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opinion on octopi? I love them lol best squishy bois
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There are four types of fish scales!
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Hiii!
I'm like a week new to Tumblr- I can't figure out how to sort through content well, so you've probably posted about this before
What do you know about sea slugs?? Like particularly interesting ones! I love them and wanna hear your description!!
One of my favorite nudibranchs is the Sap-sucking sea slug (Cyerce elegans)!
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The shape of a fish's caudal tail can tell you a lot about how fast the fish moves! A rounded tail is the slowest and a lunate tail is the fastest! The lunate tail has the most optimal ratio of high thrust and low draw, making it the fastest.
Ichthyology Notes 2/?
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Skeleton Panda Sea Tunicate Appreciation Post!!! 💀 🐼 🌊
Clavelina ossipandae, the skeleton panda sea tunicate is a species of colonial ascidian, also known as sea tunicates, a group of sessile, marine filter-feeding invertebrates. Just some funky little guys!
First discovered near Kume Island in Japan by local divers, pictures of the animal attracted media attention in 2017. But they weren't given their formal taxonomic description until 2024
Love to sea it 🌊
#marine science#tunicates#science#biology#halloween#spooky season#skeleton#sea creatures#sea critters#marine creatures#marine life#photography#marine biology#sealife#ocean creatures#ocean#oceanposting#love to sea it#aquatic life#marine invertebrates#sea tunicate#chordata#invertebrates#sea life#sea animals#marine animals#ocean animals#ocean critters#fishblr#tunicate
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Anonymous asked:
Hi! Love your blog! :]
I was wondering if you had fun facts about sea slugs or nudibranches or any good resources to learn more about them? They're my favorite marine animal
Thank you so much!!!
There are over 3,000 known species of nudibranchs, and they can be found in both salt and fresh water! There are two main categories of nudibranchs, divided by their breathing apparatus (the feather/tentacle looking things). The doric nudibranchs (first gif) has gills are centered around their anus. The aeolid nudibranch (second gif) has a set of cerata along their backs.
Nudibranchs are mostly carnivores (the exceptions are omnivores that also eat certain algaes). They commonly eat anemones, coral, sponges, and sometimes even other nudibranchs! They also sometimes get their bright colors from their prey, allowing them to further blend in with their habitat and send a giant "dont-eat-me-im-toxic" sign to any predators.
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Whale, whale, whale, look what the ROV dragged in… 🐋🦴🤔
⚠️TW: graphic image of dead whale⚠️
In 2021, a dead fin whale washed up on a beach in Monterey Bay, giving us the unique opportunity to collect one of its back bones for display in the Into the Deep/En lo Profundo exhibit at the Aquarium.
Before its debut, MBARI helped us sink it in the deep sea to “marinate”. Three years later, we returned to retrieve the whale bone, freshly colonized in Osedax bone-eating worms!
Check out this collaborative process with @mbari-blog to bring the deep sea closer to you!
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Anonymous asked:
In my book, mermaids use bioluminescent animals to help navigate the dark corridors of their boarding school. They are more decorations than functionals, but do you know any beautiful bioluminescent animals I can use? Also can you suggest animals some of the students use as attendant lifeforms (familiars/? Thanks.
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What goes bump in the dark?
This softball sized, translucent jelly, Stellamedusa ventana, moves through the water like a shooting star. Wart-like bumps of stinging cells cover its feeding arms and bell.
This bumpy jelly is just one of more than 200 new species that MBARI researchers have found in the depths of Monterey Bay. Its genus, Stellamedusa, refers to the jelly’s translucent blue-white color and trailing arms, which reminded MBARI scientists of a slow-moving meteor or shooting star. It’s species name, ventana, refers to MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Ventana, a deep-diving submarine robot that first recorded the jelly on video in 1990.
You can see Stellamedusa ventana for yourself @montereybayaquarium !
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An extraordinary deep-sea sighting: The giant phantom jelly (MBARI Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute)
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"The coral reefs of south Sulawesi are some of the most diverse, colorful and vibrant in the world. At least, they used to be, until they were decimated by dynamite fishing in the 1990s.
As part of a team of coral reef ecologists based in Indonesia and the UK, we study the reefs around Pulau Bontosua, a small Indonesian island in south Sulawesi...
In many places around the world, damage like this might be described as irreparable. But at Pulau Bontosua, the story is different. Here, efforts by the Mars coral restoration program have brought back the coral and important ecosystem functions, as outlined by our new study, published in Current Biology. We found that within just four years, restored reefs grow at the same rate as nearby healthy reefs.
Speedy recovery
The transplanted corals grow remarkably quickly. Within a year, fragments have developed into proper colonies. After two years, they interlock branches with their neighbors. After just four years, they completely overgrow the reef star structures and restoration sites are barely distinguishable from nearby healthy reefs.
