Riusuke Fukahori Paints Three-Dimensional Goldfish Embedded in Layers of Resin

First: watch the video. Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori paints three-dimensional goldfish using a complex process of poured resin. The fish are painted meticulously, layer by layer, the sandwiched slices revealing slightly more about each creature, similar to the function of a 3D printer. I really enjoy the rich depth of the pieces and the optical illusion aspect, it’s such an odd process that results in something that’s both a painting and sculptural. Wonderful.

for more images go to this is colossal.com

Myth Busting: The Truth About Animals And Tools

from NPR
by JON HAMILTON



A wasp uses a pebble as a hammer. An octopus carries around a coconut shell to hide in. A shrike impales its prey on a sharp thorn.

Those are just a few examples of animal tool use that appear in the new book Animal Tool Behavior by Robert W. Shumaker, Kristina R. Walkup and Benjamin B. Beck. The book updates an edition published in 1980 by Beck. And in the new version, the authors try to dispel a number of persistent myths about animals and tools.

Shumaker tells me about some of those myths during a walk around The Indianapolis Zoo, where he is vice president of life sciences. (He is also a member of the adjunct faculty at the University of Indiana.)

As we approach a female polar bear named Tundra, Shumaker says one myth he hopes to deflate is that tool use is limited to monkeys and apes. Polar bears offer a powerful rebuttal of that idea, he says. In zoos, they often throw objects with great force and accuracy. It's less clear whether this sort of tool use occurs in the wild. But there are anecdotal reports from early Arctic explorers of polar bears using projectiles to hunt.

"One of the stories we have is polar bears getting up on a cliff and hurling great chunks of ice down on something like a walrus to kill it," Shumaker says.

Another common misconception: Tool use requires fingers, or at least hands, Shumaker says. Apparently, no one bothered to tell dolphins. "They have nothing to hold tools with except their mouth," he says, "and yet they are still innovative and creative."

Dolphins play with just about any object they find, Shumaker says. In some cases, the objects are merely toys — but they become tools when used to manipulate another object or creature for a specific purpose. And dolphins do that kind of manipulating a lot, says Jodie Baker, who is in charge of marine mammals at the zoo. As we speak over the din of dolphin splashes and chatter, Baker sees a dolphin named Kimo preparing to manipulate us with a tool — in this case, a buoy.

"If you walk by the pool and there's a dolphin playing with a toy, they'll typically throw it in your direction to get your attention," she says.

That's a form of tool use known as baiting or enticing. But scientists have collected lots of examples of dolphins doing other things with tools, Shumaker says.

"One is a dolphin that found a piece of tile and took it down to the bottom of their pool and used it to scrape algae off the bottom of their pool and then they ate the algae," he says.

And wild dolphins in Australia sometimes flush out their prey with a sponge, he says. "They hold the sponge on their rostrum, and then they use that as they disturb the sandy bottom to get fish like flounder that are down in the sand."

Genetics Or Intelligence?

One of the most widespread myths about tool use is that it is a sign of intelligence. Of course, some really smart animals do use tools. But so do creatures like the bolas spider, which is named after the throwing weapon used by South American gauchos. The spider's version of the bolas is a ball made from the same silk it uses to spin a web, Shumaker says.

"When an insect flies by, they throw it and it attaches to the insect because it's sticky and they reel them in," he says. "It's very complex. Very impressive. Very dramatic. But all available information tells us that it's completely controlled from this animal's genetic history." In other words, it's programmed behavior, not something the spider figured out. Genetic programming is also the reason hermit crabs carry around another creature's shell and ant-lions throw sand at their prey.

When intelligent animals do use tools, though, they often do so in very creative ways, Shumaker says.

At the zoo's spacious elephant enclosure, Tim Littig, a senior animal trainer, points toward a baby elephant named Kalina, who is standing next to her mother, Kubwa. Kalina has been able to nurse without any help, Littig says. But things were trickier with Kubwa's previous baby, he says.

"Her last calf was a little smaller than this one and required a step stool to be able to reach her mammary glands to nurse," Littig explains. "Kubwa would move the stool around so the calf could stand up on the stool to nurse."

Technically, that made her baby the tool user. But it was Kubwa who figured out how to use the tool. And that sort of problem-solving is a sign of intelligence, Shumaker says.

So is figuring out how to make a tool — a skill many scientists once thought of as uniquely human. Shumaker says those scientists must not have spent much time around orangutans. Then he takes me to the orangutan enclosure for a demonstration.

I'm holding a large microphone, which Shumaker reminds me not to point at the orangutans, lest they think it's a weapon. But the animals aren't frightened. Several orangutans reach through the steel mesh and make it clear to Shumaker that they want to have the microphone. Shumaker tells a female named Knobi that she can touch it, which she does several times. When I move it out of reach, though, Knobi walks off and comes back with a small tree branch.

"She's making a reaching tool to try and get your microphone," Shumaker explains as Knobi breaks off one forking branch so the limb will fit through the steel mesh.

But this reaching tool isn't long enough, so Knobi fetches a branch that's 5 or 6 feet long. I stay where I am as Knobi prods at the microphone with the tool.

"She's doing her best to draw the mic in," Shumaker says to me. Then to Knobi he says: "I'm sorry; you cannot have it. Good job with your tool."

As we walk away, we can see Knobi grabbing an even larger branch.

Using Symbols As Tools

Just 10 or 15 years ago, scientists were still debating whether orangutans in the wild also made tools, Shumaker says. Now it's clear they do, and there are several examples in Animal Tool Behavior. The book also offers scientific documentation of other species making tools in the wild. New Caledonian crows make hooks out of twigs to catch prey. Wild chimpanzees make wooden spears for hunting.

Perhaps the most surprising and controversial findings in the new book involve what scientists refer to as symbolic tool use. "These are examples where we see tools being used to represent something else or to provide a change in psychological state," Shumaker says

Symbolic tool use is something people do every time they pay for an item with paper bills or coins. And some monkeys and apes in captivity have learned to use tokens that they trade for various foods.

But Shumaker is more intrigued by the sort of symbolic tools that can affect emotions. There are lots of examples of this in people. Children often have a special stuffed animal or blanket that is much more than a toy. The object represents comfort or security to them, and they use it to feel better.

It's one more behavior that scientists once considered uniquely human. But Shumaker says there is more and more evidence that some animals use symbolic tools in much the same way.

"We would see great apes in times of great stress or sadness, like a female who had an infant that died," Shumaker says. "That female would create something that researchers called a doll and then [she] treated it exactly as she had treated her infant that had recently died."

Shumaker says scientists are still debating the significance of examples like this. But he says the fact that such a debate is even taking place shows how much things have changed since the 1960s, when scientists first realized that humans weren't the only ones using tools.

