The newfound sea snake

A new species of venomous sea snake mysteriously covered head to tail in spiny scales has been discovered in treacherous seas off northern Australia, a new study says.
Though some other sea snakes have spiky scales on their bellies, "no other [known] sea snake has this curious feature," study leader Kanishka Ukuwela, an ecologist at the University of Adelaide, said by email.
Normally snakes have smooth scales, but each of the newly named Hydrophis donaldi's scales has a spiny projection, he said.
Scientists cruising shallow seagrass beds in the Gulf of Carpentaria (map) recently captured nine of the rough-scaled reptiles.
"The minute the first one landed on the deck, I knew we had something special," study co-author Bryan Fry of the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, said by email. "It was quite unlike any of the sea snakes I have seen."
Each of the specimens was found on the rocky seafloor, a habitat that could explain the new species' uniquely strong scales, Fry noted.
Overall, though, "we don't know why this interesting feature evolved in this species, or what they are used for," study leader Ukuwela said.
(See a picture of a "two-headed" sea snake.)
Venomous Snake Has Deadly Neighbors
The new Hydrophis-literally "water serpent"-likely eluded notice for two reasons. The species is apparently rare, and it lives in coastal habitats largely avoided by fishers, Ukuwela said. Many Australian sea snake species live in the open ocean and are often accidentally caught in prawn trawls. (See snake pictures.)
Little is known about the yellowish brown reptile, other than that it gives birth to live young and, like nearly all live-bearing sea snakes, is "venomous and potentially dangerous to humans," according to the study, published February 21 in the journal Zootaxa.
Furthermore, venom is just one obstacle to unraveling the new species' mysteries, the University of Queensland's Fry noted.
"Field observations are impossible, because the water is very murky and filled with lots of very large bull sharks and saltwater crocodiles, in addition to [highly poisonous] box jellyfish," he said.
"If we tried to dive there, our life expectancy would be measured in minutes. The only question is which animal would kill us.

Dance of nudibranch

The bottom-dwelling, jelly-bodied nudibranch (NEW-dih-bronk) might seem an unlikely canvas for Mother Nature to express her wildest indulgences of color and form. But these shell-less mollusks, part of the sea slug family, bear some of the most fascinating shapes, sumptuous hues, and intricate patterns of any animal on Earth.
There are more than 3,000 known species of nudibranch, and new ones are being identified almost daily. They are found throughout the world's oceans, but are most abundant in shallow, tropical waters. Their scientific name, Nudibranchia, means naked gills, and describes the feathery gills and horns that most wear on their backs.
Generally oblong in shape, nudibranchs can be thick or flattened, long or short, ornately colored or drab to match their surroundings. They can grow as small as 0.25 inches (6 millimeters) or as large as 12 inches (31 centimeters) long.
They are carnivores that slowly ply their range grazing on algae, sponges, anemones, corals, barnacles, and even other nudibranchs. To identify prey, they have two highly sensitive tentacles, called rhinophores, located on top of their heads. Nudibranchs derive their coloring from the food they eat, which helps in camouflage, and some even retain the foul-tasting poisons of their prey and secrete them as a defense against predators.
Nudibranchs are simultaneous hermaphrodites, and can mate with any other mature member of their species. Their lifespan varies widely, with some living less than a month, and others living up to one year.

