What we're up against

From a 1996 video depicting a Dayton, Tennessee biology classroom.  Dayton, by the way, was the site of the 1925 trail of John Scopes who was convicted of violated a state statute against the teaching of evolution.  The intervening years should have put an end to this silliness.  They haven't. 

In fairness, this video is some 15 years old.  I wish I believed that things have changed in the classrooms of our region over that span.  I fear they have not.

Science teachers, do your jobs.  If you can't, find another occupation.

Sabertooth cats...

...were bad, bad, animals.  Four feet tall at the shoulder, and armed with foot-long serrated canines (in the case of Smilodon populator, the largest of the group).  And, apparently, massively strong in the forelimbs.  X-ray analysis reveals that the bones from the front legs of sabertooths were dramatically thicker, and presumably stronger, than those of similarly-sized modern cats.  The cats apparently used their powerful forelimbs to hold down their prey while they dispatched them with the canines.

Making it right

Grandmothers

Few female mammals live significantly past menopause.  We're glad they do of course, but it's still an interesting question - one that comes up routinely in my evolution class when we're discussing life histories.  It's a trait that humans share with killer whales and pilot whales, and a new paper appearing in Proceedings of the Royal Society B and discussed here at Scientific American delves into what we might have in common with those species.  Good stuff.

So, there you go

Topic that came up in class tonight...  One of the "mini-project" topics that my students are addressing is the idea of "fish as pets", the idea being to find out a little about the natural history of the species that have come to be popular in people's homes.  A number of the fish that students have chosen to examine are tropical marine species, and we had a discussion tonight about the conservation impacts that the aquarium trade is having.  And then this.  A new paper appearing in Marine Policy examines just that issue, concluding that international law is not doing an adequate job of protecting reefs and reef species from decimation from collectors.  Collectors remove some 30 million fish per year, belong to perhaps 1,500 species.  Since many collected fish will die before reaching markets, collectors overharvest to be sure they have enough to meet their needs.  Some fish, like the Banggai cardinalfish, have disappeared from much of their previous range.  The authors recommend that to deal successfully with the issue, pressure must be exerted on the U.S. market which accounts for over half the trade in reef fish.

Day on the river

Fish guys and I spent the day on the Tombigbee yesterday.  Not terribly productive.  Shoreline waters over 90 degrees down to three feet or so - seining doesn't yield much.  We're trying some different techniques - more to come.

As some know...

...summer has not been kind thus far.  Long, hot days.  Long, too.  And hot.   And not terribly conducive to writing blog posts when I get in at 9 or 10.  However, a variety of clues have indicated that there are some folks out there, mainly students former and current, that actually look to see what I've put here.  Lately, that hasn't been much.  Gonna try to be better.  Do me a favor.  Drop  a comment occasionally, so I'll know that these aren't just Dear Diary entries.

What can you say?

Mimic octopus

Remarkable video floating around the biological twittersphere.

Sharks off Bon Secour

Video from Ben Raines from the Mobile Press Register.  Evidence that the oil is forcing baitfish, and their predators, into nearshore waters.

Submerged oil at Bon Secour shoreline

I guess we should have known...

...that it would come to this.

From someone you can trust

Here, David Biello of Yale Environment 360 interview Dr. Tom Shirley from Texas A&M - Corpus Christi regarding the Gulf oil spill.  I know Tom Shirley, having worked with him for a couple of summers when he was at the University of Alaska's fisheries facility in Juneau.  He's as good a biologist as you'll ever hear.  Here's what he has to say about the situation in the Gulf.

And, from an appearance at the National Press Club.

Humboldt squid

From William Gilly, who is currently blogging from the Gulf of California from a research expedition investigating the big squid.

Seeking shelter

Marine life is showing up along Gulf beaches in high densities, apparently as they retreat in the face of oncoming oil.  Unfortunately, they're running out of water.

At what point...

...does one cross over the line between party loyalist and downright dumbass?  Haley Barbour objects to the President's demand that BP set up a $20 billion dollar escrow account to pay claims to oil spill victims on grounds that it will prevent BP from paying claims to oil spill victims...

"If they take a huge amount of money and put it in an escrow account so they can't use it to drill oil wells and produce revenue, are they going to be able to pay us?"

The art of fish

One of the topics that my fish guys are investigating is the role of our finned friends in art, literature, and popular culture.  Here, Trishonna shares some information about one of the most accomplished fish illustrators out there.

