Jeff Dudas from underwatertimes.com reports that a Swan nicknamed “Hannibal” after he killed 15 other birds and injured dozens more could be removed from a pond to end his reign of terror.
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Jeff Dudas at underwatertimes.com reports that the undersea world isn’t as quiet as we thought, according to a New Zealand researcher who found fish can “talk” to each other.
Wildlife experts are preparing to collect tens of thousands of endangered sea turtle eggs and move them hundreds of miles away in an unprecedented bid to protect them from the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Also Jeff says scientists were unsure why male Mexican mollies wear an extravagant moustache-like structure on their top lip, but now they’ve worked out why and wine-makers are set to release a corking new vintage they’ve just unearthed from the bottom of the sea. Check out more stories at UnderWaterTimes.com.
A goldfish that was flushed down a toilet has been rescued by a worker at a sewage plant in Lanarkshire. Treatment works operator Jake Huey noticed the floundering fish, now nicknamed Pooh, as he was cleaning at the Philipshill site in East Kilbride. Also two swimmers in the Baltic Sea sought medical treatment over the weekend after being bitten by sea lampreys, an uncomfortable incident that has the state fisheries department aflutter about the return of the parasitic marine animal and A teenage fisherman has told how he caught a shark only to have it perform a “death roll” and knock his boat keys into the water, leaving him stranded. For more under the sea tales head to underwatertimes.com
A male sea lion on has died of exhaustion after a marathon mating session at a zoo in Germany. The mammal, named Mike who was originally from California, was already a father of 12. He passed away yesterday after an extended session with the females at the park in Nuremberg proved too much for his heart.
Mike – described as ‘good-natured’ by the zoo – had mated repeatedly with females Farah, Tiffy and Soda.
The park said in a statement that the 550lb mammal began showing tiredness around midday: ‘Mike could no longer get out of the pool and was brought ashore by staff.
‘The extremely weakened animal was treated by a vet but died from acute heart failure around 3:30 pm.
‘Mating season is a common time for fatalities when bulls often stop eating for days to devote themselves fully to mating.
‘For sea lion bulls with a harem this is the most exhausting time.
‘He will be remembered fondly by visitors of the animal park for his appearances during shows in the dolphinarium where he had close contact with the dolphins,’ added the statement.
Mike’s 12 children can be found in zoos all over Europe, from Berlin to Spain to the Netherlands, the zoo said.
He was 19 – two years older than the average life expectancy of a sea lion in captivity.
Beluga whale saves diver
A beluga whale in a Chinese aquarium saved a diver by pushing her out of the water when she had sudden cramps in her legs.
A spokesman for Harbin Polar Land in north-east China’s Heilongjiang province said the diver was taking part in a competition in the aquarium. Entrants were required to dive into the 6-metre-deep cool pool without any breathing equipment. The person who dives the deepest and stays down for the longest time wins the competition.
Yang Yun, an applicant from a local Chinese Medicine College, dived to a depth of 4 metres on her first trial. “Maybe I was too nervous, and my legs had sudden cramps,” she explained. “I never dive into the water so deep and so cold. I was so nervous then.
When I was choking with water and plummeting to the bottom, a sudden force pushed me out of the water,” said Yang, who swam to the bank and was rescued by other competitors.
An activity organiser said the beluga, Mila, is very familiar with humans and she spotted the problem first.
“We didn’t notice the problem until we saw Mila holding the diver’s leg with her mouth and pushing her out of the water,” said the organiser.
Schoolgirl angler nets record catch that’s twice her size and weight
There should only have been one winner. On the riverbank was Jessica Wanstall, 4ft 10in tall weighing less than six stone (84lb) and something of a tiddler among anglers.
In the river was a monster, a near 9ft catfish that hit the scales at a record 13st 8lb (193lb).
But despite its size and whiskery age, the fish was no match for the skills of 11-year-old Jessica who waged a 20-minute battle to land her prize.
Jessica, from Sittingbourne, Kent, hooked the fish during a trip with her father to the Ebro River in North-East Spain. She said: ‘I didn’t realise just how big it was until I saw the photos afterwards. I look tiny next to it.
‘My dad thought it was going to be a small one and I told him it didn’t feel small when I picked up the rod. It was really hard work pulling it in and my arms turned to jelly.