Octopus Walks on Land at Fitzgerald Marine Reserve

I would suggest watching this with the volume off - MA

Thanks to Cleve H for the link

Dolphins team up to get the girl

by ABBIE THOMAS
from abc.net

An alliance of four male dolphins, dubbed The Beatles have shown that when blokes co-operate, they have more sexual success.

The research by a team at Macquarie University is published in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

The study found that male dolphins who form an alliance fathered far more babies than those who worked in smaller groups or alone.

The researchers studied a population of 70 male and 64 female Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins living in Port Stephens, New South Wales. They collected skin samples from males and calves and looked for genetic markers which would reveal the paternity of the calves.

They found that 14 different males had sired 32 calves. However, nearly half of the calves - 13 individuals - were sired by a single alliance of four dolphins known as The Beatles.

Three calves were sired by a three-male alliance and five calves were sired by another three-male alliance.

The remaining 11 calves sired by pairs or lone males.
Teaming up works

Males are known to form alliances in a number of species, including lions, chimpanzees, horses and, some would argue, humans.

"But there has not been any evidence to show why an alliance might be preferable," says co-author Dr Jo Wiszniewski.

"This research shows that male dolphins need to cooperate with each other to maximise their reproductive success."

Up to 80 per cent of males form alliances to seek out and reproduce with females during the spring/summer breeding season, says Wiszniewski.

"Males in alliances have better control of the females - we often see the males swimming around the females one on each side, sometimes one at the back. The female can't get away from them," she says.

"They basically herd the female - they try to keep her away from other males. They would swim by her and when she was feeding, they would feed too."

"These kind of herding events can last just from a few hours up to a few weeks at a time," says Wiszniewski.
Pressure to form alliances

Female dolphins only have a calf every two to five years, so in any particular year there are very few females available and ready to mate with.

"That's why there's so much pressure for males to form alliances, to become more competitive," she says.

Previous research from Western Australia also found that male dolphins who form alliances breed more successfully. But in this case, forming cooperative alliances was less surprising, Wiszniewski says, because those dolphins were related.

"If one of those males helps another reproduce, he still gets benefits because his genes still get passed on," she says.

But in Port Stephens, the cooperating dolphins weren't related.

"That's what's so fascinating. By helping another male, they are actually risking the chance that they won't reproduce with a female. So they really need a high level of cooperation and trust so then the male knows that by helping another male, he's also going to get helped."

Wiszniewski points out that one of The Beatles - John - doesn't seem to have fathered any calves.

"We have a feeling he was not a full part of the alliance. He was what we call the odd male out - he wasn't really 'in' with the group."

Bizarre Tongue-Eating Parasite Discovered Off the Jersey Coast

From TreeHugger.com
(Thanks to Alex C for the link!)
by Brian Merchant

Ceratothoa imbricata, the South African relative of the parasite discovered off the Jersey Shore. Photo Credit: Dr. Nico Smit

There's been a spate of amazing animal discoveries recently--the giant rat-eating plants found in the Philippines, a huge woolly rat discovered in a volcanic crater--and now, yet another animal has emerged that could be right out of a sci-fi film. It's a bizarre creature that survives by eating its hosts' tongue and then attaching itself inside the mouth.The sea-dwelling parasite attacks fish, burrows into it, and then devours its tongue. After eating the tongue, the parasite proceeds to live inside the fish's mouth. There's a horror film waiting to be made about this thing. Surprisingly, the fish doesn't seem to suffer any severe impediment--just the loss of its tongue. And it seems to have no trouble surviving with its new, far uglier tongue.

While the isopod, a kind of louse, has been known to exist for a while now, discoveries of live specimens are rare. The BBC reports that "Fishermen near the Minquiers - islands under the jurisdiction of Jersey - found the isopod, a type of louse, inside a weaver fish." So no, the tongue-eater wasn't found in that Jersey. The Jersey Shore is still tongue replacing creature-free, if you stateside Northeasterners were worried about the thing ruining your late summer vacationing.

Now, the picture above is a relative of the one discovered off the Jersey shore -- the one causing the ruckus, Cymothoa exigua, looks like this:

Not that you'd have to be too concerned anyways--the isopod isn't a threat to humans in the slightest, though it's reportedly vicious, and can deliver quite a little bite. One of the fishermen who found the creature described it thus: "Really quite large, really quite hideous - if you turn it over its got dozens of these really sharp, nasty claws underneath and I thought 'that's a bit of a nasty beast'." And while it can't seriously hurt people, it evidently doesn't like them: "It doesn't affect humans other than if you do actually come across a live one and try and pick it up - they are quite vicious, they will deliver a good nip."

Human Sex is Boring

from Roxy Drew


for more go to Roxy Drew

Cuttlefish changes colors like chess!

Thanks to Amy C for the link!

15 Animals You Won’t Believe Aren't Photoshopped

Cracked.com has a very fun article on some neat-looking animals like Ankole-Watusi Cattle which is captioned: "That's the smile of a boy who will never, ever be fucked with again." Go here to see the full list!

11 Animal Species About to Go Extinct

Anna M. just sent this my way and asked me to post, and I am much obliged - MA

To see the whole list go to: http://www.onlinedegree.net/11-animal-species-about-to-go-extinct/

Some endangered species get all the attention. Polar bears, pandas, and Siberian tigers are hotshots in mainstream conservation campaigns and are featured in various commercials, complete with melodramatic music and emotional appeals. But there are many animal species that are just as close or closer to extinction than these select few. And many of them are equally cute. The following animals are all considered to be critically endangered and could disappear within our lifetimes.

Golden-Mantled Tree Kangaroo Less famous than its ground-dwelling, boxing relatives, the golden-mantled tree kangaroo (pictured above) has jumped onto the list of species facing extinction. It looks similar to a kangaroo or wallaby, but has strong forearms and a long ringed tail. Tree kangaroos also have rubbery soles on shorter, wider feet to make them more adept at climbing than kangaroos on the ground. Though they are slow and clumsy on land, tree kangaroos move expertly through trees, wrapping their forearms around a limb and using the hind legs to propel themselves up. They also leap with ease between trees. The golden-mantled tree kangaroo lives in the forested areas of a mountain range in Papua New Guinea and was discovered in Indonesia in 2006 by a group of scientists. As more of the forest is cleared away to be made into cultivated land, the tree kangaroo's home is shrinking -- bad news when it has been run out of 99% of its historical habitat range. In 2008 there were only 250 of its kind left, and experts expect the number to drop under 200 in the next 10 years or so.

