Internet ByCatch | Holy Mola!
The west coast is buzzing with news of an abnormal “”Warm Blob” and bizarre species are being spotted in the Pacific. The Mola Mola, which primarily feeds on moon jellies, has been spotted along the Pacific Northwest coast this past summer. This beast of a fish can weight up to 5000 pounds and holds the Guinness World Record for being the heaviest bony fish in the sea. Here’s a recent Youtube video recorded earlier this month of a massive sun fish off the coast of B.C. The clip is a bit NSFW, because of colorful Canadian language. Click on the links below to discover more about these recent sightings.
Internet ByCatch | Tiger Snatches Man On Fishing Boat In India
Internet ByCatch | Ambergris | The Weird Gift Of Whales
Yeah, we are referring to whale poop! Actually, it’s not just whale excrement. Its more like a gallbladder stone in their lower intestines made up of the harder bits of undigested material, like squid beaks. Eventually, whales evacuate this substance and the ocean cures its in the sunlight over time until it reaches some random shore. If you are lucky enough to find a piece, you might be holding on to some of the rarest shit in the world. Literally! In fact, one man discovered a 32 pound hunk of poop worth nearly 300,000. Now that is some serious shit! Read on for more recent articles about the value and history of Ambergris. I even found some links where its used in recipes, here.
Internet ByCatch |Oarfish For Dinner?
Have a look at one Japanese Twitter users recent encounter with one of the rarest fish in the world. What do you do with an oarfish? Eat it!
After contacting several marine institutes and finding none to claim the large fish, he tossed superstitions aside and acted on the belief that when life hands you an oarfish, you make oarfish fillets.
Internet ByCatch | Dolphins Have Found A Bizarre Way To Get High
One of the cleverest creatures in the animal kingdom has discovered an unconventional way to get high. And, no, we\’re not talking about Snoop Lion.
Some dolphins are (ahem) puffing on puffer fish, which release nerve toxins when provoked that can cause a narcotic effect, reports London’s The Sunday Times. Underwater footage from a new two-part BBC1 documentary series, “Dolphins: Spy in the Pod,” shows young dolphins milking the fish of their toxins and then passing the fish to other dolphins.
“This was a case of young dolphins purposely experimenting with something we know to be intoxicating,” Rob Pilley, a zoologist and a producer on the series, told the Times. “After chewing the puffer gently and passing it round, they began acting most peculiarly, hanging around with their noses at the surface as if fascinated by their own reflection.”
While a large amount of puffer fish toxins can be deadly, a low dose can trigger a trancelike state.
To film the new series, BBC wildlife documentary producer John Dower developed several “Spy Creatures,” underwater camera technology modeled after real animals. Equipped with cameras for eyes, the Spy Dolphin, Spy Nautilus and Spy Turtle captured 900 hours of dolphin footage by diving more than 1,500 times and spending nearly 3,000 hours at sea in all kinds of weather.
Internet ByCatch | Space-Born Jellyfish Hate Life On Earth
A warning for future space colonizers: Babies born in space might not ever figure out how to deal with gravity. Jellyfish babies, at least, have to deal with massive vertigo on Earth after spending their first few days in space.
NASA first started sending jellyfish to space aboard the Columbia space shuttle during the early \’90s to test how space flight would affect their development. As cool as being an astronaut baby sounds, the jellies didn\’t develop the same gravity-sensing capabilities as their Earthly relatives.
Jellyfish tell up from down through calcium sulfate crystals that ring the bottom edge of their mushroom-like bodies. The crystals are housed in little pockets lined with hair cells, and when the jellyfish moves, the crystals roll around, signaling to the brain which way is up by stimulating those hair cells. The pockets seemed to develop normally in space, but the astro-jellies later had trouble figuring out how to swim around in normal gravity. They had abnormal pulsing and movement when returned to Earth compared to non-astronaut jellyfish.
Humans sense gravity and acceleration using otoliths, calcium crystals in the inner ear (similar to those jellyfish have) which move sensitive hair cells to tell the brain which way gravity is pulling. So if the jellyfish had trouble developing their gravity senses in space, it\’s likely human space babies would get major vertigo too.
via Space-Born Jellyfish Hate Life On Earth | Popular Science.
Related articles
- Jellyfish born in space get vertigo on Earth (boingboing.net)
- Animals Born In Space Have A Hard Time Adjusting To Life On Earth (businessinsider.com)
- NASA Has Been Breeding Jellyfish in Space for 20 Years (mashable.com)
Internet ByCatch | “Halibut Man” Shares Unique Political Process
A fisherman from Sitka who only gave his name as “Halibut Man” draws attention at the corner of Egan Drive and Mendenhall Loop Road Saturday as he advertises halibut for sale in Auke Bay. He also flashed a message about the latest government troubles: “Dead in the water means a fishing vessel is going no where,” he said. “It is in peril, and our government is weaker than it has ever been in the face of a lot of serious challenges. I also want to sell some halibut, too. This is the fun part.”
via Photo: Halibut man | Juneau Empire – Alaska’s Capital City Online Newspaper.
