You might think a creature called the vampire squid would suck the blood of an unfortunate passing fish. After all, other octopus and squid species hunt live prey. Instead of preying on the undead, however, the vampire squid simply feasts on the dead.
Articles
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.
July 1, 2013
It’s no secret that most animals release waste through their backsides, but some use that exit for more than releasing leftover food. Sea cucumbers use their rear end for at least five different functions — including breathing.
June 1, 2013
It can move almost as fast as a speeding bullet and packs a punch powerful enough to break aquarium glass. Mantis shrimp aren’t your average cocktail shrimp — technically they’re not even shrimp.
May 1, 2013
Sharks may be top predators in the sea, but they can be prey as well, especially as babies. Researchers have learned that young sharks can sense nearby predators and then act to avoid detection — even when still in their egg case.
Biologists already knew sharks can sense possible prey by detecting electrical fields produced by nearby fish. However, scientists did not know whether shark embryos would adjust their own biological processes to reduce their risk of being discovered as prey themselves.
April 1, 2013
If the home that gives you shelter and houses your food were threatened, you’d likely do what you could to protect it. Gobies are no different. These tiny fish — just an inch long —live in coral, which protects them from predators and lets them eat algae on the coral and plankton from the surrounding water. But the coral sometimes needs protection too, and gobies are up to the job.
March 1, 2013
You’ve heard of whales singing, but what about talking? If that sounds crazy, most marine biologists would have agreed until they had heard it — a whale trying to imitate human speech. In fact, they had not realized it was physically possible for whales to make those kinds of sounds until a beluga whale named NOC spoke up.
February 1, 2013
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began in spring 2010 was one of the largest ecological disasters of recent history. The big question has been — how do we clean up all that oil? Maybe we don’t have to do it all: man’s disaster has been bacteria’s feast, and the amount of oil these microscopic creatures have chowed down is colossal.
In the five months following the spill, naturally occurring bacteria digested 200,000 tons of oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico. That’s equivalent to the weight of 415 fully-loaded 747 airplanes carrying maximum loads.
January 1, 2013
While Magellan’s first circumnavigation of the world made history, circling the globe is a regular annual trip for many albatrosses.
There are 21 species of these great seafaring birds — 19 of them are threatened or endangered, mostly due to being caught on baited hooks set by longline fishing boats. Albatrosses spend about 80 percent of their lives at sea. They don’t breed often and may spend one or two years between breeding seasons at sea foraging for squid, krill, fish and crustaceans.
December 1, 2012
While seahorses certainly are a unique-looking fish, that’s hardly their most unusual trait. Seahorses and their relatives, pipefishes, are the only family of fish in which the males become pregnant and give birth.
The process begins with males seeking out the largest females, who provide the largest size and greatest number of eggs. The pair swim together, “hold tails” and “dance” for several mornings. Then, an 8-hour courtship dance leads to the actual mating. November 1, 2012
If being a “blue blood” is a sign of royalty, then horseshoe crabs may be the kings and queens of the sea. In fact, their unique blood is one reason they have survived for more than 450 million years.
Horseshoe crab blood is actually gray-white to pale yellow most of the time because it rarely carries much oxygen. But when oxygenated, horseshoe crab blood is blue because it contains the copper-based compound, hemocyanin, instead of the iron-containing hemoglobin that gives most other creatures red blood.
