only goes back as far as 1979.

“One of the most important aspects of the new paper is that they’ve come up with the same answer but from a different approach than we saw from space,” explained Michael Behrenfeld, a marine biologist from Oregon State University. “I think that we should be concerned that this convergence of multiple approaches sees a reduction in the phytoplankton pigments as the ocean warms. If we continue to warm the climate we will probably see further reductions.”

So there you have it.. Global warming is having an adverse effect on our oceans.. I guess it’s time somebody stepped up to the plate to do something about it, however the issue has been ignored for so long, it might be very difficult to remedy the situation. Well, at least now there is solid “proof” that there is a problem, and it might finally provide the incentive needed for action to be taken.

Thousands of dead octopuses have washed up on a beach in northern Portugal. So far, no one has been able to explain what’s happened to them.

According to BBC News the incident is being called “an environmental disaster”, but the truth is that at this stage, we do not know if this is an environmental disaster or not. What we do know is that the dead animals cover a 5-mile stretch of Portugal beach near the city of Vila Nova de Gaia in the Porto District; a district chiefly know for storing and aging the celebrated Port wine.

Portuguese authorities have issued a statement warning the public not to eat the carcasses.

BBC News has posted a video from the scene:

A bill introduced by Maui County Council Member Mike Molina may tighten up the rules for how aquarium fish is treated after being caught in Maui waters. Existing animal welfare laws only stipulate that ornamental fish collectors must maintain facilities that can keep the fish alive and “in reasonable health”.

“The reality is that the inhumane treatment is inherent in the trade,” said environmentalist and dive operator Renee Umberger. “They don’t consider them to really be animals. That’s why it’s important to change the (legal) definition of what the state considers pets.”

The new bill would piggyback on superseding state laws and is intended to make sure that ornamental fish is treated well. Molina also hopes that the bill will raise awareness about overfishing and the fragility of Hawaii’s reefs. Over the past two decades, Hawaii’s aquarium reef fish population has declined by nearly 60 percent.

According to statistics from the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, Maui fishermen caught aquarium fish valued at $32,478 last year. In the entire state, the value of all caught aquarium fish was roughly $2 million in the same period.

Robert Wintner, owner of Snorkel Bob’s, now questions why Hawaii is endangering its reef fish population for a mere $2 million a year when hundreds of local jobs in the multimillion scuba and tour sector depends on the wellbeing of the reefs.

Examples of what the Molina bill is suggesting

• Prohibition of several industry practises, such deflating the swim bladder, exposing the fish to air, and temperature changes of more than 2 degrees.
• Mortality rates and dead fish disposal methods must be documented.
• Causing the death of an ornamental fish will be considered an inhumane treatment of aquatic life.
• Violation of the law would be a misdemeanour. The fine would range between $500 and $2,000 and up to a year in jail.

Before the bill goes before the full County Council, it needs to be assigned to a committee for further discussion.

The Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has announced their plans to create a cryobank for corals. Corals will be collected from tropical areas and placed in liquid nitrogen at the Whipsnade zoo in Bedfordshire.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are rising fast and are already above the safe level for corals,” said Dr Alex Rogers, head of marine biodiversity at the ZSL. “Some reefs are already beginning to fail and many will die within a few decades. We need a plan B, and freezing them is the best option.”

The idea of creating a coral cryobank stems from similar projects concerning seeds, such as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault where seeds from all over the world are preserved inside a cool cavern on Spitsbergen, north of mainland Norway.

Storing coral for prolonged periods of time without killing them was made possible quite recently thanks to a new method developed by researcher Craig Downs of the Haereticus Environmental Laboratory.

“We can take 1mm-2mm biopsies from coral, freeze them at -200C and thaw them out to regenerate back into a polyp,” says Downs, who is now working with the ZSL. “We are proposing to do this for every species of coral on the planet.”

Roughly 3,350 cold-water corals and about 1,800 tropical coral species are currently know to science. Downs proposes keeping 1,000 samples of each at the zoo.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington is now discussing setting up their own coral sample facility to alleviate the risks of having just one coral sample storage in the world.

Charlie Veron, former chief scientist of the Australian Institute of Marine Science, said he supported the efforts but warned it was no consolation for the eradication of reefs. According to Veron, endeavours such as cryobanks, genetic make-up preservation, and coral aquariums aren’t meaningful.

“These are not solutions,” says Veron. “Because Australia is home to the biggest coral reef in the world, it should concentrate all its efforts into helping the Great Barrier Reef survive. Personally, I feel it’s no compensation to know that the genetic information of corals is kept in machines.”