New Coelacanth Discovered in Texas

A professional paleontologist has identified a new species of coelacanth from 100 million-year-old fossil remains found in the fossil-rich Duck Creek Formation, Texas.

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The paleontologist named the new species Reidus hilli for Robert T. Hill, a geologist with the US Geological Survey who led surveys of Texas during the 1800s. Hill described much of the geology of Texas, including the Duck Creek Formation. Hill is acclaimed as the “Father of Texas Geology.”

Xenoceratops: The New Horned Dinosaur from Canada

Xenoceratops means ‘alien horned-face,’ referring to the strange pattern of horns on its head and the scarcity of horned dinosaur fossils from this part of the fossil record, it also honors the Village of Foremost, located close to where the fossils were found.  

The dinosaur was about 20 feet (6 meters) long and weighed more than 2 tons. It had a parrot-like beak with two long brow horns above its eyes, a large frill protruded from the back of its skull featuring two huge spikes.

The first dinosaur remains were believed to be found in 1676 by Robert Plot, who was the curator of an English museum.

In 1822, Mary Ann Mantell and her husband, Gideon, found enormous teeth believed to be the remains of a huge, extinct iguana.

Finally, in 1841, British scientist Richard Owen coined the word "Dinosauria" (which means "fearfully great reptile" or "terrible reptile"). He realized that the bones belonged to no existing animal.

Since then, over 700 species of Dinosauria have been discovered and named.

Recently, a new species of the family ceratopsidae has been identified. Not only is this extraordinarily rare, but extremely valuable for piecing together the puzzle of this group of dinosaur species.

The dinosaur is described from skull fragments from at least three individuals from the Foremost Formation originally collected by Dr Wann Langston Jr. in the 1950s, and is currently housed in theCanadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa, Canada.

Dr Ryan and Dr Evans stumbled upon the undescribed material more than a decade ago and recognized the bones as a new type of horned dinosaur. Dr Evans later discovered a 50-year-old plaster field jacket at the Canadian Museum of Nature containing more skull bones from the same fossil locality and had them prepared in his lab at the Royal Ontario Museum.

Original Sci-News Article 

New Species of Indo-Pacific Fish Discovered

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50,000 Starfish Mysteriously Stranded Off of Ireland

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Spade-Toothed Beaked Whale Finally Found

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Species of the Day: Spotted Handfish

Description

Kingdom	Animalia
Phylum	Chordata
Class	Actinopterygii
Order	Lophiiformes
Family	Brachionichthyidae
Genus	Brachionichthys (1)

The spotted handfish (Brachionichthys hirsutus) is one of the world's most endangered marine fish. This extremely distinctive fish is almost pear-shaped ⁽²⁾ and unusually, has hand-like 'paired fins' that enable it to 'walk' along the seafloor ⁽³⁾; both the pectoral and ventral fins are used in this locomotion ⁽⁴⁾. When swimming through the water, the unpaired or 'median' fins (such as the tail and anal fin) are used ⁽⁴⁾. These fish are cream in colour with a myriad of dusky brown, and occasionally yellow-brown spots ⁽⁴⁾, the pattern of which is unique to each individual ⁽³⁾. Some individuals also have orange markings on their fins. Handfish have a small lure just above their mouth, the function of which is unknown but does not appear to be used to entice prey ⁽⁴⁾.

Size

Length: 10 - 15 cm ⁽²⁾

Biology

Spotted handfish spawn during September and October ⁽³⁾, the male enticing the female by his courtship display ⁽⁵⁾. Compared to many other fish, the female produces a relatively small number of eggs; around 80 to 250 eggs are spawned and these are often positioned around the base of a sea squirt (a jelly-like invertebrate)⁽³⁾. The female guards the eggs for seven to eight weeks until the fully-formed juveniles hatch. These tiny young measure a mere six to seven millimetres and when they emerge, move straight to the bottom of the seabed, instead of dispersing ⁽³⁾.

Spotted handfish feed by sucking in prey items ⁽⁵⁾, including shrimps, small fish and small crustaceans such asamphipods ⁽³⁾.

Range

Endemic to the lower Derwent River estuary in Tasmania, the spotted handfish was a relatively common species until the 1980s. The species has declined massively, however; only three breeding colonies were known to exist in 1998 ⁽³⁾.

Habitat

The bottom-dwelling spotted handfish is found on coarse to fine sand and silt, in coastal waters from depths of 2 to 30 metres ⁽³⁾.

Status

The spotted handfish is classified as Critically Endangered (CR) on the IUCN Red List ⁽¹⁾.