Siau Island Tarsier This Gremlin-esque little guy comes, unsurprisingly, from the island of Siau in Indonesia. Tarsiers are nocturnal primates with extremely large eyes, soft fur, and long fingers and feet. Researchers believe the Siau Island tarsier numbers in the low thousands, and local residents have said they've seen fewer and fewer of these tarsiers during the past 10 years. Take into account that more than half of the animal's home is an active volcano and that the island's human population is rumored to regularly eat five to 10 tarsiers in one sitting, and the future's not looking good for this species. In fact, it was put on the 2008-2010 list of the 25 most endangered primates, ranking up there with heavyweight names like the Sumatran Orangutan and Cross River Gorilla.

Pygmy Three-Toed Sloth A slightly smaller version of your average sloth found only on one small island off the coast of Panama, the pygmy three-toed sloth is inching its way toward extinction with presumably fewer than 500 of its kind remaining. Though apparently not helping it survive human threats, this sloth's set of skills includes the ability to turn its head 360 degrees and to grow algae on its fur. The algae is thought to be a sort of camouflage, but it hasn't been able to protect the sloth from fishermen, who hunt the sloths and can spot them easily in their habitats near open sea. And while sloths have gotten a bad name for being lazy, what with the whole seven deadly sins thing, maybe that reputation will help them in this instance. Hopefully when it comes to extinction, these sloths will go very slowly.

To see the rest, go to: http://www.onlinedegree.net/11-animal-species-about-to-go-extinct/

Diver Snaps First Photo of Fish Using Tools

From Science Now
by REBECCA KESSLER

While exploring Australia's Great Barrier Reef, professional diver Scott Gardner heard an odd cracking sound and swam over to investigate. What he found was a footlong blackspot tuskfish (Choerodon schoenleinii) holding a clam in its mouth and whacking it against a rock. Soon the shell gave way, and the fish gobbled up the bivalve, spat out the shell fragments, and swam off. Fortunately, Gardner had a camera handy and snapped what seem to be the first photographs of a wild fish using a tool.

Tool use, once thought to be the distinctive hallmark of human intelligence, has been identified in a wide variety of animals in recent decades. Although other creatures don't have anything quite like a circular saw or a juice machine, capuchin monkeys select "hammer" rocks of an appropriate material and weight to crack open seeds, fruits, or nuts on larger "anvil" rocks, and New Caledonian crows probe branches with grass, twigs, and leaf strips to extract insects. In addition to primates and birds, many animals, including dolphins, elephants, naked mole rats, and even octopuses, have shown forms of the behavior.

Tool-using fish have been few and far between, however, particularly in the wild. Archerfish target jets of water at terrestrial prey, but whether this constitutes tool use has been contentious. There have also been a handful of reports of fish cracking open hard-shelled prey, such as bivalves and sea urchins, by banging them on rocks or coral, but there's no photo or video evidence to back it up, according to Culum Brown, a behavioral ecologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and a co-author of the present paper, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Coral Reefs.

The tuskfish caught on camera was clearly quite skilled at its task, "landing absolutely pinpoint blows" with the shell, Brown says. A scattering of crushed shells around its anvil rock suggests that Gardner didn't just stumble upon the fish during its original eureka moment. In fact, numerous such shell middens are visible around the reef. Blackspot tuskfish, members of the wrasse family, are popular food fish, so it's surprising that its shell-smashing behavior has remained unknown, Brown says. "My feeling is that when we go out and really look for it, it'll turn out to be common."

"I absolutely loved it," says ethologist Michael Kuba of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem of the finding. Last year, Kuba and two colleagues documented stingrays in a laboratory forming jets of water with their bodies to flush food out of a pipe. But solid external objects like rocks are harder to dismiss as tools than water jets, Kuba says, and examples from the wild avoid concerns about whether a behavior elicited in the lab is "natural."

Primatologist Elisabetta Visalberghi of the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies in Rome is less convinced. Visalberghi, who documented the hammer-wielding monkeys, adheres to a stricter definition of tool use that requires the animal to hold or carry the tool itself, in this case the rock. "The form of tool use described [in tuskfish] is cognitively little demanding and present in a variety of species. Often it has been labeled as proto-tool use because the object used to open the shell is still, fixated to the sea bottom, and not portable as stone tools used to crack open nuts by chimpanzees or capuchin monkeys are," she writes in an e-mail. Seagulls dropping shellfish onto hard surfaces to crack them or lab rats pushing levers to get rewards would join tuskfish in the category of proto-tool—but not true tool—users.

Brown acknowledges that exactly what constitutes tool use is controversial. But he argues that it's not logical to apply the same rules to fish as to primates or birds. For one thing, fish don't have anything but their mouths to manipulate tools with, and for another, water poses different physical limitations than air. "One of the problems with the definition of tool use as it currently stands is it's totally written for primates," he says. "You cannot swing a hammer effectively underwater."

---
Reference
Jones AM, Brown C, Gardner S (2011) Tool use in the tuskfish Choerodon schoenleinii? Coral reefs DOI: 10.1007/s00338-011-0790-y

Migration tracking reveals a marine Serengeti

Estimates of the daily mean position in the north Pacific of the six marine predator groups studied. Top, left to right: tuna (yellowfin, bluefin, albacore); pinnipeds (northern elephant seals, California sea lions, northern fur seals); sharks (salmon, white, blue, common thresher, mako). Bottom, left to right: seabirds (Laysan and black-footed albatrosses, sooty shearwaters); sea turtles (leatherback, loggerhead); cetaceans (blue, fin, sperm and humpback whales).

From Nature News via RARE
Decade of tagging has mapped predatorial pathways in the north Pacific Ocean.
by ZOE CORBYN

Two vast areas of the north Pacific Ocean, one off the west coast of the United States and the other between Hawaii and Alaska, have been revealed as marine counterparts of East Africa's Serengeti plain. Teeming with life, these oceanic 'hotspots' provide major migration corridors for large marine predators ranging from tuna to whales.

The discovery comes from a huge data set that synthesizes and compares the seasonal migration patterns of 23 species of predators. The findings are published today in Nature.

Between 2000 and 2009, the species were tracked under the Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) programme, part of the Census of Marine Life international collaboration. Electronic tags attached to the animals recorded their movements and the water conditions around them, including temperature, salinity and depth. In total, the programme deployed 4,306 electronic tags, yielding 1,791 individual animal tracks and resulting in 265,386 days' worth of tracking data. The data derived over the course of the project have now been combined for the first time.
(click for a larger image).Block, B. A. et al.

"It is like asking, 'How do lions, zebras and cheetahs use Africa as a whole continent?', only we have done it for a vast ocean," says Barbara Block, a marine scientist at Stanford University in California and lead author of the paper. "We have had single-species papers before on a lot of the migration patterns, but they have never been put together as a whole."
In the zone

The combined data from the tagged species, which carefully removes any bias introduced from where the animals had been tagged, shows two 'hotspot' regions where the predators' migration routes concentrate in the north Pacific. These are the south-flowing California Current off the United States, and the North Pacific transition zone (NPTZ), which runs east–west between Hawaii and Alaska along a boundary between cold sub-Arctic waters and warmer subtropical waters, and which acts like a trans-oceanic migration highway.