Sea Angels

Whales & Dolphins ~ Natural Sounds

Strange and inexplicable Pacific sounds

Agency NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) registered in the depths of the Pacific ocean sounds, the origin of which can not be explained.For over twenty years, scientists have recorded and analyzed noise oceans. They recorded the sounds of seismic activity, sea animals, noise, moving ice masses. However, the origin of some of them to explain still not possible. Various theories have been put forward, which included marine life, the instability of the ice cover, and even UFOs.Sound called "Roar"NOAA detected the sound in 1997, it sounded at ultra-low frequencies and was incredibly powerful. It detected in a very remote area of ​​the Pacific Ocean, which is located to the south-west of South America. Sound character suggests that its source was an animal, but animals are not known to science can produce sounds of this nature, in addition, the volume of the "Roar" is several times higher than any known animal noises. "Roar" was simultaneously recorded several hydrophones, remote from each other for five thousand kilometers, making it the most distant ever heard of ocean sounds.Sound "Julia"It was registered NOAA March 1, 1999, its duration was about fifteen seconds. This noise comes from the equatorial Pacific, the source was somewhere between Easter Island and South America. The sound of "Julia" was also very loud and was recorded by hydrophones, separated by a distance of more than five thousand kilometers.Sound, called "Slow"This zvukNOAA recorded May 19, 1997, it lasted about seven minutes. He was named to slow down, because its height is continuously decreasing over seven minutes. Since 1997, the noise was repeated almost every year, the location of its source identified just north of Easter Island, near the Pacific equator. Scientists have put forward the hypothesis of the origin of the sound "Slow," but it is not confirmed. It sounds like the movement of the Antarctic ice masses, but the location of the source rule out the presence of ice out there at any time of year, so the discussion is still open.Sound, named "Train"This sound was also recorded NOAA in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, just south of Easter Island. At the sound of the dominant regular increase volume and height to fixed limits, echoing train whistles.The sound of "Lifting"It was recorded NOAA in August 1991 and consists of many repetitive sound waves with the rapid rise in frequency. Since the discovery of the sound recorded annually, but the frequency and the volume each time is decreasing. There is a seasonal pattern - the highest frequency sound reaches the spring and fall. Sound source is located in the Pacific Ocean, north of Antarctica, about halfway between New Zealand and South America. Scientists speculate about the nature of the seismic noise and associate it with the appearance of volcanic activity in the region.Sound called "whistle"This sound is detected July 7, 1997, and registered it was only one hydrophone sensor. This is very unusual, as all of the above sounds are captured, at least four different sensors simultaneously. The sound source is located in the equatorial Pacific Ocean, about five hundred miles from Mexico City. The sound resembles that from the whistle and usually lasts about a minute. "Whistle" recorded annually since the discovery.All these unexplained noises come from the depths of the Pacific. One can go to ask, what is their source: the animals, seismic activity, or even a UFO? The good news is that the answer may not take long, becauseNOAA is developing new high-tech hydrophone sensors. Their sensitivity is more than a hundred times greater than the possibility of hydrophones used now.

Indonesian mimic octopus

The Indonesian mimic octopus has the extraordinary ability to pass itself off as many of the toxic fishes or sea snakes that share its habitat.
A new study of its DNA suggests why these abilities evolved.
Instead of blending into the background, the animal impersonator often uses a daredevil strategy of making itself more conspicuous to predators.
Scientists believe the behaviour evolved to scare other animals.
First described by scientists in 1998, the Indonesian mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) is able to pass itself off as a number of its near neighbours.
By flattening its head and arms, using a bold brown and white colour display and adopting an undulating swimming technique T. mimicus can fool predators that it is, in fact, a poisonous flatfish rather than a tasty meal.
Because this high risk defence strategy is quite rare, scientists from the California Academy of Sciences and Conservation International Indonesia were keen to understand how its abilities evolved and why they are used.
Dr Christine Huffard from Conservation International Indonesia is one of the authors of the study published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society.
"The close relatives of T. mimicus use drab colours and camouflage to successfully hide from predators." she said. "Why does T. mimicus instead draw attention to itself, and repeatedly abandon the camouflage abitilies it inherited from its ancestors in favour of a bold new pattern?"
By analysing its DNA the researchers established when different traits appeared in its ancestors' lineage from its brown-and-white colour displays to its ability to swim like a flatfish using its long arms.
The researchers believe its impersonation skills were advantageous because the mimic could fool predators into thinking it was a poisonous flatfish like the peacock or zebra sole which lives nearby.
Dr Healy Hamilton is Director of the Center of applied Biodiversity Informatics at the California Academy of Sciences.
"While the mimic octopus's imitation of flatfish is far from perfect, it may be 'good enough' to fool predators where it lives ... In the time it takes a predator to do a double take, the octopus may be able to get away , "she said.

Secrets of the squid from Hell

The squid is so weird that it is known as a 'phylogenetic relic'. It has the honour of occupying a taxonomic category all of its own, combining features of octopuses and squids in a unique evolutionary formula that has survived for millions of years.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a pair of scientists in California report on 30 years of chance encounters with vampire squids by robot submarine explorers, laboratory experiments and dissections.
Lone species
Vampyroteuthis infernalis - the 'Squid from Hell' - is the only species in the order Vampyromorpha, where it was placed in 1903.
The 13-centimetre (five-inch) cephalopod lives in temperate and tropical oceans, inhabiting waters at depths between roughly 600 and 900 metres (2,000-3,000 feet), a niche habitat where at the lowest levels there is just enough oxygen to support life .
It uses huge 2.5-centimetre (one-inch) eyes to detect the slightest gleam of movement, and deploys dark-blue bioluminescence to cloak its jelly-like body from predators below when it drifts at higher depths.
Unlike its latter-day cousins, the vampire squid does not tuck into living prey, they say.
'Detritivore': corpse-eater
Instead, examination of the squid's digestive tract, faeces and regurgitations suggest it is a 'detritivore' - it eats the corpses (or what remains of them) of larvae, crustaceans and zooplankton that sink gently to the ocean floor.
A bigger puzzle, though, is a feature of the vampire squid's mouth.
It opens up like a black umbrella, comprising a web that encompasses eight octopus-like arms, studded with suckers and finger-like spines called cirri.
It also has a second pair of arms called retractile filaments that can reach out to lengths that are far bigger than that of the squid itself, and can then be withdrawn into pockets within the web.
Unique to the vampire squid, these sticky filaments were long thought to be sensors to detect living prey and predators.
"Unlike any other cepholapod"
But the evidence says they are used to reach out and snare morsels of food, say Hendrik Joving and Bruce Robison at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.
The scraps are then glued together into a little ball using mucus from secretory tissue in the suckers, and then transported to the squid's jaws by the cirri.
"Vampyroteuthis' feeding behaviour is unlike any other cephalopod," the authors said in the study.
"[It] reveals a unique adaptation that allows these animals to spend most of their life at depths where oxygen concentrations are very low, but where predators are few and typical cephalopod food is scarce."