Threats

The spotted handfish was common in the lower Derwent River estuary until the mid 1980s, when the species underwent a catastrophic decline ⁽²⁾. Although unproven, it is thought that the introduction of the northern Pacific seastar (Asterias amurensis) to Tasmania at this time may be the key to the decimation of the handfish population ⁽³⁾. These seastars are voracious predators of shellfish and it is thought that they may also eat the eggs of handfish or the sea squirts upon which the eggs are attached ⁽²⁾. The deterioration of coastal habitats due to development may also be involved in the decline ⁽³⁾. This species is under added threat from its vastly reduced population, limited dispersal, restricted distribution and low reproductive rate ⁽³⁾.

Conservation

Just two spotted handfish were reported between 1990 and 1994; this dire state of the population led to the formation of the Spotted Handfish Recovery Team in 1996 ⁽³⁾. The Recovery Team consists of a number of government agencies concerned with saving this rare, and bizarre, fish. Research into existing wild populations and the development of captive breeding techniques are some of the priorities of the recovery plan ⁽³⁾. Initial work has been encouraging, with successful breeding attempts from two adult pairs of spotted handfish at the Tasmanian Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries Aquaculture ⁽²⁾. A captive population may be used in a future re-introduction programme to restore these fish to some of their previous range ⁽⁶⁾.

None of this is my information. All credit goes to Arkive.org for its remarkable filing of species, for the information shown here as well as the photos included within this post.

A special and most wonderful thank you to them!

Flamboyant Cuttlefish Hunting an Unsuspecting Mantis Shrimp!

The Flamboyant Cuttlefish in the hunt. 

Not the stealth, the color change, and the method of hunting. 

One magnificent cephalopod!

Pictures for Today!

The popular GIF of a crab...cheerleading? Believe it or not,
this is a crab species which attaches small anemones to its claws
to collect food passerby in the water. A great feeding strategy
that takes advantage of the nutrient-rich waters of the reef.

Freckled Hawkfish.

Humpback Whale feeding.

Manta Ray in the Maldives.

Close up of an Octopus.

School of Bluefin Tuna.

New Artwork.

This took me 2 hours.

This took me 30 minutes.

Both of these photos were made entirely without reference, only inspiration and Sketchbook Pro 2011.

Choice Photos for Today

My Tumblr!

Click the screenshot above and take a look.

This is an inspirational site of pictures (mainly of the ocean) and quotes.

Science Bulletin: Whales Give Dolphins a Lift

PLoS One of the Day

Evidence That Marine Reserves Enhance Resilience to Climatic Impacts

Establishment of marine protected areas, including fully protected marine reserves, is one of the few management tools available for local communities to combat the deleterious effect of large scale environmental impacts, including global climate change, on ocean ecosystems.

NJScuba.net

Certainly worth visiting, this website hosts an encyclopedia's worth of information on ship wreck anatomy, marine biology, and diving locations around New Jersey. A variety of species are displayed here, from Sand Tiger sharks to striped bass, AND it includes dozens of linked maps of coastal areas of New Jersey. 

This is a map, with links to more maps, which have links to even more maps. Upon clicking on a specified location, you get information on depth, species, artifacts found, history of the ship wreck (if the site is a ship wreck), potenital hazards, visibility, comments, and so much more. 

I was not aware previously of what New Jersey had to offer in terms of scuba sites, but now I know. There are thousands, which are mainly ship wrecks, filled with artifacts and rich historical tales. 

Also on this site is a variety of information on oceanic environmental conditions here in Jersey.

Everything from types of fishing vessels to decimation of species, this site has it all.

Definitely check it out!

A Glimpse Into My Garden

Photo Credits: Ashley Goncalves (me)

A Dream Coming True

Although I was quite certain a few years back my dream of creating a wildlife garden would never come true, I have been gloriously proved wrong by recent events. 

 My area of choice is the 100 ft. long school courtyard, already approved by the principal, town hall, and Municipal Alliance, with a team of people already anxious to help.

Okay, I'm being modest. It's something to be excited about.

I am an intern at the health department at my town hall. My little office is right beside the area where residents receive birth, marriage, and death certificates. In my humble space, I create graphic designs for advertising (on behalf of the Municipal Alliance).

But advertisements for what, you ask? 

Local events.

I have just finished my ad for the local Farmer's Market and am currently working on one for the 22nd Annual Family Day.

So what does this have to do with my wildlife garden?

It has everything to do with it. I am also a member of the Bridges Program at my school, a club which reaches out and takes action for the local community.

The Municipal Alliance and Bridges Program work together to fund and make things work.

The garden will be for the Bridges Program in memory of all victims of any form of bullying. By displaying the value of life, we are taking a stand against domestic violence, child abuse, among others.

I am the link between Bridges and the Municipal Alliance that will make the whole thing work.