"These are the oceanic locations where food is most abundant, and that's driven by high primary productivity at the base of the food chain. These areas are the savannah grasslands of the sea," says Block.

Combining movement and physical data from so many tags can help to explain the behaviour patterns observed. For example, populations of salmon sharks, white sharks and mako sharks can be seen to "split the turf of the central and eastern Pacific", says Block. Records from the tags show that slightly different preferences for water temperature prevent the closely related species from treading on one another's fins.

The work also shows that many species with long migratory paths — including yellowfin tuna, bluefin tuna, white sharks, elephant seals and salmon sharks — return faithfully from their migration to the same region every season. "For me, this homing capacity has been the biggest surprise," says Block. "We didn't really know these creatures had neighbourhoods."
Pinning down predators

The TOPP data suggest that water temperature and the amount of ocean productivity from upwelling (where nutrient-rich water from the depths comes to the surface) could drive the seasonal migration of many species, with the effect particularly evident in the California Current. "Using satellite observations of temperature and chlorophyll concentrations alone, we can now predict when and where individual species are likely to be," said Daniel Costa, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a co-author of the paper.

Patrick Halpin, a marine geospatial ecologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who is a member of the Census of Marine Life but not of TOPP, says that the study is groundbreaking, providing not only a comprehensive picture of patterns of marine-predator behaviour in the region, but also a methodological framework for further broad-scale studies. "Future analyses originating from other regions will likely fill in a more comprehensive picture of the entire Pacific basin and identify additional hotspots," he says.

David Sims, a behavioural ecologist at the Marine Biological Association in Plymouth, UK, also praises the study, noting its "unprecedented number" of electronic tags. "They have launched marine animal behaviour as a 'big' science, rivalling in ambition, perhaps, some large projects in astronomy or physics," he says.

Block says that information from the study could aid efforts to protect and conserve the biodiversity of the hotspots. Knowing where and when species overlap is valuable information for efforts to manage and protect critical species and ecosystems, she says.

---
Citation
Block BA, Jonsen ID, Jorgensen SJ, Winship AJ, Shaffer SA, Bograd SJ, Hazen EL, Foley DG, Breed GA, Harrison A-L, Ganon JE, Swithenbank A, Castelton M, Dewar H, Mate BR, Shillinger GL, Schaefer KM, Benson SR, Weise MJ, Henry RW, Costa DP (2011) Tracking apex marine predator movements in a dynamic ocean. Nature doi:10.1038/nature10082

Abstract
Pelagic marine predators face unprecedented challenges and uncertain futures. Overexploitation and climate variability impact the abundance and distribution of top predators in ocean ecosystems. Improved understanding of ecological patterns, evolutionary constraints and ecosystem function is critical for preventing extinctions, loss of biodiversity and disruption of ecosystem services. Recent advances in electronic tagging techniques have provided the capacity to observe the movements and long-distance migrations of animals in relation to ocean processes across a range of ecological scales. Tagging of Pacific Predators, a field programme of the Census of Marine Life, deployed 4,306 tags on 23 species in the North Pacific Ocean, resulting in a tracking data set of unprecedented scale and species diversity that covers 265,386 tracking days from 2000 to 2009. Here we report migration pathways, link ocean features to multispecies hotspots and illustrate niche partitioning within and among congener guilds. Our results indicate that the California Current large marine ecosystem and the North Pacific transition zone attract and retain a diverse assemblage of marine vertebrates. Within the California Current large marine ecosystem, several predator guilds seasonally undertake north–south migrations that may be driven by oceanic processes, species-specific thermal tolerances and shifts in prey distributions. We identify critical habitats across multinational boundaries and show that top predators exploit their environment in predictable ways, providing the foundation for spatial management of large marine ecosystems.

Eyes Made of Rock Really Can See

from National Geographic News
by KER THAN
Eyes Made of Rock Really Can See, Study Says
Mollusks' mineral lenses can distinguish shapes, not just light.

When it comes to hard stares and stony gazes, no animal can match the chiton, a small mollusk with eyes made of rock crystal. Now a new study shows just what these strange eyes are capable of.

Scientists had long known that chitons have hundreds of beadlike structures resembling eyes on the backs of their shells. The lenses "are like big, clear pieces of rock," said study leader Dan Speiser, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

What's been unclear, however, is if the creatures could actually see using these organs or whether the eyes were good only for sensing changes in light intensity.

"It's been known for over a hundred years that these eyes exist, but no one's really tested what sort of vision they provide," Speiser said.

His latest research—conducted while he was a graduate student at Duke University in North Carolina—revealed that the sea creatures' eyes are the first known to be made of the mineral aragonite, the same material chitons use to make their shells.

What's more, these stony eyes likely have unique advantages over the squishy eyeballs of other animals.

Mollusks in Lockdown
To test the chiton's vision, Speiser and his team collected Indian fuzzy chitons (Acanthopleura granulate) from the Caribbean.

When left alone, a chiton will lift part of its oval-shaped body to breathe. But when threatened, the animal will clamp down tightly on the seafloor to protect its soft underbelly.

In the lab, the scientists placed individual animals on a stone slab beneath a white screen, which could change colors. Once the chitons seemed relaxed, the team either placed a black disk directly above the mollusks or changed the color of the background screen from white to gray.

The black disk was designed to simulate a suddenly appearing predator, while the dimming screen mimicked subtle changes in natural light that chitons might experience in the wild—for example, when a cloud passes in front of the sun.

In the experiment, the chitons went into lockdown mode when shown the black disk, but the animals remained at ease when the screen dimmed. This suggests the chiton's eyes are able to distinguish shapes, a prerequisite for true vision.

"The eyes allow the chitons to see objects—not with much detail—but they can distinguish between approaching objects and just decreases in light," Speiser said.

Speiser estimates chiton vision is about a thousand times courser than human vision, and it's likely they see only in black-and-white.

"Even compared to other animals with small eyes, chitons don't see particularly well," Speiser said.

Rock Eyes Better for Tidal Creatures
Chitons' rock eyes do appear to have some specific advantages. For one thing, the hard aragonite is extremely resilient, an important trait for chitons, which are constantly being pummeled by waves in their natural habitats, shallow tidal pools.

"If their eyes were made of protein"—which is the case for humans and most other animals—"they would get worn right away," Speiser said. (See "Hammerhead Sharks Have 'Human' Vision.")