‘My dad helped lift it on to the bank and I just laughed when I saw it. It was massive.’
Her father Mark, a 49-year-old engineer, helped return the catfish to the river after his daughter’s triumph was photographed.
According to the International Game Fish Association, Jessica has set a world record for a freshwater fish caught by an angler aged 16 and under.
‘Her catfish easily outweighs the previous record – a 120lb Nile perch caught at Murchison Fall, Uganda, in July 2000,’ a spokesman said.
For more under the sea tales head tounderwatertimes.com
If you startled a deer, you might not expect it to jump into the nearest pond and submerge itself for minutes.
But that is exactly what two species of mouse-deer in Asia do when confronted by predators, scientists have found.
One other African mouse-deer species is known to do the same thing, but the new discovery suggests all ruminants may once have had an affinity with water.
It also lends support to the idea that whales evolved from water-loving creatures that looked like small deer.
There are around 10 species of mouse-deer, which are also called ‘chevrotains’.
All belong to the ancient ruminant family Tragulidae, which split some 50 million years ago from other ruminants, the group that went on to evolve into cattle, goats, sheep, deer and antelope.
Each are small, deer-like creatures that unusually don’t have antlers or horns. Instead they have large upper canine teeth, which in the males project down either side of the lower jaw.
The largest species, which stands no more than 80cm tall, lives in Africa and is thought to be the most primitive of all mouse-deer. Known as the water-chevrotain, this animal likes to live in swampy habitats. When alarmed, it dashes for the nearest river where it submerges and swims underwater to safety.
All of the other species of mouse-deer, which live in southeast Asia and India and Sri Lanka were thought to be dry-land animals.
Diving deer
That was until researchers witnessed some remarkable behaviour during two separate incidents.
The first occurred in June 2008 during a biodiversity survey in northern Central Kalimantan Province in Borneo, Indonesia.
During the survey, observers saw a mouse-deer swimming in a forest stream. When the animal noticed the observers it submerged. Over the next hour, they saw it come to the surface four or five times, and maybe more unseen. But it often remained submerged for more than five minutes at a time.
Eventually the observers caught the animal, which they identified as a pregnant female, then released it unharmed.
Among the survey team was the wife of Erik Meijaard, a senior ecologist working with the Nature Conservancy in Balikpapan, Indonesia.
Meijaard knew of anecdotal reports by local people who described deer hiding in creeks and rivers when chased by their dogs. When he saw photos of the deer he identified it as a greater mouse-deer (Tragulus napu).
Coming up for air
The same year, Meijaard also heard reports of a mouse-deer in Sri Lanka that had also been seen swimming underwater.
Three observers saw a mountain mouse-deer (Moschiola spp) run into a pond and start to swim, hotly pursued by a brown mongoose. The mouse-deer submerged itself, and eventually the mongoose retreated. The deer left the water only to be chased straight back into it by the mongoose.
“It came running again and dived into the water and swam underwater. I photographed this clearly and it became clear to me at this stage that swimming was an established part of its escape repertoire,” says Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne, who saw the incident.
“Seeing it swim underwater was a shock. Many mammals can swim in water. But other than those which are adapted for an aquatic existence, swimming is clumsy. The mouse-deer seemed comfortable, it seemed adapted,” he says.
Origins of whales
Meijaard, Wijeyeratne and Umilaela, who saw the submerged Bornean mouse-deer, describe both incidents in the journal Mammalian Biology.
“This is the first time that this behaviour has been described for Asian mouse-deer species,” says Meijaard. “I was very excited when I heard the mouse-deer stories because it resolved one of those mysteries that local people had told me about but that had remained hidden to science.”
“The behaviour is interesting because it is unexpected. Deer are supposed to walk on land and graze not swim underwater. But more interestingly for the zoologist are the evolutionary implications,” he says.
The behaviour bolsters one leading theory regarding the origin of whales.
In 2007, scientists led by Hans Thewissen of the Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine in Ohio published details of a remarkable fossil called Indohyus.
This fossil was of a ruminant animal that looked like a small deer, but also had morphological features that showed it could be an ancestor of early whales.
A mouse-deer in Borneo caught having spent 60 minutes trying to hide underwater
Although speculative, that suggests that all early ruminants may also have led a partially aquatic lifestyle.
