Cephalopodcast

The NY Times recently did an article on soniferous fishes. These are animals like drums and toadfish that produce, and presumably communicate, with sound. In some circumstances, these noises can be heard by home owners living on canals or live-aboard boats.

However, there is a quote in the article from Professor Philip Lobel from Boston University that annoys (a noise?) me:

Yet of the 30,000 species out there, only about 1,200 sound producers have been cataloged, and far fewer have been recorded. Even common goldfish have merited just two scientific publications. In fact, said Philip Lobel, a professor of biology at Boston University, “Most aquarium fish are sonic. Keeping fish in an aquarium is like keeping a canary in a soundproof cage.”

Have you ever pressed your ear against a home aquarium? It’s typically a din of bubblers and impellers that are anything but noiseless. I’ve wondered what kind of effect that has on the captive fish. And now doubly so if it turns out the creatures are trying to communicate with each other over the racket.

Dolphin Diner Bell

The article also makes mention of how dolphins listen for soniferous fish. Researchers at my work have noted the prevalence of soniferous fish in the diet of area dolphins. It appears that the dolphins studied do not actively and energetically echolocate all the time. Instead, they passively listen for the calls of their prey to locate them generally. Then when they are closer, they use echolocation to home in for the kill. This also suggests that there is an evolutionary interplay between sound detecting dolphins and sound producing fish. A similar relationship has been demonstrated between calling frogs and frog-eating bats. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is some similar acoustic aposematism going on underwater too.

• NY Times: What’s Making That Awful Racket? Surprisingly, It May Be Fish
• NY Times: Run Noisy, Run Deep, and interactive piece that lets you listen to the noise of soniferous fish, including the fast repetitive ticks (FaRTs) of herring.

Rare dolphin ’sighted’ in China: “A fresh-water dolphin believed to be extinct has been sighted in the Yangtze River, Chinese state media report.”

[via BBC News | Science/Nature | UK Edition]

This is also a test to see if I can post via NewsFire + MarsEdit. Looks like this feature works.

[via Plankton Forums]

Reports of an albino dolphin photographed near Lake Charles, LA.

[S]potted and photographed by Capt. Erik Rue of Calcasieu Charter Service on June 24th, 2007 during a charter fishing trip on Calcasieu Lake….

It appears to be an uncanny freak of nature, an albino dolphin, with reddish eyes and glossy pink skin. It is small in comparison to the others it is traveling with and appears to be a youngster traveling with mama.

Compare this to reports of a white humpback whale near Australia.

• Rare “PINK DOLPHIN” Photos
• Rare white humpback whale, Migaloo, spotted
• Migaloo, a white humpack whale

Trolling the Google for sharky news so you don’t have to:

Swim At Your Own Risk is your daily dose of all things sharky… oh, and we’ll also try to fill you in on any other aquatic antics we stumble upon.

• SAYOR: squid
• SAYOR: dolphin
• SAYOR: sharks

PBS is airing its tenth installment of Journey to Planet Earth series tomorrow. The show is hosted by Matt Damon, which is kind of annoying. Expect a disheartening survey of the many ills facing our planet’s oceans interspersed with optimistic words about mankind’s resourcefulness and the hope that technology and international cooperation will someday solve all these problems.

STATE OF THE OCEAN’S ANIMALS
Premiers March 28th, 2007 at 8pm on PBS
Check local listings

Nearly half the world’s marine animals may face extinction over the next twenty-five years. Global warming, over-fishing, and habitat destruction are emptying the world’s oceans. Join host Matt Damon as “State of the Ocean’s Animals” takes a hard look at the future of our watery natural world: the beauty, the incredible animals, and the dangers that threaten them.

Features scenes from the Pacific Northwest (whales, salmon and sea otters), Florida (sea level rise and its effect on loggerhead turtles), Japan (the slaughter of dolphins), China (shark fin trade), and the Antarctic (threats to Emperor Penguins).

• Journey to Planet Earth - State of the Ocean’s Animals
• Educational materials, including Teacher Guides.

There are a couple of dolphins stories coming through our feeds today:

UN Declares 2007 the Year of the Dolphin

(via Divester)

The UN Convention on Migratory Species, together with its specialized agreements on dolphin conservation ACCOBAMS and ASCOBANS and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society WDCS have declared 2007 the Year of the Dolphin. [More]

Podcast Aquatic: Act for Dolphins

(via Dolphin Pod)

Act for Dolphins is a campaign led by marine scientists, The Ocean Project, The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to end the slaughter of thousands of wild dolphins in the annual Japanese drive hunts. [More]

When Dolphins Attack

(via Divester)

Ukrainian emergency workers prevented a pod of dolphins from drowning an intoxicated man in the Black Sea, the Interfax news agency reported on Wednesday. [More]

Another Podcast Aquatic, check it out:

The Dolphin Pod is a podcast produced by researchers from the Dolphin Communication Project and Immersion Presents. It is a weekly science podcast providing subscribers with information concerning dolphin behavior, cognition, anatomy, physiology, conservation, etc. Additionally, The Dolphin Pod covers dolphin events in the news, summarizes and explains the results from recent studies on dolphins, and interviews scientists currently working on dolphin-related research projects.

The Dolphin Communication Project is a private, non-profit research foundation organized to further the following goals: 1) To promote awareness of marine mammal conservation, 2) To increase knowledge of communication behaviors between and among all dolphin species.

Immersion Presents is a nationally acclaimed after-school science media organization that provides educational programming to students across the United States.

UPDATE: If you are interested in the Dolphin Pod podcast, you might also be interested in the Act for Dolphins podcast.

Act for Dolphins is a campaign led by marine scientists, The Ocean Project, The World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), and the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) to end the slaughter of thousands of wild dolphins in the annual Japanese drive hunts.