Here we are, another Friday and another installment of the Friday Smorgabord. This week we examine the lawnmowers of the sea, fake pics, underwater adventures, good news for turtles and some toxic fish.
Lawnmower of the Sea
A Scripps Institution of Oceanography research team examined the roles of grazers on the coral reefs to learn how their voracious appetitite for the green stuff helps keep corals from being overgrown by seaweeds. Scripps marine ecologist Emily Kelly and her research team recorded the feeding behaviors of 15 of the most common species of algae-eating fish, such as parrotfish and surgeonfish on a coral reef in Maui, Hawaii. Kelly’s team discovered that despite large-scale similarities across all species in the consumption of “turf algae,” it also revealed individual species are actually selectively grazing on different types of algae and in different ways.
[via Scripps]
Fakery Afoot!
Apparently this has started doing the rounds tonight. PSA: It’s fake. I can’t find a Bob Burton at Nat Geo either. pic.twitter.com/ew1qA78Owp
— ? (@foomandoonian) December 4, 2016
Fake stuff on social media that people believe is ACTUALLY true? Never….right? Well besides political misinformation, one post is going around allegedly showing the National Geographic Photo of the Year of a breaching shark. But sadly its just a really bad Photoshop job.
[via Gizmodo]
Spend a Night Underwater at Aquarius Reef Bas
Looking for a gift for someone that seems to have everything? How about at adventure of a lifetime staying overnight at the Aquarium Reef Base, an underwater research lab ran by Florida International University. For $4,500 four lucky divers will be able to join on this amazing expedition. Reef Environmental Education Foundation teamed up with FIU to offer the special expedition March 5 to 10, 2017. The REEF group will spend three days diving in the Keys before descending to Aquarius that includes a lecture and dinner, with breakfast served the next morning before divers return to the surface. The cost includes four nights of lodging topside in Key Largo, three days of two-tank dives, and classroom sessions with REEF and Aquarius staff each day in addition to the night below. Expedition leaders Lad Akins, REEF director of special projects, and Ellie Splain, education program manager, have both spent time in the habitat before.
[via Men’s Journal]
Turtle Party
A new generation of threatened hawksbill sea turtles is thriving in the protected waters of Glover’s Reef Atoll, Belize, evidence that efforts to protect these and other marine species in one of the world’s great barrier reef systems are working, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) and the Belize Fisheries Department.
Welcome to Traumaville!
The Atlantic killifish has a strange super power, being 8,000 times more resilient to high levels of toxic waste than other fish. Sounds like a great evolution trait, right? Thanks to the impact of pollution in the East Coast urban estuaries where these fish call home, they are now able to survive extreme levels of pollution that would normally be deadly.
[via Gizmodo]
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