The discovery that two Asian species of mouse-deer are comfortable underwater shows that at least three species of modern tragulid share an aquatic escape behaviour.
Because these species diverged at least 35 million years ago, their ancestor also likely behaved in the same way, again bolstering the the idea that a deer-like ruminant may have evolved to produce the modern cetacean group of whales and dolphins.
Hippos, the closest modern relative of whales, also dive for water when threatened, a behaviour that may have been lost over time by other modern species such as sheep and antelope.
Monster fish killed after attacking Swiss swimmers
POLICE have ended the reign of terror of a huge fish that was attacking swimmers in a Swiss lake.
The zander, which was 70 centimetres long and weighed eight kilos was harpooned on after it bit six swimmers over the weekend, fish warden Fabio Croci said.
Two swimmers were treated in hospital for bite wounds up to 10 centimetres long after being attacked on Lac Majeur, which borders Italy.
Police divers at first tried to capture the carnivorous fish with a net, but when this failed they pursued the zander with a harpoon and managed to kill it.
The meat from the captured fish was served up to tourists at the lake.
“It is quite unusual for zanders to bite humans”, Mr Croci said, adding he suspected the fish was suffering from a hormonal imbalance which could be responsible for its aggression.
White humpback whale Migaloo has low sperm count
Migaloo, the white humpback whale that migrates along the east coast of Australia each year, may never reproduce because he could have a low sperm count, scientists fear.
The whale bears scars on his back from a collision with a boat propellor and scientists believe the way the scars have healed may provide an insight into his health.
Professor Peter Harrison, the director of Southern Cross University’s whale research centre in New South Wales, said the whale was “very special” but may never breed.
“The scarring pattern on his back where the trimaran dagger-board [centreboard] sliced into him indicates that he is not healing in the same way, with the dark pigment pattern that we’d expect from other humpback whales,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“And that sort of confirms… that he may well be albino. Now one of the things associated with albinism in mammals is that it quite often leads to low sperm count or sperm infertility.
“So it’s possible that Migaloo, although he is a fully grown male humpback whale and sings like all the other humpback whales, he may not be an effective reproducer.
“And that’s one of the interesting things about him, that we simply don’t know enough about him in terms of whether or not he’s able to father offspring.”
Migaloo, whose name means ‘white fella’ in an Aboriginal dialect, was first sighted in 1991. He is believed to be the only all-white humpback whale in the world and his status as a “special interest whale” means no one is allowed to get within 500 metres of him.
Every year he migrates back to breeding grounds along the Great Barrier Reef region off north-eastern Australia.
For more under the sea tales head to underwatertimes.com
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Scientists: Octopus and squid can hear
The discovery resolves a century-long debate over whether cephalopods, the group of sea creatures that includes octopus, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses, can hear sounds underwater.
Compared to fish, octopus and squid do not appear to hear particularly well.
But the fact they can hear raises the possibility that these intelligent animals may use sound to catch prey, communicate with one another or listen out for predators.
The question of whether cephalopods can perceive sound has been controversial since the early 20th Century. Some experiments suggested that blind octopus seemed able to locate the sounds produced by boats or by tapping on the outside of a tank.
But most cephalopods lack a gas-filled chamber, such as the swim bladders that fish can use to hear. That suggested they could not detect the pressure wave component of sound.
However, sensory physiologist Hong Young Yan of the Taiwan National Academy of Science in Taipei, Taiwan suspected that octopus and squid might use another organ called the statocyst to register sound.
The statocyst is a sac-like structure containing a mineralised mass and sensitive hairs.
Fish also use it to detect sounds, and in previous research, Yan showed that prawns can use their statocysts to hear. “So we extended our work from prawns to cephalopods,” says Yan.
Yan’s team tested the auditory capabilities of two species, the Common octopus Octopus vulgaris and the squid Sepioteuthis lessoniana, often called the Bigfin reef squid.
They discovered that the octopus can hear sounds between 400Hz and 1000Hz. The squid can hear an wider range of sound from 400Hz to 1500Hz, they report in Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, Part A. ”That indicates that squid have a better hearing capability than the octopus,” says Yan. “Interestingly though, both species hear best at a frequency of 600Hz.”