I am thrilled!

I will keep you guys updated on the progress and allow you to Sea My Life!

Get it?

...nevermind.

Notable Species: Commerson's Dolphin

(UNKNOWN)

                              

                                                  

Range Map:

Third Photoshop Image

My Second PhotoShop Image

I took this photograph on my trip to Niagara Falls.

I have just finished enhancing it.

Australian Saltwater Crocodiles Are World’s Most Powerful Biters

"ScienceDaily (Mar. 16, 2012) — In Greg Erickson's lab at Florida State University, crocodiles and alligators rule. Skeletal snouts and toothy grins adorn window ledges and tables -- all donated specimens that are scrutinized by researchers and students alike."

Erickson, a Florida State biology professor, has been wondering of the bite force of crocodilians.

The answer?

A value of 3,700 pounds per square inch for a 17-foot saltwater crocodile (with tooth pressures of 350,000 pounds per square inch). This is the most powerful bite force recorded in history. 

And that's not all. Erickson and his team estimated that the extinct crocodilians (which were 30-40 foot animals), had a bite force as much as 23,100 pounds.

The team reported their remarkable findings to the journal PLoS One.

They were funded by the National Geographic Society and the FSU College of Arts and Sciences. The study has taken over a decade, measuring the bite force of every crocodilian species (gharials, alligators, crocodiles, and the rest).

It was reported that to measure the bite force of all of these specimens, it required an army of undergrad and graduate students, a "wily" team of croc-handlers, and statisticians.

Not only did they manage to collect such challenging data, but they found new ways of measuring bite force.

Over the 11 years that his current study took place in both the United States and Australia, Erickson and his team roped 83 adult alligators and crocodiles, strapped them down, placed a bite-force device between their back teeth and recorded the bite force.  

Dangerous is an understatement here.

Overall, the researchers looked at crocodilians both mundane and exotic, from American alligators to 17-foot Australian saltwater crocodiles and the Indian gharial. Among the world's most successful predatory reptiles, these creatures have been "guardians of the water-land interface for over 85 million years," Erickson said. 

Erickson commented that if you could bench press a pickup truck, you could escape a crocodile's jaws.

Basketball-Sized Eyes Help Squids Play Defense

" ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2012) — Giant and colossal squids have eyes as big as basketballs, and a Duke scientist thinks he knows why. "They're most likely using their huge eyes to spot and escape their predators, sperm whales," said Duke biologist Sonke Johnsen. "

Duke biologist Sonke Johnsen wanted to understand how and why

the giant and colossal squids use such a large eye.

He collaborated with a group of scientists, and the team discovered that the size and structure of the squid's eye allows it to see sperm whales approaching as they disturb bioluminescent organisms in the water.

"Big squids come in two types -- giant and colossal. They can grow to weights of five adult men put together, which is comparable to a large swordfish. But swordfish eyes are about the size of softballs, about 3 inches in diameter."

It was mathematics. The team measured the sizes of the giant and colossal squids' eyes. They collected data of the water clarity and the light penetration at the depths in which the squid live (300 to 1000 meters). Using the collected data, they mathematically modeled how the eyes would work and see at such depths and how they would function.

They found that the size of the squid's eye allows it to collect more light (think of nocturnal animals, such as owls and aye-ayes).

This ability to detect such light also aids the squid in detecting, very sensitively, changes in contrast' most importantly distant, far-moving objects, such as sperm whales. As their large cetacean predator approaches, it disturbs the biolumiescent organisms surrounding it, causing them to react. The squid's extra-large eye allows it to see the disturbance clearly and act accordingly.

The squids can sense this light-disturbance from 120 meters, or an entire American football field away.

However, the sperm whales echolocation, or sonar system, is far more effective. It would most likely sense the squid long before it sees the disturbance of light.

So then, why does the squid develop such an eye?

 "...the squid's basketball-sized eye, and the body to carry it, isn't necessarily for moving out of the whale's detection range, but for planning a well-timed escape." 

The theory is still being speculated, but it is certainly a difficult one to "falsify".

----------------

Science Daily Article

Antigua & Barbuda: Island to Marine Protection - National Geographic - Take Action

Antigua & Barbuda: Island to Marine Protection - National Geographic - Take Action

Conserving Nicaragua's Marine Turtles - National Geographic - Take Action

Conserving Nicaragua's Marine Turtles - National Geographic - Take Action

My First PhotoShop Image

My first Photoshop image! 

No, it's not amazing, but it's certainly a start. I am currently involved in a photo grant at my high school. As part of the Bridges program, the other students and I will have our own art exhibit at the town hall. 

Very exciting!