Credit:  Carl Chun

Sea Changing

Ice in the heart of Antarctica is retreating and causing sea level rise, scientists have shown for the first time.
The new research shows that the largest glacier in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is now losing far more ice than is being replenished by snow.
"In terms of ice discharge, this is nothing like anyone has seen before - it's a huge amount of ice," says Andrew Shepherd at the Centre for Polar Observation and Modelling, University College London.
"People are concerned about retreating glaciers because they contribute to sea level rise", unlike sea ice break-up, Shepherd told New Scientist. "The vast majority of fresh water is locked in Antarctica and this is the first time we have seen an Antarctic glacier retreating. The concerns for sea level rise are real in that respect."
Shepherd notes that modelling studies which raise sea temperatures have produced similar patterns of thinning to that now observed. "They are simple models but it tells us that changes at the margins of the ice sheet can be transmitted inland."
But David Vaughan, a glaciologist at the British Antarctic Survey, says it is not yet clear whether the changes seen in the Antarctic ice sheet are related to human-induced climate change or the long-term re-equilibriation from the last ice age, which peaked 18,000 years ago.
"My best guess remains that over the next 100 to 200 years, overall, the ice in Antarctica will get a little thicker due to increased precipitation," he says.
"The continent would then be the only thing actually slowing sea level rise down. But there does remain a small chance of a rapid change in ice loss, with hazardous consequences for sea level rise."
The WAIS contains enough water to raise global sea level by a catastrophic five metres. Its largest glacier, the Pine Island Glacier, is now losing four billion tonnes of ice to the ocean, according to Shepherd's team's work. The glacier retreated by five kilometres between 1992 and 2012, and thinned by 28 metres.
If the entire glacier was lost at the current rate, it would take 600 years and raise sea level by 0.6 centimetres. But Shepherd points out the glacier could not be lost without a knock-on effect in its drainage basin. This contains enough ice to raise sea level by 50 centimetres.
And, says Shepherd, no-one yet knows whether the glacier's retreat is a process which will accelerate or stabilise.
Shepherd and his colleagues monitored the glacier using satellite altimetry to measure changes in elevation and satellite interferometry to measure ice velocity.
The data is a precious addition to knowledge of a virtually inaccessible area, says Vaughan. "You can count the number of people who have set foot there on one hand."
He says the more data collected by scientists in these areas, the more certain the predictions they make will be. But it will not be easy: "We can go through space to Europa, but getting people to Pine Island Glacier is beyond most national research organisations."

?Baltic Sea UFO

 'The so-called "Baltic Sea UFO" has been relocated by divers on the research vessel Ocean Explorer and reports confirm there is a massive object on the seabed in the exact location found on sonar last year.
The research vessel, aka the OceanX, has returned to the spot off the Swedish coast where a gigantic, sunken object was spotted on video last November.
Images posted to the web stirred a gigantic debate about its origins, going so far as to speculate it bore an uncanny resemblance to the "Millennium Falcon" spaceship at the center of the Star Wars saga.
Others calmly pointed out that the massive, circular object was either a natural formation or the remains of Russian warships sunk to the bottom decades, maybe even a century ago.The original research team, led by Peter Lindberg, who was scouring the area for sunken treasure last year, decided to return to the coordinates with sophisticated sonar and video equipment to have a closer look in the calmer waters of June.
The vessel is also carrying a team of deep sea divers ready to go down for the hands-on approach to decide if this mysterious object is indeed a Baltic Sea UFO.
A breaking news dispatch from the ship on Thursday confirms that the object is real and located in the same position.
It goes on to announce that "The divers are now down and investigating the circle and reports from the ship say they are really amazed. There is definitely something unusual hiding at the seabed - a Mystery Beneath. More information and pictures will be released next week . "
The tantalizing dispatch has caused consternation in the many followers of the mission, and comments on the news site already hint at conspiracy and coverup.
It remains to be seen exactly what this immense object really is, but further details which may solve the mystery are only a week away.