Avoiding being eaten
The discovery could open up a new understanding of cephalopod behaviour.
“The key question which I would like to investigate is what kind of sounds are they listening to?” says Yan.
“Perhaps they listen to sound to evade predators and can eavesdrop to sounds made by their prey. Or, perhaps they even could make sounds to communicate among themselves.”
French man breaks record for holding breath
CRAU, FRANCE (NBC) – A 37-year-old French man has shattered the world record for holding one’s breath while under water.
The old mark of 10 minutes and 12 seconds was set by a German man in 2008.
The new mark belongs to Stephane Mifsud.
He stayed underwater while holding his breath for 11 minutes and 35 seconds, and there’s a catch, this attempt was an international discipline known as static apnea, simply put, it means you cannot use oxygen before the attempt.
Mifsud trained for six months by practicing 30 hours a week holding his breath from two to eight minutes at a time.
He said he’ll need about two months to recover from the record-breaking attempt.
Sharks can be cuddled like dolphins, say scientists
Sharks can be trained like dolphins to feed from keepers, roll over and enjoy cuddles, according to new research.
In experiments carried out in the US some varieties of shark allowed themselves to be picked from the water and cuddled.
Keepers at the UK’s Sea Life Centres will now use the training techniques in the hope that they will end up with hundreds of trained sharks.
The experts at the aquariums are to begin a period of intensive tuition by using coloured boards and sounds to train the sharks in a similar way to that used by the scientist Ivan Pavlov in training dogs.
It will mean that feeding becomes easier because each shark in a tank will know when it is their turn to feed.
The Sea Life centres have many different types of shark and within just three months the brightest ones should be responding to commands.
Sharks learn the signals then, when they see or hear them, they approach the keeper who holds a “target stick”.
The sharks then rub their noses against the stick and wait until they are fed.
No one had attempted to train sharks in this way before, but it could now teach experts a great deal about the creatures.
Carey Duckhouse, of Sea Life, said: “The US team has shown that many varieties of sharks can quickly learn to respond to a combination of audible and visual signals.
“A shark answers its own sound and colour signal by putting its nose on a target-stick held by the trainer, and keeping it there until it receives food.
“Some species, such as zebra sharks, will even roll over to have their tummies scratched or allow themselves to be lifted from the water without any kind of struggle.
“The implications for improving shark welfare are enormous. It means when we have to move them we can get the sharks to swim to a certain spot rather than have to chase them around.”
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Jeff Dudas reports on is possibly one of the most amazing tales of survival against the odds – the seahorse found struggling for life three miles inland from the sea. This rare long-nosed seahorse was scooped up by a seagull and flown dangling from its beak while being starved of oxygen and finally dropped from height to land on a lawn patrolled by a hungry cat.
Also a television journalist was found guilty of killing 12 guppy fish and violating animal protection laws by pouring shampoo into an aquarium for a report
And a pygmy killer whale that beached itself on Maui this month had been escorted for three weeks by a pod of pygmy killer whales, giving marine biologists a rare peek into how the cetaceans cared for one of their own before its death.
For more under the sea tales head to underwatertimes.com
Jeff Dudas reports on a ‘giant sea worm’ that has been has been attacking a coral reef and prize fish at The Blue Reef Aquarium in Newquay that has finally been caught by staff working there.
Also despite the loss of a piece of his left calf from a shark bite Monday, Kula resident Mike Spalding still wants to become the third person known to swim the nearly 30-mile Alenuihaha Channel from the Big Island to Maui and scientists are edging towards squid sausages.
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An octopus has caused havoc in his aquarium by performing juggling tricks using his fellow occupants, smashing rocks against the glass and turning off the power by short-circuiting a lamp.
Staff believe that the octopus called Otto had been annoyed by the bright light shining into his aquarium and had discovered he could extinguish it by climbing onto the rim of his tank and squirting a jet of water in its direction.
The short-circuit had baffled electricians as well as staff at the Sea Star Aquarium in Coburg, Germany, who decided to take shifts sleeping on the floor to find out what caused the mysterious blackouts.
A spokesman said: “It was a serious matter because it shorted the electricity supply to the whole aquarium that threatened the lives of the other animals when water pumps ceased to work.
“It was on the third night that we found out that the octopus Otto was responsible for the chaos.