The combined growth of many corals generates a complex limestone (calcium carbonate) framework. This provides a habitat for marine life and protects nearby shorelines from storm damage by absorbing up to 97% of coastal wave energy.
We measured the overall growth of the reef framework by calculating its carbonate budget. That's the balance between limestone production (by calcifying corals and coralline algae) and erosion (by grazing sea urchins and fishes, for example). A healthy reef produces up to 20kg of reef structure per square meter per year, while a degraded reef is shrinking rather than growing as erosion exceeds limestone production. Therefore, overall reef growth gives an indication of reef health.
At Pulau Bontosua, our survey data shows that in the years following restoration, coral cover, coral colony sizes, and carbonate production rates tripled. Within four years, restored reefs were growing at the same speed as healthy reefs, and thereby provided the same important ecosystem functions...
Outcomes of any reef restoration project will depend on environmental conditions, natural coral larvae supply, restoration techniques and the effort invested in maintaining the project. This Indonesian project shows that when conditions are right and efforts are well placed, success is possible. Hopefully, this inspires further global efforts to restore functioning coral reefs and to recreate a climate in which they can thrive."
-via Phys.org, March 11, 2024
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The lingering and extreme impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill on the deep sea
From the darkness emerges a boot. An old leather, steel-toed, work boot. It shouldn’t be there resting on the seafloor nearly two kilometers deep. I’m speechless. Even knowing this was going to be one of the toughest dives of my career, I’m still not prepared.
Seven years prior in 2010, Marla Valentine and Mark Benfield were the first scientist to visit the deep-sea floor after the Deepwater Horizon accident. On 20 April 2010, and continuing for 87 days, approximately 4 million barrels spilled from the Macondo Wellhead making it the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Just months after the oil spill, Valentine and Benfield conducted video observations with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) of the deep-sea impact. Overall, they found a deep-sea floor ravaged by the spill.
Much of the diversity was lost and the seafloor littered with the carcasses of pyrosomes, salps, sea cucumbers, sea pens, and glass sponges.
Researchers continued to find severe impacts on deep-sea life. The numerical declines were staggering within the first few months; forams (↓80–93%), copepods (↓64%), meiofauna (↓38%), macrofauna (↓54%) and megafauna (↓40%). One year later, the impacts on diversity were still evident and correlated with increases in total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), and barium in deep-sea sediments. In 2014, PAH was still 15.5 and TPH 11.4 times higher in the impact zone versus the non-impact zone, and the impact zones still exhibited depressed diversity.
Continued research on corals found the majority of colonies still had not recovered by 2017. However, studies examining the impacts of the DWH oil spill on most deep-sea life ended in 2014…
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Hey! I love horseshoe crabs!!!! I just got a tattoo of a horseshoe crab mixed with a biblical angel.
Would love to see a post about them :)
There are four species of horseshoe crab! And they're not actually crabs, despite the name.
These critters are commonly referred to as "living fossils" and that's super accurate. These arthropods have been around for over 445 million years- over 200 million years before the first dinosaurs.
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Got facts about pyjama sharks? They are very cute :)
Pyjama shark or striped catshark (Poroderma africanum).
You're 100% right, they're absolutely adorable. These little guys only grow to be approximately 1.1 m (3.6 ft) long. These sharks are primarily nocturnal and hunt small fish, crustaceans, and shark egg cases. They capture prey the same way that crocodiles do! They'll bite onto their prey and roll to disorient and kill it.
These sharks are endemic to the waters of the South Africa coast (aka, that's the only place they're found in the wild). The biggest threat to their population is being caught as bycatch. The good news is that their populations are believed to be increasing and their conservation status is that of least concern!
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Got any cool info on cow sharks?
YES
There are five species of cowshark: Broadnose sevengill, Bluntnose sixgill, Sharpnose sevengill, Bigeyed sixgill, and the Atlantic sixgill.
My favorite fact about these adorable little sharks is that they have more fins than most sharks do (which is why its mentioned in their name). Most sharks have five gill slits! They also don't have the notably large dorsal fin synonymous with sharks.
These sharks have even been observed to hunt in packs for larger prey like seals and other sharks! They're commonly found in shallow, warm waters.
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Hi! What do you know about the Magnapinna Big fin squid? Is that even it's actual name?
I'm talking about this guy:
Bigfin Squid are AWESOME! They're in the genus Magnapinna which is Latin for "great fin". They're the largest squid species alive today that we know of! They've been recorded to grow around 6 m (20 ft) long and live in depths of up to 6,000 m (20,000 ft)- which is the deepest a squid is known to reside.
There are about three known species of these squid, but most likely more! Even though they're widely distributed across the oceans, they're still difficult to find- only approximately a dozen have been observed. Because they're hard to find and study, there's little we know about them. So, a lot of what we hypothesis is based on what we know of other squid species.