For another thing, the experiments suggest aragonite allows the chitons to see equally well in air or underwater, something that's probably useful as tides ebb around the mollusks.

"Behaviorally, the chitons react the same" in both mediums, Speiser said.

That's probably because aragonite has two refractive indices, the extent to which a particular material focuses incoming light. With an aragonite eye, one index creates an image on the eye in water while the other works in air.

Meanwhile, a few mysteries remain about chiton eyes. For instance, it's still not known why only some chiton species have eyes, or how the creatures are able to use the same material to make both their eyes and their shells.

"It's going to be interesting to see how they're shaping these lenses,” Speiser said. "How do they make them the right size and shape and keep them translucent? They're exerting some very fine control."

The chiton-eyes research will be detailed in the April 26 issue of the journal Current Biology.

Reference
Speisersend DI, Eernisse DJ, Johnsen S (2011) A Chiton Uses Aragonite Lenses to Form Images. Current Biology doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.03.033

Abstract
Highlights
* A chiton has the first aragonite lenses ever discovered
* Chiton lenses facilitate image formation
* Ocelli allow chitons to detect 9° objects in and out of water

Summary
Hundreds of ocelli are embedded in the dorsal shell plates of certain chitons [1]. These ocelli each contain a pigment layer, retina, and lens [2], but it is unknown whether they provide chitons with spatial vision [3]. It is also unclear whether chiton lenses are made from proteins, like nearly all biological lenses, or from some other material [4]. Electron probe X-ray microanalysis and X-ray diffraction revealed that the chiton Acanthopleura granulata has the first aragonite lenses ever discovered. We found that these lenses allow A. granulata's ocelli to function as small camera eyes with an angular resolution of about 9°–12°. Animals responded to the sudden appearance of black, overhead circles with an angular size of 9°, but not to equivalent, uniform decreases in the downwelling irradiance. Our behavioral estimates of angular resolution were consistent with estimates derived from focal length and receptor spacing within the A. granulata eye. Behavioral trials further indicated that A. granulata's eyes provide the same angular resolution in both air and water. We propose that one of the two refractive indices of the birefringent chiton lens places a focused image on the retina in air, whereas the other does so in water.

Complex interplay between whales, penguins, krill, hunting and climate change - whales bounce back, penguins now decline...

National Geographic News
BY BRIAN HANDWERK
Penguin Numbers Plummeting—Whales Partly to Blame?
Krill declines in parts of Antarctica linked to warming, whales, study says.

Penguin populations have plunged by as much as 50 percent during the past three decades in the West Antarctic Peninsula and Scotia Sea, scientists report.

The problem appears to be a shortage of krill, the seabirds' primary fare, caused by rising regional air temperatures and rebounding populations of hungry whales.

Fisheries biologist Wayne Z. Trivelpiece of the National Marine Fisheries Service in La Jolla, California, has been monitoring colonies of chinstrap and Adélie penguins since the mid-1970s.

Because Trivelpiece regularly bands and monitors individual penguins, he's been able to uncover a key factor in the collapse: Far fewer young penguins are surviving their first winter on their own, because they're having a hard time finding krill.

"It's gone from about half of the chicks surviving in the 1970s and mid-1980s to only about one tenth now," Trivelpiece said.

"And we see from direct measurements of krill that there's about 80 percent less out here than there was just 20 years ago. So the probability of young penguins finding it often enough to survive during those first months of independence is much reduced."

Penguins at Risk as Krill Vanish
Krill are tiny, shrimplike animals that live in enormous numbers and represent a large part of the Antarctic food web. Like flocks of herbivores on land, krill feed on single-celled plants called phytoplankton and are in turn gobbled up by many marine predators, including penguins.

The local krill collapse is probably due to a pair of factors, Trivelpiece said.

One is regional air temperatures, which are some 10 degrees Fahrenheit (5 or 6 degrees Celsius) higher than they were in the 1940s and 1950s. Those temperatures drive how much ice forms at the sea surface.

"If the ice no longer forms, phytoplankton in that sea ice aren't available to provide a winter food source for the young krill that spawned the summer before," Trivelpiece said. "Without that food, the young krill don't survive."

The second krill killer is actually a conservation success story—rebounding populations of whales.

"From what information is available, stocks of krill-eating whales are beginning to return, and their numbers are growing," Trivelpiece said. (Related: "Whale Hunting to Continue in Antarctic Sanctuary.")

Nineteenth- and 20th-century whale hunts, which severely impacted populations of the giant marine mammals, appear to have ushered in a penguin heyday.

"We don't have good data prior to the 1930s, but it appears that at least the 1930s to the 1970s were a real boom time for penguins, primarily because of the removal of competition in the form of whales."

"Population data from that period is largely anecdotal and provided by the rough counts of British Antarctic workers. But even if you're counting by the seat of your pants, the difference between 100,000 penguins in the 1930s and 500,000 or 600,000 in the 1970s is enormous."

Marine ornithologist Steve Emslie also provided valuable evidence of the boom with his studies of historic penguin colonies. Chemical analyses of old tissue sources, such as eggshells, found that Adélie penguins actually had been fish-eaters before whale numbers dropped.

"Only in the last hundred years or so did krill come into their diet, when the whales were taken out of the system and there was a krill surplus," Trivelpiece said.

Can Penguins Survive Without Krill?
With krill now dwindling, the previous shift in penguin behavior begs a question: Can the birds simply switch back to eating fish?

"From everything we've seen over a 30-year period, while krill has declined 80 percent, we haven't seen an increase of fish in [penguin] diets," Trivelpiece said.

"But the fish stocks have also been heavily fished out by Russian trawlers, so we don't even know how much of that prey is available to them at this point."

The penguin-decline study appears in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

--
Reference
Trivelpiece WZ, Hinke JT, Miller AK, Reiss CS, Trivelpiece SG, Watters GM (2011) Variability in krill biomass links harvesting and climate warming to penguin population changes in Antarctica PNAS doi:10.1073/pnas.1016560108

Abstract
The West Antarctic Peninsula (WAP) and adjacent Scotia Sea support abundant wildlife populations, many of which were nearly extirpated by humans. This region is also among the fastest-warming areas on the planet, with 5–6 °C increases in mean winter air temperatures and associated decreases in winter sea-ice cover. These biological and physical perturbations have affected the ecosystem profoundly. One hypothesis guiding ecological interpretations of changes in top predator populations in this region, the “sea-ice hypothesis,” proposes that reductions in winter sea ice have led directly to declines in “ice-loving” species by decreasing their winter habitat, while populations of “ice-avoiding” species have increased. However, 30 y of field studies and recent surveys of penguins throughout the WAP and Scotia Sea demonstrate this mechanism is not controlling penguin populations; populations of both ice-loving Adélie and ice-avoiding chinstrap penguins have declined significantly. We argue in favor of an alternative, more robust hypothesis that attributes both increases and decreases in penguin populations to changes in the abundance of their main prey, Antarctic krill. Unlike many other predators in this region, Adélie and chinstrap penguins were never directly harvested by man; thus, their population trajectories track the impacts of biological and environmental changes in this ecosystem. Linking trends in penguin abundance with trends in krill biomass explains why populations of Adélie and chinstrap penguins increased after competitors (fur seals, baleen whales, and some fishes) were nearly extirpated in the 19th to mid-20th centuries and currently are decreasing in response to climate change.

