Category: Sea Life
Over 1,000 fish species ‘threatened with extinction’
According to an updated global “Red List” of endangered species more than 1,000 freshwater fish species are being threatened with extinction. This situation is a seen as reflection of the strain on global water resources. “Creatures living in freshwater have long been neglected,” said Jean-Christophe Vie, deputy head of species programme at the IUCN.”This year we have again added a large number of them to the IUCN Red List and are confirming the high levels of threat to many freshwater animals and plants”. Covering more than 47,000 of the world’s species this list is the most respected inventory of biodiversity.
1,360 out of 1,989 species of dragonflies and damselflies were also added to the list. 261 are at risk of disappearing altogether. A cause for deep concern, as many dragonfly species are very sensitive to freshwater ecosystems and provide us with a good gauge as to status of these systems. The tiny Kihansi Spray Toad is now on the list of extinct creatures in the wild, thanks to the dam built upstream of the Kihansi Falls in Tanzania. A population of 17,000 used to exist at the Kihansi Falls until the dam removed 90 percent of the water flow to the gorge.
According to the IUCN, the overall situation may be worse as the survey covers only a fraction of the world’s species and insufficient data was recorded for 14 percent of species surveyed. “These results are just the tip of the iceberg. We have only managed to assess 47,663 species so far; there are many more millions out there which could be under serious threat,” said Craig Hilton-Taylor, manager of the IUCN Red List unit.
Electric Fish Equipped With ‘Dimmer’ Switch (LiveScience.com)
LiveScience.com – Fish that generate electric fields to navigate, fight and attract mates are equipped with a dimmer switch of sorts that can turn down their signals to save energy, a new study finds.
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Electric Fish Equipped With ‘Dimmer’ Switch
(LiveScience.com)
Feds to decide on listing ice seals as threatened (AP)
AP – A federal agency must decide within three weeks whether spotted seals, which depend on sea ice off Alaska’s coast, should be listed as a threatened or endangered species.
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Feds to decide on listing ice seals as threatened
(AP)
U.S. scientists net giant squid in Gulf of Mexico
American scientists down in the Gulf of Mexico accidently caught a giant nineteen foot squid just off the coast of Louisiana, according to a press statement released by the department of the interior, just showing how very little we now about what goes on within the deep waters of the gulf.
There has not been a sighting or a capture of giant squid in the gulf of Mexico since way back in 1954, when a dead giant squid was found floating just off the Mississippi delta.
Weighing more than 103 pounds, the giant squid, was caught on the 30th of July in a trawlers net more than 1500 feet deep as it was pulling up a research vessel.
Unfortunately, the squid did not survive the rapid change of pressure from the change in water depth when it was bought to the surface, was quickly preserved and sent to the Smithsonian institute’s national museum of natural history for further examination and study.
The research vessel was conducting a pilot study on the dietary patterns and habits of sperm whales. The study was being conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration along with the Interior departments’ minerals management service.
“As the trawl net rose out of the water, I could see that we had something big in there … really big,” Anthony Martinez, a marine mammal scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the chief scientist on the research cruise, said in a statement.
“This find illustrates how little we know about what is swimming around in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.
The last remnants of giant squid have been found before, usually in the stomachs of its known predators but this find is particularly significant as a single specimen has never been caught and been kept in such good condition to be studied
Giant squid, which can be 40 feet long, are usually found in deep-water fisheries, such as off Spain and New Zealand.
“This is the first time one has actually been captured during scientific research in the Gulf of Mexico,” he said.
The joint NOAA-MMS pilot study responsible for the find is part of a two-year, $550,000 study to determine the abundance and diversity of the type of fish and squid that sperm whales seek as prey.
