I will be attending the FMSEA 2007 Annual Conference this week in Naples. My presentation notes and updates will be posted here. Not sure about connectivity, but I will update as much as possible.
Monthly Archive for April, 2007
[via Reddit]
Steve Weast has a custom, ~900 gallon (~4000 L) Fiji reef tank. He was dismayed to find a 7 foot polychaete eating his +$25 coral polyps.
I staked out the tank one evening with a red lens flashlight in an attempt to catch the suspected villainous shrimp or crab. What I saw caused many sleepless nights. Through an opening in the live rock, I spied what looked like a worm with a diameter of about ¾”. This worm was passing through this live rock opening…and passing…and passing…and then passing some more…just how long was this thing? Suddenly, the worm stopped…and way over on the other side of the tank…
More details and pictures of the extraction at OregonReef.com.
[recursively via Majikthise]
Got my first introduction to the Mr. Hell Show. This YouTube excerpts contains a skit with a lonely giant squid. Rated FV for fantasy violence.
The Radula blog reports that students at John Adams Middle School vandalized some of the fish tanks during a recent fieldtrip to the Albuquerque Aquarium.
There is damage to two separate tanks, which had been gouged and “tagged”. The massive shark tank may be repairable but the tank holding the moon jellies will have to be replaced at a cost of over $30,000. The biopark has banned the school (an APS school) from all future biopark venues.
If you would like to donate to help repair the aquariums, contact the office of the BioPark Director at 505-764-6211 for details.
![Claire Nouvian, The Deep, University of Chicago Press [200x150, 4.4K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070415_UCdeepsea.jpg "Claire Nouvian, The Deep, University of Chicago Press")
[via TONMO]
The companion website to Claire Nouvian’s book has a gallery of deep sea critters that you can glance through. Note especially the Dumbo octopus (Grimpoteuthis sp.), Glowing sucker octopus (Stauroteuthis syrtensis), Telescope octopus (Amphitretus pelagicus) and an egg-bearing Black-eyed squid (Gonatus onyx). All very well photographed and tentacley. Splash page includes ethereal, mysterious music too so you know you are underwater.
The Deep
The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
By Claire NouvianFeaturing 220 color photographs of deep ocean species, some photographed for the first time.
- The website: The Deep
- The book: The Deep
- Tree of Life profile: Amphitretidae, the Telescope octopus
- Bridge Lesson Plans: Deep Sea
![Credit: NOAA, Alaska Fisheries Science Center, Marine Observer Program [200x150, 9.6K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070414_NOAA.jpg "A ghastly view of fish squeezed through the net by the tons of fish trapped within the main body of the net.")
The World Wildlife Fund has launched its third annual Smart Gear Competition. They are offering cash prizes for innovative ideas for reducing bycatch. Many non-target species are caught up in the gear, nets and hooks of modern commercial fishing fleets. This effort tries to bring together industry, environmentalist, scientists and educators to find practical solutions.
WWF and our partners created the International Smart Gear Competition to inspire innovative, practical, cost-effective ideas that allow fishermen to “fish smarter” - to better target their intended catch while reducing bycatch. The Competition awards a cash prizes for the best entry to reduce fisheries bycatch, which is the leading threat to many endangered marine mammals, cetaceans, sea turtles, seabirds and certain fish species.
The 2007 International Smart Gear Competition will award a $30,000 Grand Prize and two 10,000 Runner-Up Prizes.
Entry Deadline: July 31, 2007
The competition is open to all - fishermen, professional gear manufacturers, teachers, students, engineers, scientists and backyard inventors.
Please visit www.smartgear.org for entry materials and to learn about the winning ideas from the first two competitions.
- WWF’s International Smart Gear Competition
- TEACH Engineering Lesson Plan: Caught in the Net (4-6)
- Cousteau Ocean Adventures Lesson Plan: How to Catch a Fish lesson, PDF (5-8)
- UA Marine Discovery Lesson Plan: Eat ‘em and weep: Problems involving commercial fishing (5-6)
More oceanic adventures from PBS. They updated the site to include an educators guide.
VOYAGE OF THE LONELY TURTLE
Premieres Sunday, April 15th at 8 p.m.A solitary loggerhead turtle in the middle of a vast ocean may not sound like an adventure film, but stick with her. Along her 9000-mile voyage to nest, our loggerhead tour guide in VOYAGE OF THE LONELY TURTLE encounters hammerhead sharks, deep ocean tempests, and man-made death traps in the form of fishing nets and hooks. Her body of well-suited armor and specialized adaptations for deep-ocean dwelling will help the sea turtle evade many of the ocean’s menaces. But this is just one set of challenges to overcome. Here is another: she must find her way across the Pacific, from Baja to a small stretch of beach in Japan, a precise location that she has been to just once before, as a two-inch hatchling, decades ago.
- PBS educators guide Tale of a Lonely Turtle (3-5)
- PBS educators guide Ancient Travelers of the Ocean (9-12)
![Humpback whale's tail [200x150, 6.8K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070413_NOAA.jpg "Humpback whale's tail; Captain Budd Christman, NOAA Corps;")
Hey, NOAA has updated their online photo library. Because most of these images are taken as part of the normal operations of this federal agency, they are copyright free and in the public domain. All they ask is that proper photo credit is given.
Bizarrely, the search function is currently not working, making perusal of the collection a somewhat arduous expedition.
- More than 10,000 new images.
New search capability.- Many new albums that better reflect NOAA’s stewardship role and range of operations.