Fish artist Joseph R. Tomelleri was born in Kansas City in 1958. He earned his B.S. and M.S. in Biology from Fort Hays State University in Kansas. Although broadly trained in aquatic biology, he previously worked as a botanist. However, in 1986, Tomelleri turned his full focus towards illustrations of fish. Since that time, he has traveled more than 150,000 miles to collect live fish species for his scientific renderings. Tomelleri has illustrated 800+ species. His drawings are executed in Berol Prismacolor pencil and detailed with graphite. His attention to detail and unparalleled mastery of color, textures and hues has earned him world-wide recognition as a pre-eminent illustrator. His gift is in capturing the details that distinguish the various fish species. This makes Tomelleri’s illustrations of fish very rare, because few artists have the talent to produce drawings that are technically accurate and beautiful as well. He has mastered the skill of illustration. His drawings are done in a manner that is impossible photographically. He captures the fishes faithfully with accurate life colors, scale and fin ray-counts, illustrating a full spread of the fins. He is recognized by many ichthyologists as the finest scientific illustrator of fishes in the world. While in the field, he preferreds to photograph fresh live-caught fish to draw and depict their true life colors. His methods of capturing the specimens included hook-and-line, gill netting, seining, electro-shocking, and trawling. Tomelleri’s art has been featured prominently in more than 350 publications and advertisements. Several of his illustrations were included in a book that he helped co-author with Mark Eberle, Fishes of the Central United States. A compilation of his work was also published in Trout and Salmon of North America, written by Bob Behnke.

Check out Joe Tomelleri's web site here.  And buy something.

Fish o' the Day - bowmouth guitarfish

Gradually catching up on processing my students work in their fish class.  Bear with me, guys.

Visitors to the Georgia Aquarium are usually queued up to see the whale sharks.  Personally, I thought the most fascinating fish in the building was this guy.  Contribution from Jason...
 
Located mostly in the shallow waters near coral reefs and mangroves is an odd-looking fish called the bowmouth guitarfish, Rhina ancylostoma. Looking closely at them, they have the appearance of half shark and half ray. The bowmouth guitarfish‘s flat, broad, arc-shaped head spreads into two distinct triangular pectoral fins. The nostrils, mouth, and gill slits are located on the ventral surface of the head and the eyes and large spiracles on the dorsal side. The jaws are heavily ridged with crushing teeth arranged in wave-like rows. Behind the head, the body tapers into a more streamlined shape, much like that of sharks. There are sturdy ridges of heavy, sharp thorns next to the eyes, in the middle of the back, and above the pectoral fins. It has two large, triangular dorsal fins, the second smaller than the first. The body terminates in a small but powerful caudal fin with an upper lobe that is larger than the lower. Dermal denticles cover the body giving the rough skin a velvety appearance.

The color of bowmouth guitarfish changes with age. Young fish have brown bodies, pale ring-shaped spots covering their pectoral fins, and black bars between the eyes. .The body of the adult is charcoal or pale gray body with small white spots. The face bars fade to dark gray with age, becoming faint and indistinct. Some adults have a bluish coloration. The white ventral side in both adult and juvenile phases provides these rays with protective counter-shading.  Bowmouth are viviparous and are aplacental, generally bearing around 4 pups. While they have been known to grow to lengths of 8 feet, most are closer 6.5 or 7 feet. Bowmouths prefer a relatively shallow habitat with a muddy or sandy substrate, and their primary food sources are crustaceans and mollusks. A quick look at their dentition might allow you to deduce that without ever seeing them in action.  Unlike many oceanic species, bowmouths are not cosmopolitan.  Found mostly in waters of Southeast Asia, they do range into the oceans off East African and are also found along the Indian coastline. 
They’re not currently on the IUCN red list, but there’s a push beginning to see that happen. They’re not fished for their meat, but rather for their dorsal fin. – often the living fish is thrown back into the water to die. In addition, bowmouths sometimes become entangled in gill nets due to their odd shape. 

One interesting idea is being kicked around in taxonomic circles. Bowmouths are often described as prehistoric in appearance, and are considered by some to be a ‘missing link’ between sharks and rays. This belief is based on the ray-like placement of the mouth and gill openings and disc shape of the front part of the body and the shark-like streamlined appearance of the rest of the body and the powerful tail. Is this true? Maybe.

The Strand

A highlight of the Subtropical Ecology field trip is our visit to Fakahatchee Strand, the "Amazon of North America," and park biologist Mike Owen.  That's a couple of my guys from a past class - we'll be there again in November.  Enjoy this from the Tuscaloosa News.

FOD...

...should return tomorrow.  I've turned that responsibility over to my students for the duration of the summer.  They meet tomorrow.

In the meantime, how about some night music.  Old Number 7.

Warm-blooded beasts

My fish guys will be talking out thermal relationships tomorrow, and we'll discuss the way in which certain fish like tuna are able to maintain body temperatures considerably higher than ambient.  This gives them a significant advantage in hunting down the other fish on which they feed.  Which makes this new Science paper particularly interesting.  Seems that some of the marine reptiles that were so dominant in Mesozoic seas may have used the same strategy.  The French researchers who led the work employed stable isotopes of oxygen in the phosphates of tooth enamel from fossil ichthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and mosasaurs.  They compared the ratios to those of fish fossils from the same time period.  Isotope ratios in the poikilothermic fish can be used as a gauge to water temperatures - 18O/16O ratios increase with decreasing water temperature.  The results demonstrated that the body temperature of the aquatic reptiles remained relatively constant, even in changing water temperatures.  The reptiles maintained body temperatures in the neighborhood of 35-39 degrees Celsius, while water temperatures ranged as low as 12 degrees.