“We knew that he was bored as the aquarium is closed for winter, and at two feet, seven inches Otto had discovered he was big enough to swing onto the edge of his tank and shoot out the 2000 Watt spot light above him with a carefully directed jet of water.”
Director Elfriede Kummer who witnessed the act said: “We’ve put the light a bit higher now so he shouldn’t be able to reach it. But Otto is constantly craving for attention and always comes up with new stunts so we have realised we will have to keep more careful eye on him – and also perhaps give him a few more toys to play with.
“Once we saw him juggling the hermit crabs in his tank, another time he threw stones against the glass damaging it. And from time to time he completely re-arranges his tank to make it suit his own taste better – much to the distress of his fellow tank inhabitants.”
Medical first for veterinarians who operated on live reef shark
A French veterinary surgeon has made surgical history by performing the first known operation on a live shark.
The two-metre fish was anaesthetised with a form of clove oil used by dentists before going under the knife at Nausicaa, an aquarium in Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France.
“We have contacted other aquariums across the world and it is apparently the first time anywhere that an operation of this sort has been carried out on a shark,” said Dominique Mallevois, deputy head of the aquarium.
The medical team intervened after the 20-year-old shark, named Gilles, began losing weight a few months ago and staff noticed a nylon thread extending from its stomach. When the shark was put to sleep, an X-ray revealed that it had swallowed a 10cm hook (4in) that staff believe was attached to a fish it had eaten.
Gilles was anaesthetised for a second time this month for the hour-long operation, carried out by Alexis Leccu, a veterinary surgeon from Vincennes Zoo in Paris. While water and oxygen were blown into the shark’s mouth, Mr Leccu managed to extract the metal object without damaging any blood vessels.
Mr Mallevois said clove oil was used because it has been found to be well tolerated by fish of all species.
“The shark’s in good form now,” said Mr Mallevois. “It’s swimming and eating just like the other sharks and if you look in the aquarium, it would be difficult to tell which one had been operated on. “ In fact, the only way of knowing is the wound, although it’s difficult to see.”
He said the shark arrived at Nausicaa more than 15 years ago. “Grey sharks usually live to the age of 25 or 30 in aquariums, which is more than in the wild,” he said. “So we hope he will be with us for a while yet.”
Researchers identify largest turtle graveyard in world
Two Santa Cruz scientists have pinpointed a Baja California beach as the sandy graveyard of more dead sea turtles than anywhere else in the world, and they blame poor fishing practices for the deaths.
Next week one of the researchers plans to visit Mexico City and ask the Mexican government to create an ocean preserve to limit fishing off Baja California Sur to help stop the turtle deaths.
“Our goal is to convert that knowledge into some kind of action that makes that part of the ocean safer for animals,” said Davenport researcher Wallace J. Nichols with the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
“We weren’t counting them just for the heck of it,” Nichols said. “There was an agenda, and that was to make sure these animals don’t go extinct.”
Nichols and UC Santa Cruz graduate student Hoyt Peckham have spent the past five years counting dead loggerhead sea turtles along the 43-kilometer Playa San Lazaro, near Lopez Mateos in Baja California Sur, Mexico.
During that half-decade, researchers counted nearly 3,000 loggerhead carcasses on the beach. Peckham and Nichols estimated that the two fishing fleets in nearby waters killed 1,500 to nearly 3,000 loggerhead turtles each year. Those deaths were caused by long lines and gill nets on the sea floor, Nichols said, which hook or trap the turtles and stop them from surfacing to breathe.
“We saw what are apparently the highest documented stranding and fisheries bycatch rates in the world,” said Peckham, lead author of a research paper published last week in a special issue of Endangered Species Research.
Nichols spotted the magnitude of the turtle deaths when he first visited Playa San Lazaro 10 years ago. He and Peckham are now working with local fishermen to build tourism based on seeing the turtles, making them more valuable alive than dead, Nichols said.
The new research draws attention to the devastating effect small fisheries can have in biological “hot spots,” Nichols said. Until now, he said, conservation efforts focused more on the effects of larger fisheries than small ones.
Peckham saw the findings as an opportunity. “By working with just a handful of fishermen to diminish their bycatch, we can save hundreds of turtles,” Peckham said.
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