Mysteries of the Sea

You might think there is little left to discover on Earth in the 21st century, yet the deep sea remains almost entirely unknown. Oceans cover 70% of Earth's surface, with an average depth of 4 kilometres.That makes the deep sea the largest of all habitats - but it is also one of the least hospitable. It is extremely cold, utterly dark, often low in oxygen and smothered by a pressure 1000 times greater than at the surface - so immense it alters biochemistry.Despite these obstacles to life - and the fact that even in the best-known regions, we have sampled less than 1% of the seafloor - we are now beginning to realise the deep is home to a spectacular diversity of organisms.Weird worldThe bizarre inhabitants of the deep include: deep water sharks; devilish-looking dragonfish, that fire beams of red illumination from "lamps" under their eyes; many bioluminescent fish; ancient coelacanths; creeping sea lilies; blood-red squid; an octopus with glow-in-the-dark suckers; bell-shaped, metre-wide jellyfish, snails with armour-plated feet and a deadly jellyfish relative that uses fluorescent tentacles to lure prey.Perhaps the most dramatic creature is the 13-metre-long giant squid, Architeuthis (recently captured live on film for the first time) and the even more fearsome 15-metre-long colossal squid, never seen alive. Sperm whales and Antarctic sleeper sharks are the only animals equipped to take on these deep-sea prey.Life is also found in the form of bacteria, worms and crustaceans, which teem in the abyssal plains that cover vast stretches of the deep. They feed off organic "snow" that falls from above. Deep below the sea floor, life was not thought to be possible. But then in 2003 researchers found many unique bacteria in sediments 300 m beneath the Pacific seafloor, feeding on sediments millions of years old.More spectacular are the deep-sea corals, found at depths of up to 6000 m in waters as cold as 2 ° C. Despite this, they rival their tropical, shallow-water cousins ​​in splendour. These slow-growing animals are now found from Ireland to New Zealand, and have even been discovered growing on the legs of oil rigs. But, it is only as destructive fishing practices, such as trawling, have started to destroy them that the realisation of how widespread they are has dawned. The largest known, near Norway, covers 100 square kilometres, yet was discovered only in 2002.Hydrothermal marvelsIn some places, life is found in an extraordinary abundance. One of the most fascinating deep-sea ecosystems are found around hydrothermal vents, where superheated water, rich in chemicals, spews from volcanically active mid-ocean ridges. Here, bacteria feeding on methane and sulphides support large communities of animals including giant clams, bizarre fish, and massive tube worms up 2 m in length, such as Riftia pachyptila.Photosynthetic bacteria which harvest the vents' faint glow have even been discovered, while others can thrive in water hotter than 121 ° C. These vents are often isolated, and spinning plumes of water may break off like flying saucers, carrying bacteria to other vents.These vents, known as "black smokers", were first discovered in 1977 using the US submersible ALVIN. The discovery of an entire ecosystem 2000 m down, that did not depend on photosynthesis, revolutionised our view of life. We now know these ecosystems are commonly found from Scandinavia to the Pacific Ocean. They occur along the mid-ocean ridge system, from relatively shallow water to as deep as several kilometres.Some even believe that life on Earth may have begun at these vents, which can be up to 60 m in height. Others think similar geological features could harbour life in frozen lakes on Earth and on other planets and moons, such as Mars or Europa.Hydrothermal vents are not the only oases of life on the deep sea floor. In 1984, biologists discovered cold seeps. These are places where chemical-rich water oozes from the seafloor, supporting an abundance of life. They are usually found around the edges of continents.Another rich community of organisms thrives on massive whale carcasses that settle on the sea floor and decay over many decades. "Whale falls", weighing up to 160 tonnes, can nourish over 400 species from hagfish and sharks to bone-eating zombie worms and sulphide loving bacteria.Seamounts and subsThen there are seamounts, the peaks of undersea volcanic mountains. These are the submarine equivalent of islands, with as many as half the species on some seamounts seemingly unique to that location.Although there is heavy fishing around many of the 100,000 large seamounts in the oceans, we have detailed knowledge of only a few, making them ripe for expeditions to discover new biological riches. The biggest underwater mountain range is formed from mid-ocean ridges and stretches for 70,000 kilometres around the planet.Deep sea exploration began in the 1930s, when US oceanographers descended 1000 m down in a tethered steel ball. In the 1960s the Swiss Bathyscaphe descended 11 kilometres down into the Marianas trench off the Phillipines - the deepest place on the planet. Since then, no person has ventured so deep.But a new generation of submersible technologies is helping uncover the mysteries of the deep. These include: Kaiko, the Japanese remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that made it to the bottom of Marianas Trench in 1995, but was later lost; a new replacement for ALVIN, due for release in 2009, which will be able to access 99% of the seafloor; several underwater vehicles that fly more like jet fighters than submarines; a network of robot subs and autonomous labs on the seabed and other subs that are streamlined and fin-less, built from concrete, or swim like a fish.