"Leopard Seal Sunset"

National Geographic has attached a critter-cam to the back of a leopard seal. This view of the sunset from this perspective? Stunning.

How Insects 'Remodel' Their Bodies Between Life Stages

"ScienceDaily (Feb. 29, 2012) — It's one of life's special moments: a child finds a fat caterpillar, puts it in a jar with a twig and a few leaves, and awakens one day to find the caterpillar has disappeared and an elegant but apparently lifeless case now hangs from the twig."

How is it that a creature can appear to be a completely different creature multiple times in its lifetime?

"Working with fruit flies rather than butterflies, a team led by Ian and Dianne Duncan of Washington University in St. Louis provides part of the answer in the latest issue of PNAS. Ian Duncan, PhD, is professor of biology in Arts & Sciences; Dianne Duncan is a research associate and director of the Biology Imaging Facility."

Like most insects, fruit flies go through three main phases: the larva, pupae, and adult.

Earlier research has shown that both the larvae and the adults of insect species have similar "signaling systems" patterning them; or "chains of biochemicals that transfer a signal from receptors on the surface of cells to target genes in cell nuclei."


Scientists, however, could not understand how the same systems can both orchestrate the formation of larvae and adults.


Collaborating researchers were able to reveal that a gene expressed only in the pupal stage "redirects signaling systems so that they can activate a different set of target genes than in earlier stages."


The gene itself is controlled by a steroid hormone that turns on a variety of other genes as well.


"So insect metamorphosis, triggered by a hormone, resembles puberty, the human analog of metamorphosis, which is also triggered by hormones."

Continue reading this article. ScienceDaily expresses the specified details of this phenomenal change that occurs in insects: facts that are far too complicated for me to express without flat-out plagiarizing.

continue

Glow and Be Eaten: Marine Bacteria Use Light to Lure Plankton and Fish

(Science Daily (Feb. 26, 2012) — "Not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes it is just bacteria trying to get ahead in life. Many sea creatures glow with a biologically produced light. This phenomenon, known as bio-luminescence, is observed, among others, in some marine bacteria which emit a steady light once they have reached a certain level of concentration (a phenomenon called "quorum sensing") on organic particles in ocean waters."

In terms of science, the fact that bacteria and other organisms produce light both in and out of the ocean has been known for quite some time already.

However, since this time, the purpose of these behaviors "remained unclear".

"Now, in an article published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have unraveled the mystery of why the marine bacteria glow. It has to do with what might be called 'the survival of the brightest.'"

The studies showed that light emitted by the bacteria attracts predators (zoo plankton) which consume them but can not digest them. The bacteria glow within the zoo plankton, causing it to glow brightly, attracting its predators (fish), which can easily spot them.

"In experiments conducted by the researchers in total darkness, they found that nocturnal fish were easily able to detect the glowing zooplankton and eat them, while, on the other hand, the fish were not attracted to zooplankton that had swallowed bacteria that had undergone genetic mutation and thus did not glow."

The light-emitting bacteria find paradise in the nutrient rich internal organs of fish. Bacteria glow because they want to be eaten (not digested), and make their would-be predator into a meal.

"In the dark, deep ocean the quantity of food is very limited, therefore it is worthwhile for the zooplankton to take the risk of becoming glowing themselves when contacting and consuming the particle with glowing bacteria, since the profit of finding rare food there is greater than the danger of exposing themselves to the relatively rare presence of predatory fish," explained Prof. Genin.

Forever Odd by Dean Koontz

"This world, which has the potential to be Eden, is instead the hell before Hell. In our arrogance, we have made it so." 

"The wives of Spartans are the secret pillars of the world."

"Every day we make our way through a moral forest, along pathways ever branching. Often we get lost. When the array of paths before us is so perplexing that we can't make a choice, or won't, we can hope that we will be given a sign to guide us. A reliance on signs, however, can lead to the evasion of all moral obligations, and thus earn a terrible judgment."

-Odd Thomas as in Forever Odd

------------------------------------------------------------

Forever Odd was great. It was a fitting sequel to Odd Thomas, and a great reminder that we are all humans at the end of the day, regardless of our gifts or wrongdoings. 

Dean Koontz is an impressive author who knows how to weave together a touching story seamlessly, time and time again. 

This book delivers, and yet keeps us guessing.

Can't wait to read the next book.

Honestly, though, I read that book already. I picked it up in my school unaware that it was part of a bestseller series. I would've put it down, but it was too gripping. I could afford to read it again.

So, time to re-read Brother Odd!

Save the Clean Air Act

Fight Against Attacks on the Clean Air Act

More Photos from Canada

It's long awaited, but I uploaded the rest worth seeing.

Enjoy !