The Marine Science Institute's monthly column, Science and the SeaTM, is an informative and entertaining article that explains many interesting features of the marine environment and the creatures that live there. Science and the SeaTM articles appear monthly in one of Texas' most widely read fishing magazines, Texas Saltwater Fishing, the Port Aransas South Jetty newspaper, the Flour Bluff News, and the Island Moon newspaper. Our article archive is available also on our website.
Take a moment to imagine what you think is the largest sea creature on Earth. How big is it? Are you thinking of the blue whale? At somewhere between 80 to 110 feet long, blue whales are about as long as an NBA basketball court, and, at 20 to 25 feet across, about half as wide as one.
When Pinocchio and his father, Geppetto, were swallowed by a whale, they started a fire to make the whale sneeze them out. That’s not exactly the strategy that juvenile Japanese eels use, but the eels have managed to find a way to escape the stomachs of predators that swallow them—and biologists have captured their Houdini-like feats on video.
Sea otters, dolphins, crows, elephants, octopuses, crocodiles—these animals, like humans, use tools for a variety of activities, from eating and drinking, to grooming and play, to combat and communication. But far fewer animals are known to manufacture and modify the tools, rather than simply using what they come across in their environment. And now, humpback whales are part of this much smaller group of “tool wielders.”
From the front, dragonfish look about as terrifying as their mythological namesakes likely appeared to the knights in ancient tales. Sleek, slender, and quite small at about 20 inches long, they don’t really resemble dragons, but their gaping jaws full of fangs are scary enough to seem like a storybook monster. They also live deep in the dark twilight and midnight zones of the sea, where their dark skin allows them to remain unseen so they can ambush their prey.
With thousands of species of the world’s organisms yet to be discovered, it’s not unusual for scientists to discover several new ones on a lengthy oceanic expedition. But it’s far less common for a single expedition to discover more than 100 new species, as one group estimates it did earlier this year while exploring seamounts along the west coast of South America.
During bicycling races, cyclists often ride close together to take advantage of drafting, where a low-pressure area created behind a cyclist gives a boost to the one following them so the whole group can expend less energy. While the dynamics of ocean currents underwater are a bit different from air currents, it turns out that a similar strategy can help fish in turbulent water. New research has revealed that fish can swim far more easily, and use much less energy, swimming together in a school than battling the currents on their own.
If you knew that where you settled down would be home for the rest of your life, you’d make sure it was the best neighborhood you could find. That’s the situation larval corals face as they drift with ocean currents looking for the reef that will become their forever home. Light and chemicals in the seawater play a role in where larvae settle, but scientists recently discovered another factor: how the neighborhood sounds.
As women enter middle age, their bodies gradually stop menstruating until they hit menopause, when they can no longer bear children. But humans aren’t the only mammals to experience menopause. In fact, five species of toothed whales go through “the change” as well—and it seems to be related to longevity.
Did you see the headlines earlier this year suggesting that a round stingray at a North Carolina aquarium may have become pregnant by one of the male sharks in her tank? As cool as the idea may sound, it is impossible. Sharks and stingrays are somewhat related (about as close as a human is to a mouse), but about 300 million years of evolution separate the species. Genetically, they’re too different to reproduce successfully. But the reality of what probably did happen is just as cool: it’s possible that Charlotte, the solo stingray, cloned herself.
You would think it’s necessary to have a brain to be able to learn new things. But at least one brainless marine creature has shown scientists otherwise. For the first time, a jellyfish recently revealed its ability to learn from experience. Scientists shared their results of an experiment in which a Caribbean box jellyfish learned to identify and avoid obstacles.
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