- Hundreds of Hurricane Katrina images that help record the extent of damage of this American tragedy.
- Thousands of stunning ocean exploration photographs, coral reef photographs, and polar regions photographs.
- New additions to albums including remarkable lightning photography, coastal photographs detailing the nooks and crannies of our American coastline including a medley of American lighthouses, and new images detailing the Treasures of the NOAA Library.
- And in this, the 200th Anniversary of the Coast Survey, NOAA’s oldest ancestor agency and America’s first science agency, thousands of newly digitized historical photographs detailing the work of the Coast Survey, Fisheries Commission and Weather Bureau.
In addition to still images, NOAA also makes available a number of copyright free video clips. The quality is a bit mixed, but it’s a nice way to build a royalty-free library.
NOAA maintains a library of video footage, which is compiled and categorized by subject. It’s available for the cost of reproduction on a public domain basis—no license or clearance required. It’s requested that you credit “NOAA” or “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration,” when using the footage.
![Miwa Koizumi PET plastic jellyfish [80x80, 1.3K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070412_Koizumi.jpg "Miwa Koizumi PET plastic jellyfish")
[via Make]
Well, here is some ocean-going plastic that I can appreciate.
Taking art from found objects to new depths, Miwa Koizumi uses heat guns and soldering irons to sculpt startlingly realistic sea creatures from discarded liquid containers. Her PET project cleverly takes its name from PET (polyethylene terephthalate) - the highly recyclable, plant-based oil the containers are made from.
![Great Turtle Race, Yahoo trading card [200x150, 22K]](http://www.cephalopodcast.com/img/pic/pic_070410_yahooturtle.gif "Great Turtle Race")
Leatherback sea turtles are the largest and most ancient lineage of marine turtles. Eleven of them have been fitted with satellite transmitters as part of the Great Turtle Race, which begins on April 16, 2007.
The event is organized by The Leatherback Trust, Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP), Conservation International and Costa Rica’s MINAE. Some of the turtles are sponsored by Plantronics, Yahoo and West Marine, among others.
The whole site is a pretty slick production and includes Flashified trading cards for all the animals and a Flickr page. No word on whether the sponsors got to stencils their logos directly onto the turtles.
The sponsored turtles…are “racing” toward feeding areas south of the Galapagos Islands after nesting at Playa Grande in Costa Rica’s Las Baulas National Park, the primary nesting area for leatherbacks in the Pacific. The leatherback is a 100 million-year-old, massive sea animal that outlived the dinosaurs but is now dangerously close to extinction. Leatherback numbers have decreased at Playa Grande from thousands of nesting turtles 10 years ago to fewer than 100 in the last five years. This online event will raise funds to protect Playa Grande and raise awareness about what individuals can do-no matter where they live-to help protect sea turtles in our daily actions.
Lesson plans for K-5 and 6-12 grades are hosted by ERIC. Additional educational materials are supposed to be available in the “Sea Turtle School” area at www.GreatTurtleRace.com.
- Wikipedia: Leatherback Sea Turtles
- Great Turtle Race
- Great Turtle Race: Lesson Plans
- Flickr: Leatherback Turtle
- Yahoo Video: Great Turtle Race
- The Leatherback Trust
- National Geographic: It’s Tough to Be a Leatherback Turtle (3-5)
- National Geographic: Can Research Save the Leatherback Turtle? (6-8)
UPDATE: Stephen Colbert devoted part of his monologue to the leatherback race. One of the turtles is named after him.
[via Metafilter]
If you are interested in sponsoring a species, BIOPAT will consider giving it the name of your choice. Not sure about the legitimacy of this organization, but I can understand the impetus. Funding for taxonomy is pretty scarce. However, it is kind of contrary to the ideal of noble science. Still, binomial classification is increasingly becoming antiquated anyway.
By making a minimum donation of Euro 2,600, you officially assume the status of sponsor. You are then given a receipt which indicates the charitable nature of the donation and is therefore usable for tax-deduction purposes. At the same time, you receive a provisional certificate designating you as the sponsor of the new species you have selected.
- offers donors the opportunity of sponsoring a newly discovered animal or plant species and of giving this a scientific name of their own choice
- agrees sponsors’ choice of names with the researchers responsible for identifying the new species
- maintains a scientific Advisory Council that verifies the bona fides of the co-operating researchers and issues recommendations as to whether a particular species should be included in the BIOPAT sponsorship scheme. The Advisory Council is made up of staff from various research institutes. External specialists dealing with particular taxonomical groups may be brought in to help with the appraisal process.
- ensures that the names suggested by donors are allocated in a scientifically sound and formally correct manner
- provides sponsors with documentary proof of their personal choice of name for the new species in question
More tentacle tinglage coming up from PBS. Sadly, no lesson plans or prepared companion guides for educators. Originally aired December, 2005.
ENCOUNTERING SEA MONSTERS
Airs April 8, 2007 at 8pm on PBSNATURE follows Bob Cranston in his quest to film and understand the world’s most mysterious cephalopods.
- ENCOUNTERING SEA MONSTERS: Humboldt Squid
- ENCOUNTERING SEA MONSTERS: Giant Squid
- ENCOUNTERING SEA MONSTERS: Book and web links
- NATURE: The Octopus Show
- NATURE: Incredible Suckers
For your gustatory consideration:
A couple of Flickr groups for folks who like all things tentacular:
Jason Robertshaw
Cephaloblog Comments
PharaohFracking AntsPharaohFracking AntsPharaohFracking Ants