Sea Shepherd Activists Prompt Japan To Suspend Whaling

From the Huffington Post
by MARI YAMAGUCHI

Japan has temporarily suspended its annual Antarctic whaling after repeated harassment by a conservationist group, a government official said Wednesday.

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ships have been chasing the Japanese whaling fleet for weeks in the icy seas off Antarctica, trying to block Japan's annual whale hunt, planned for up to 945 whales.

Japan has halted the hunt since Feb. 10 after persistent "violent" disruptions by the anti-whaling protesters, said fisheries agency official Tatsuya Nakaoku.

So far, the attacks have not caused any injuries or major damage to the vessels, he said, but the protesters are throwing rancid butter in bottles and once the protesters got a rope entangled in the propeller on a harpoon vessel, causing it to slow down.

"We have temporarily suspended our research whaling to ensure safety," he said. The fleet plans to resume hunting when conditions are deemed safe, he added, but declined to say how long the suspension is planned for.

The whale hunts, which Japan says are for scientific purposes, are allowed by the International Whaling Commission as an exception to the 1986 ban, but opponents say they are a cover for commercial whaling because whale meat not used for study is sold for consumption in Japan.

The Sea Shepherd group has been shadowing Japan's whaling fleet for several years, and its campaign has drawn high-profile donor support in the United States and elsewhere and spawned the popular Animal Planet series "Whale Wars."

Official Sea Shephard Press releases can be found here and here

Toxic Avengers: Pollution Drove Fish Evolution

From NPR.org
by CHRISTOPHER JOYCE

Scientists have discovered a strange fish that lives in a soup of some of industry's worst pollutants. The fish, found in rivers in New York and New Jersey, survive because they've evolved to cope with dangerous chemicals. As one scientist who has heard about the fish says, "pollution has driven evolution."

These "toxic avengers" of the aquatic world — tomcod, which look like regular cod but are smaller — live in the Hudson and nearby rivers. The fish are up to their eyeballs in dangerous chemicals — PCBs and dioxins that General Electric companies dumped into the Hudson from 1947 to 1976. By the 1980s, about 95 percent of these fish in some areas had liver tumors.

But toxicologist Isaac Wirgin at New York University found that some populations of the exposed fish were doing OK.

"It turns out that the more we were dealing with these things, it became very apparent that they were very resistant to PCB and dioxin," Wirgin says.

Here's what had happened. In some fish, pollutants entered the nucleus of cells, where they distorted the DNA instructions from one particular gene. So the fish got sick. But some tomcod — just by chance — had a version of that gene that tolerates PCBs and dioxin. So over time, fish with the resistant gene did better than fish without it, and pretty much took over.

Technically they're not mutants — the chemicals just gave one genetic group an advantage over the rest. So some survived.

But Wirgin says there's a downside to that. "Normally, these levels of PCBs or dioxins would kill these types of organisms," he explains, "but here they survive and they're prime prey."

They're prey for bigger fish, which absorb the pollutants in the tomcods and pass them up to whatever, or whoever, eats them. Toxicologist Richard Di Giulio, who studies fish at Duke University, says it makes an important point — that pollution has driven evolution.

Di Giulio says it's happened in North Carolina too, with something called killifish. They evolved resistance to another pollutant, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, from wood preservatives that seeped into the Elizabeth River.

And there's another drawback to the evolution of chemical hardiness: "While they have evolved resistance to the pollution," he says, "they have lost some ability to cope with natural stressors," like low oxygen in the water or abnormally high water temperatures.

So survivors these peculiar fish may be, but a success story it is not.

The research appears in the journal Science.

REFERENCE
Isaac Wirgin, Nirmal K. Roy, Matthew Loftus, R. Christopher Chambers, Diana G. Franks and Mark E. Hahn (2011). Mechanistic Basis of Resistance to PCBs in Atlantic Tomcod from the Hudson River. Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1197296

ABSTRACT
The mechanistic basis of resistance of vertebrate populations to contaminants, including Atlantic tomcod from the Hudson River (HR) to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), is unknown. HR tomcod exhibited variants in the aryl hydrocarbon receptor2 (AHR2) that were nearly absent elsewhere. In ligand binding assays, AHR2-1 protein (common in HR) was impaired compared to widespread AHR2-2 in binding TCDD (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin) and in driving expression in reporter gene assays in AHR-deficient cells treated with TCDD or PCB126. We identified a six-base deletion in AHR2 as the basis of resistance and suggest that the HR population has undergone rapid evolution probably due to contaminant exposure. The mechanistic basis of resistance in a vertebrate population provides evidence of evolutionary change due to selective pressure at a single locus.

Thursday LOL

Top 10 videos of 2010

End of the year, so everyone is releasing their top 10 lists. National Geographic put out a list of the 10 best nature videos of 2010 as measured by the number of watches each one got on their site. I've embedded my fave below (does it remind anyone else of the movie Blade?), but GO HERE to see the full list (and higher quality videos). - MA

#3: Vampire "Squid" Turns "Inside Out" - The vampire squid can turn itself "inside out" to avoid predators—as seen in a video released this year to emphasize the need to protect deep-sea species from the effects of human activities.
(original link)

Our imperfect human evolution: hiccups, goosebumps & hypothermia

via neatorama from Smithsonian.com
The Top Ten Daily Consequences of Having Evolved
From hiccups to wisdom teeth, the evolution of homo sapiens has left behind some glaring, yet innately human, imperfections
BY ROB DUNN

Natural selection acts by winnowing the individuals of each generation, sometimes clumsily, as old parts and genes are co-opted for new roles. As a result, all species inhabit bodies imperfect for the lives they live. Our own bodies are worse off than most simply because of the many differences between the wilderness in which we evolved and the modern world in which we live. We feel the consequences every day. Here are ten.

