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Life Found in Extreme Antarctic Lake

Antarctica Mountain
Daytime in Antarctica
Copyright Eric Keibler

Most of us are familiar with Blue Lagoon in Texas, and subsequently with the excitement of seeing a fish in its vastly uninhabited waters. So imagine looking for life in a lake in Antarctica, lying 70 feet below the ice sheet, is six times saltier than sea water, has nitrous oxide levels higher than any body of water on Earth, and with an average temperature of 8 degrees Fahrenheit.  

This is the task that a team of researchers recently undertook in search of life in conditions that we did not believe could sustain life, as we know it. But when they looked in the microscope for bacteria, expecting to find none or possibly one species, they found many, an entire community living in these waters. This is an exciting discovery because it demonstrates that life can be sustained in other ways than we previously knew.  

Sunlight does not penetrate the ice to reach this lake, Lake Vida, and the bacteria do not get energy from oxygen or carbon either, as other life forms do. Although not certain, researchers believe that the organisms can harvest energy from chemical reactions between the saltwater and the rock below the lake, which is rich with iron. It is thought that the lake has been cut off from the Earth’s atmosphere for 3,000 years, which gives great clues to how life can develop especially under very extreme circumstances.

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Crustaceans Control Population With Cannibalism

Fisherman discovered long ago that lobsters practice cannibalism when many are put together in confined spaces. This is the reason that lobsters in tanks at grocery stores have rubber bands around their claws. This behavior was thought to be induced by the confining space in these tanks. But just recently this behavior has been observed in the wild as a natural behavior of lobsters. 

The lobster population on the east coast of the United States has been booming in the past few years due to overfishing of their natural predators, such as halibut. Warmer Ocean temperatures have also contributed to larger populations in the Gulf of Mexico. The lobster industry has been breaking catch records in recent years due to the unnaturally high amount of lobsters, but this imbalance is having effects on the lobster population. It seems that lobsters are being triggered to bring their population to a more balanced level and therefore prey on one another. It has been observed that at night eight of nine predatory attacks of small lobsters are from larger lobsters. This is an exceptional look at how some species adjust to overpopulation to restore balance.

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Divers Rescue Whale Shark from Dangerous Debris

Divers in the Revillagigedo Islands west of Mexico came across a whale shark earlier this month that they quickly realized was in distress. As the divers examined the whale shark they could see that it had a rope tightly caught around its pectoral fin area that had created deep cuts on its body. They knew the whale shark had much slimmer chances of surviving with the rope constricting it and when they happened upon the same whale shark on their second dive that day they were prepared. The dive guide and two other divers approached the whale shark and cut the rope, which was two inches thick, from the whale shark. The whale shark swam off free and although it had big gashes from the rope, it now has much better chances of surviving longer than it would have otherwise. The divers also filmed the rescue with an underwater camera and the video has been getting a lot of attention on the internet. This incident highlights the importance of divers’ vital role in protecting and preserving the ocean and its animals because we are the ones who best see and understand the ocean and how to conserve this place we appreciate so much.

Here is the video:

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A Short History of the Scuba Diving Mask!

Al with his mask and snorkel
Al with his mask and snorkel.

The mask is one of the most basic, yet essential pieces of equipment for our sport and has an interesting history. Since the human eye is not adjusted for seeing clearly without air in front of it, divers realized that thy needed some sort of air pocket in front of their eyes to see well underwater. With the beginning of diving divers fashioned goggles, similar to those which swimmers use today. These only covered divers’ eyes so I can imagine that it was pretty difficult to breathe comfortably underwater! With the growth of diving in the 1930s and after the World War II technological boom round masks that covered the eyes and nose became popular. Divers realized that they could increase peripheral vision by having an oval mask instead. These masks were usually homemade, as was most dive equipment, and were made of roughly cut glass and neuprene. As the sport really took off with Cousteau’s era dive masks were changed to have more specific eyepieces, separated the eyes chamber from the nose, and traded the neuprene skirt for silicone. These changes greatly improved the mask to give divers a greater visual field and make the masks more resistant to wear and tear, and are now the modern versions we know today.

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First Ever Sighting of the World’s Rarest Whale!

Copyright Yasine Mrabet, from Wikipedia

One of the world’s rarest animals, the spade-toothed whale, has now been seen for the first time in recorded history.  A mother and calf beached and died in New Zealand earlier this week. Previously the only evidence that this species exists has been three bone pieces that have been found from the 1800s through the present. The bones were difficult to identify because although they were similar to other beaked whales, they did not fit any bone structures of known species. Originally many of the bones were tentatively identified as Gray’s beaked whale, which is within the same family as the spade-toothed whale. Now, using mitochondrial DNA sequencing to compare the spade-toothed whale bones to Gray’s beaked whales showed that the bones were from a separate, unknown species, then termed the spade-toothed whale.

 Whales of the beaked whale family (Ziphiidae) are amongst the most rarely seen whales and are one of the least known families. This is due to beaked whale’s ability to dive to extreme depths to find deep-sea fish and squid to eat. Beaked whales can dive over 800 meters deep and stay submerged for nearly an hour and a half. Many beaked whales are rarely seen and many species are difficult to differentiate without close examination. Therefore, it is very exciting for scientists to finally be able to look closely at a spade-toothed whale to be able to fully differentiate them from other species. It is really incredible that for the first time ever-recorded humans are laying eyes upon a new species of whale. This is the final evidence to prove the current existence of this whale species, and even though we know much about the ocean, it is obvious we still have so much to learn.

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Corals Cry for Help from Gobies

When we think of coral reefs we usually picture the scene we are all familiar with, corals with fish swimming around, maybe hiding in or swimming amongst the coral, just like clown fish swimming protectively around their anemone. And these interactions between animals seem commonplace to us but these can be so vital to the life of a reef. One of these crucial, yet often overlooked, interactions is between the small staghorn coral, Acropora nasuta, and the gobies, G. histrio, which live in it. Due to global warming there has been an increase in toxic seaweed algae that is spreading over reefs in the Caribbean and Pacific. The toxic algae can spread over adult corals and kill larval corals as well, resulting in dying reef systems. Already, one study has show n, that there has been up to an 80% decline in living coral in the Caribbean and up to 50% in the Pacific. But the small staghorn corals have evolved a defense system against these impeding algae. Within 15 minutes of the algae coming into contact with the coral, the coral sends out chemicals to signal the fish that live around them. The chemicals have no effect on some fish but the gobies around the coral respond to the chemicals by eating the algae until it no longer touches the coral, which protects the coral. Not only is this in itself an amazing example of coevolution, but it also demonstrates mutualism because the gobies benefit from eating the toxic algae as well. The goby skin secretes toxins, which inhibit their attackers directly following an attack that many fish can hardly swim upright. This defense mechanism allows the gobies to escape. There is research that suggests that these gobies ingest the toxic algae and may sequester the toxins to then be used for their own defense. These interactions demonstrate the recycling of resources in reef systems and also the incredible ability of organisms to evolve for specific roles in their environment. Reefs rely on a balance of all the players on the reef to maintain its health and these gobies are just one small part of this delicate equilibrium.