MARINE BIOLOGY NEWS FOCUSING ON RESEARCH, CONSERVATION AND EDUCATION
Whaling, the act of humans hunting whales (cetaceans) for their meat, bones and blubber, has been occurring across the globe for millennia. A once legitimate source of income and nutrition, whaling has now been outlawed in most countries worldwide due to numerous species being hunted to the brink of extinction. It’s still undertaken both legally and […]
The varied breathing modes of different shark species affect the chances of them dying during fisheries capture, a new study suggests. A team of researchers from Monash University, analysed data on over 80 species of shark and ray that were accidentally caught by commercial fishing techniques including longlines, gillnets, and trawls. When this occurs, the caught individuals […]
A rare nautilus called Allonautilus scrobiculatus has been sighted for the first time in three decades. Until now, only two people had ever laid eyes on it. Peter Ward, a biologist at the University of Washington and colleague Bruce Saunders of Bryn Mawr College identified Allonautilusin 1984, and Saunders made another brief sighting in 1986, but it […]
Whales may be able to develop decompression sickness, the same ailment experienced by scuba divers who surface from a dive too rapidly, according to a new study. Researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington investigated how marine mammals’ tissues – specifically, fat deposits in the jaws of toothed whales that are used in echolocation – absorb […]
For the first time, scientists have sequenced the genome of an octopus species, revealing surprising clues about the evolution of the cephalopod’s brain and behaviour. Researchers from the University of Chicago, the University of California, Berkeley, the University of Heidelberg in Germany and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in Japan assembled and published […]
Researchers from James Cook University have investigated how environmental conditions can be linked to dispersal and movement patterns in coral reef fish. Their study showed that fish retreat to deeper water to escape warm water temperatures, a finding that throws light on what to expect if predictions of ocean warming come to pass. The redthroat emperor fish was the chosen species […]
A researcher from Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Halmos College of Natural Sciences and Oceanography has discovered a never-before seen anglerfish species living in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Tracey Sutton, Ph.D., is one of NSU’s experts on deep-sea life and he teamed up with Theodore Pietsch, Ph.D. from the University of Washington to formally […]
Divers off the coast of Turkey recently stumbled across a 4-meter wide gelatinous mass floating in the water column, which they soon discovered to be a massive ball of squid eggs. The egg-mass was spotted 22 meters deep, off Fethiye, a Mediterranean town on the coast of Turkey. The diaphanous sphere studded with tiny white eggs was probably […]
Researchers in Southeast Alaska have broken the record for the longest re-sighting of a humpback whale. On July 12, researchers aboard a ship called the Northern Song spotted a humpback in Frederick Sound, Alaska. To the crews amazement, they soon recognised the humpback to be none other than a whale named ‘Old Timer’, an individual that has been renowned in the […]
A combination of elevated carbon dioxide levels and an increase in ocean water temperature, both of which are factors associated with climate change, has a significant impact on survival and development in certain Antarctic fish species, a new study has shown. Scientists at University of California Davis and San Francisco State University assessed the effects of near-future […]