1. Our cells are weird chimeras
Perhaps a billion years ago, a single-celled organism arose that would ultimately give rise to all of the plants and animals on Earth, including us. This ancestor was the result of a merging: one cell swallowed, imperfectly, another cell. The predator provided the outsides, the nucleus and most of the rest of the chimera. The prey became the mitochondrion, the cellular organ that produces energy. Most of the time, this ancient symbiosis proceeds amicably. But every so often, our mitochondria and their surrounding cells fight. The result is diseases, such as mitochondrial myopathies (a range of muscle diseases) or Leigh’s disease (which affects the central nervous system).
2. Hiccups
The first air-breathing fish and amphibians extracted oxygen using gills when in the water and primitive lungs when on land—and to do so, they had to be able to close the glottis, or entryway to the lungs, when underwater. Importantly, the entryway (or glottis) to the lungs could be closed. When underwater, the animals pushed water past their gills while simultaneously pushing the glottis down. We descendants of these animals were left with vestiges of their history, including the hiccup. In hiccupping, we use ancient muscles to quickly close the glottis while sucking in (albeit air, not water). Hiccups no longer serve a function, but they persist without causing us harm—aside from frustration and occasional embarrassment. One of the reasons it is so difficult to stop hiccupping is that the entire process is controlled by a part of our brain that evolved long before consciousness, and so try as you might, you cannot think hiccups away.

3. Backaches
The backs of vertebrates evolved as a kind of horizontal pole under which guts were slung. It was arched in the way a bridge might be arched, to support weight. Then, for reasons anthropologists debate long into the night, our hominid ancestors stood upright, which was the bodily equivalent of tipping a bridge on end. Standing on hind legs offered advantages—seeing long distances, for one, or freeing the hands to do other things—but it also turned our backs from an arched bridge to an S shape. The letter S, for all its beauty, is not meant to support weight and so our backs fail, consistently and painfully.

4. Unsupported intestines
Once we stood upright, our intestines hung down instead of being cradled by our stomach muscles. In this new position, our innards were not as well supported as they had been in our quadrupedal ancestors. The guts sat atop a hodgepodge of internal parts, including, in men, the cavities in the body wall through which the scrotum and its nerves descend during the first year of life. Every so often, our intestines find their way through these holes—in the way that noodles sneak out of a sieve—forming an inguinal hernia.

5. Choking
In most animals, the trachea (the passage for air) and the esophagus (the passage for food) are oriented such that the esophagus is below the trachea. In a cat's throat, for example, the two tubes run roughly horizontal and parallel to each other before heading on to the stomach and lung, respectively. In this configuration, gravity tends to push food down toward the lower esophagus. Not so in humans. Modifications of the trachea to allow speech pushed the trachea and esophagus further down the throat to make way. Simultaneously, our upright posture put the trachea and esophagus in a near-vertical orientation. Together these changes leave falling food or water about a 50-50 chance of falling in the “wrong tube.” As a consequence, in those moments in which the epiglottis does not have time to cover the trachea, we choke. We might be said to choke on our success. Monkeys suffer the same fate only rarely, but then again they can’t sing or dance. Then again, neither can I.
6. We're awfully cold in winter
Fur is a warm hug on a cold day, useful and nearly ubiquitous among mammals. But we and a few other species, such as naked mole rats, lost it when we lived in tropical environments. Debate remains as to why this happened, but the most plausible explanation is that when modern humans began to live in larger groups, our hair filled with more and more ticks and lice. Individuals with less hair were perhaps less likely to get parasite-borne diseases. Being hairless in Africa was not so bad, but once we moved into Arctic lands, it had real drawbacks. Evolution has no foresight, no sense of where its work will go.

7. Goosebumps don't really help
When our ancestors were covered in fur, muscles in their skin called “arrector pili” contracted when they were upset or cold, making their fur stand on end. When an angry or frightened dog barks at you, these are the muscles that raise its bristling hair. The same muscles puff up the feathers of birds and the fur of mammals on cold days to help keep them warm. Although we no longer have fur, we still have fur muscles just beneath our skin. They flex each time we are scared by a bristling dog or chilled by a wind, and in doing so give us goose bumps that make our thin hair stand uselessly on end.

8. Our brains squeeze our teeth
A genetic mutation in our recent ancestors caused their descendants to have roomy skulls that accommodated larger brains. This may seem like pure success—brilliance, or its antecedent anyway. But the gene that made way for a larger brain did so by diverting bone away from our jaws, which caused them to become thinner and smaller. With smaller jaws, we could not eat tough food as easily as our thicker-jawed ancestors, but we could think our way out of that problem with the use of fire and stone tools. Yet because our teeth are roughly the same size as they have long been, our shrinking jaws don’t leave enough room for them in our mouths. Our wisdom teeth need to be pulled because our brains are too big.

9. Obesity
Many of the ways in which our bodies fail have to do with very recent changes, changes in how we use our bodies and structure our societies. Hunger evolved as a trigger to drive us to search out food. Our taste buds evolved to encourage us to choose foods that benefited our bodies (such as sugar, salt and fat) and avoid those that might be poisonous. In much of the modern world, we have more food than we require, but our hunger and cravings continue. They are a bodily GPS unit that insists on taking us where we no longer need to go. Our taste buds ask for more sugar, salt and fat, and we obey.

10 to 100. The list goes on.
I have not even mentioned male nipples. I have said nothing of the blind spot in our eyes. Nor of the muscles some of use to wiggle our ears. We are full of the accumulated baggage of our idiosyncratic histories. The body is built on an old form, out of parts that once did very different things. So take a moment to pause and sit on your coccyx, the bone that was once a tail. Roll your ankles, each of which once connected a front leg to a paw. Revel not in who you are but who you were. It is, after all, amazing what evolution has made out of bits and pieces. Nor are we in any way alone or unique. Each plant, animal and fungus carries its own consequences of life's improvisational genius. So, long live the chimeras. In the meantime, if you will excuse me, I am going to rest my back.

Find this article at:
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/The-Top-Ten-Daily-Consequences-of-Having-Evolved.html

Shark eco tourism: multi-layered, economically-viable appraoch to conservation

Today Carol R posted some pics of her recent (caged) shark diving experiences in Mexico. My initial reaction was "never me" and "terrifying". Then this article was posted on bush warriors and it reminded me, as with all thing in life, that I need to be open-minded about these things! This is a really inspiring article about how one man, is winning the shark conservation war, with a multi-layered approach involving vigilance, law enforcement and eco-tourism. Thanks to Carol and bush warriors for reminding me to always check my prejudices. - MA
PS: There are LOTS more pictures in the original article on the Bush Warriors website.



Sharks, Tourism, and Conservation: The Truth About Shark Diving
From the Bushwarriors blog

Selling shark tourism as a way to inspire appreciation for these misunderstood predators is one thing, but if the business is done right, it can accomplish much more than an increased affinity for these animals. Of course, changing society’s attitude towards these creatures is imperative to their survival. However, shark tourism operators also have the potential to offer protection to these big fish, in addition to supporting shark research and conservation efforts. And they can make money while they do these things!

The majority of mainstream media attention focuses on instilling a fear of these creatures with sensationalized headlines that include words like “shark attack”, “monster”, and even “Killer Shark Looms Offshore Waiting for Next Victim”. However, the truth of the matter is that every single day we are some 217,000 sharks closer to losing these ocean-balancing organisms forever. Shark diving opportunities provide people with a chance to gain a new understanding for these animals. When done properly, it brings people as close to these predators as one can safely get. Such an experience can change a person’s life and give them motivation to protect these animals.

Imagine the power of these experiences, if they were to educate people on the largely unknown state of the current shark crisis. Beyond education, what if shark tourism clients were provided a way to literally become involved in protecting and conserving sharks, and even assisting with their research? This is entirely possible, and it’s already being done in some places.

Canadian national, Mike Lever, is a veteran in the cage diving business and is one of the largest shark cage diving operators on the Pacific coast of Mexico, but he’s much different than the majority of his competitors. After seeing the devastating effects of overfishing and shark finning, Lever has built his business in a way that provides protection for these amazing creatures, a purpose for the shark tourism industry that is largely overlooked and neglected.

As a large challenge in halting illegal fishing of sharks seems to lie in a lack of enforcement and patrols, Lever has purposefully placed his boats in a position that serves as a warning to anyone who dares to attempt to fish for or fin sharks in the areas where he operates. His and his clients’ mere presence serves as a deterrent to the these activities. The conservationist businessmen established this persona by confronting shark poachers head on.

In 2008, Lever chased a poaching vessel for four hours before he was finally able to convince the captain to return to the location where his crew had set an illegal fishing net. Sadly, Lever found that the boat was already loaded with numerous dead sharks and manta rays. However, when they got back to the site, they found sea turtles, dolphins, and 17 thresher sharks entangled in the poachers’ net.

“That was really distressing. They are gentle giants. It was like pulling over a truck in Africa and finding seven elephants,” commented Lever in his interview with the Vancouver Sun.

Though he expected a strong response from law enforcement, he was shocked to learn the authorities took no action at all and even rejected the claim that there were sharks and mantas onboard the ship. Lever waged war against the sharks’ enemies and made a lot of noise with a widely seen TV show that depicted the event. As expected, Mexico responded promptly and beefed up their patrols… at least until the noise died down.

Lever says the fishermen stayed away from the shark-concentrated area where he conducts his cage diving tours for almost a year. He now flies his own aircraft on random patrols over the area to discourages illegal shark fisheries, while his shark tour boats hold down the fort in the water. He’s setting a classic example of how other shark tourism operators can create a business that serves multiple purposes, aside from making money.

Additionally, this man has a profound respect for the predatory and unpredictable nature of these animals. He says he would never put sharks in a position that would allow them to become vilified, say by providing free-diving shark experiences in which someone could potentially be killed by a shark, for example.

One of the controversies surrounding shark tourism involves chumming, the practice of baiting sharks to an area by tossing blood and raw animal flesh into the waters. Doing this can change shark behavior and potentially create a dangerous situation. Some operators in Hawaii have recently come under scrutiny of the courts for this practice. Lever is opposed to this large-scale chumming, for the safety of his clients, as well as that of the sharks.

Lever has also created two conservation trust funds with the sole purpose of protecting the marine life of the areas where he conducts his tours: Guadalupe Island and Socorro Island. He successfully raised $160,000 through donations from his clients and from his personal income over the last two years, and uses the money to fund American and Mexican researchers studying sharks. Some of the projects the trust funds have supported include putting transmitter tags on the animals so they can be tracked, as well as deploying marine acoustic censors designed to monitor the sharks’ environment.

“You can’t save these animals if you don’t understand them,” Lever explains.

There are other ways for shark tourists to get involved in the conservation of these creatures, as well. Recall the development of a new scientific database that allows researchers to keep tabs on sharks and their populations using photos of their fins. Cage diving clients can easily contribute to this research by snapping photos of the sharks they see, which can then be stored in the new database. Not only would they get to enjoy their direct shark experience, but they can humbly assist with the collection of much-needed data.

Shark-based tourism holds far more potential than one would think. We recently told you about a report from a team of environmental economists that highlighted the success of this industry, as well as the increased value of alive sharks over those killed for their fins or flesh. Furthermore, the business creates jobs and generates revenue for the economy.

The questionable future of these incredible marine predators could benefit greatly from an increase in shark tourism, especially that which also seeks to protect these animals. After all, they could not be in make money without these animals, so why not repay them with these simple gestures? Converting shark fishermen to business in safe and ethical shark tourism could very well reverse the current trends threatening all shark populations with extinction.

To read more about Mike Lever’s story, click here.

Social Learning in Dolphins - tail walking just for fun

From the Telegraph.co.uk
Dolphins 'walk' on water
Dolphins in the wild are teaching themselves to "walk" with their tails along the surface of water, biologists have claimed.

if above video doesnt work try this one on youtube

The mammals, which are celebrated for their playful natures, are developing the skill "just for fun", according to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) in Australia. Dolphin tail-walking has no known practical function and has been likened to dancing in humans.

WDCS researcher Dr Mike Bossley, who has observed Adelaide's Port River dolphins for the past 24 years, said he had documented spectacular tail walking in two adult female dolphins, known as Billie and Wave. Now four other individuals have been recorded perfecting their walking techniques – Wave's calf Tallula, Bianca and her calf Hope, and calf Bubbles. Tail walking is very rare in the wild and in thousands of hours of observation only one other dolphin has ever been observed tail walking in the Port River, and then only once. The Port Adelaide dolphins are now said to be tail walking many times each day.

It is thought the mammals may have learned the remarkable skill from Billie – who spent a short period at a visitor attraction 22 years ago. Dr Bossley said that the spread of tail walking appeared to be motivated by "fun", but it was also linked to a serious and fascinating cultural aspect previously unseen in the species.

He said: "Culture in the wider sense of the term, defined as 'learned behaviour characteristic of a community', is now frequently on show in the Port River. This cultural behaviour is of great significance for conservation. "Cultural behaviours in animals have been identified in several species, particularly chimpanzees. However, most if not all the cultural behaviours described to-date have been of a utilitarian nature, mainly to do with obtaining food. "A well known chimpanzee example is using a twig to extract termites from a nest in the Gombe Stream reserve. "The only dolphin example seen up to now is in Shark Bay, West Australia, where a small group of dolphins habitually carry a sponge on the end of their jaw while fishing to protect them from fish spines.

"As far as we are aware, tail walking has no practical function and is performed just for fun – akin to human dancing or gymnastics. As such, it represents an internationally important example of the behavioural similarities between humans and dolphins."