First Super Predator Was a Hawk-Eyed Shrimp

The world’s first apex predator, a beast called Anomalocaris, was no shrimp. Well, it sort of was, but not to the tiny critters that inhabited the planet’s oceans 500 million years ago. Giant eyes with thousands of lenses and extraordinary vision made the marine monster all the more formidable, according to a new study.

Some 500 million years ago, a giant shrimp-like creature prowled the earth’s oceans, then home to every living animal on the planet. Thought to have been the world’s first apex predator, at 3 feet long Anomalocaris dwarfed its contemporaries—the tiny trilobites, jellyfish and early vertebrates of the Cambrian Era. As if its razor-edged teeth and powerful claws weren’t fearsome enough, scientists have now discovered that the marine monster boasted some of the sharpest—and, in proportion to its size, largest—eyes in history.

Antarctica's Biggest Mysteries: Secrets of a Frozen World

Antarctica's Alexander Island mountain range, snapped during a NASA research flight in October 2011.  Credit: Michael Studinger, NASA.

Source: Our Amazing Planet

One hundred years ago this week, on a fine summer afternoon, Norwegian Roald Amundsen and four travel-weary companions plunged a bright flag atop a spindly pole into the Antarctic ice, marking their claim as the first humans to set foot at the bottom of the world. The South Pole was theirs.

"That moment will certainly be remembered by all of us who stood there," the Norwegian explorer wrote in his account of the arduous trek. On Dec. 14, 1911, two months after they set out from the continent's coast, the men had reached their goal — a frozen plain of endless white in the middle of the highest, windiest, coldest, driest and loneliest continent on Earth.

A century after Amundsen planted the flag — beating out Englishman Robert Falcon Scott's doomed expedition by a full month — an explosion of technological progress has transformed the scope of human knowledge of Antarctica.

CREDIT: NOAA/Department of Commerce, Steve Nicklas, NOS, NGS.

Amundsen and crew take an observation at the pole in an image from the Norwegian explorer's "The South Pole," an account of his historic trek. 

Ocean Voyagers 3D Trailer

"The heart of this film is really a relationship between our mother humpback and her calf," notes the director Feo Pitcairn, "we had unlimited access to these animals, filming them day after day, we have developed a real bond of trust. This allowed us to obtain rare and intimate images, like the calf and the mother's care rests on the sandy bottom of the ocean We're very excited to premiere the film in 3D at the Centre for Independent Theatre -. seeing this material for big screen in 3D is the closest thing to experience first hand what we experienced during filming underwater."

Antarctic Killer Whales May Seek Spa-Like Relief in the Tropics

ScienceDaily (Oct. 26, 2011) — NOAA researchers offer a novel explanation for why a type of Antarctic killer whale performs a rapid migration to warmer tropical waters. Scientists believe that warmer waters help the whales regenerate skin faster, after spending months coated with algae in colder waters.

"The whales are traveling so quickly, and in such a consistent track, that it is unlikely they are foraging for food or giving birth," said John Durban, lead author from NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center in La Jolla, California. "We believe these movements are likely undertaken to help the whales regenerate skin tissue in a warmer environment with less heat loss."

Jellyfish Lake In Palau Swarms With Complex Historical Wonders

Source: Huffington Post

Who knew the gelatinous bags of goo known as jellyfish could have such a complex history?

The video below shows millions of golden jellyfish thriving in the evolutionary wonderment that is Jellyfish Lake.
The lake is one of many in Palau, an island nation located about 500 miles east of the Philippines.

Pamela S. Turner writes in a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) article that five lakes each contain a jellyfish "varying from its neighbors and their common ancestor in a dramatic example of the origin of species ... If Darwin had stepped ashore in Palau instead of the Galapagos, the icon of evolution might be not Darwin's finches, but Darwin's jellyfishes."

The Dolphin Gazette

Source: Dolphin Communication Project

After reading this issue of The Dolphin Gazette, you'll feel up to date on all of our research in The Bahamas - at Dolphin Encounters and off Bimini. You'll feel confident telling your co-workers about the SM2M, and you'll be telling every college student you know to sign up for our May field course. The list goes on, but it's probably better if you go ahead and read it yourself. Then forward it to all of your friends. Click here to download the final issue of 2011!

A rare 40-million-year-old shark and whale encounter is preserved in stone.

Source: Discovery News

About 40 million years ago, a single shark in Egyptian waters snuck below a whale and attempted to rip it to shreds, but it wasn't entirely successful. The shark-bit and torn apart whale, described in the latest Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, was recently discovered as a stonecutter in Italy prepared to slice into decorative limestone.

The whale, whose last moments were painful ones, turns out to represent a new species, Aegyptocetus tarfa, which lived on land as well as in the sea. Co-author Giovanni Bianucci of the University of Pisa's Department of Earth Sciences, told Discovery News it's probable that the shark attacked the whale as it was "diving, considering that the bite was on the abdomen"

Whales in the desert: Fossil bonanza poses mystery

(11-19) 21:01 PST SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) --

More than 2 million years ago, scores of whales congregating off the Pacific Coast of South America mysteriously met their end.

Maybe they became disoriented and beached themselves. Maybe they were trapped in a lagoon by a landslide or a storm. Maybe they died there over a period of a few millennia. But somehow, they ended up right next to one another, many just meters (yards) apart, entombed as the shallow sea floor was driven upward by geological forces and transformed into the driest place on the planet.
Today, they have emerged again atop a desert hill more than a kilometer (half a mile) from the surf, where researchers have begun to unearth one of the world's best-preserved graveyards of prehistoric whales.
Chilean scientists together with researchers from the Smithsonian Institution are studying how these whales, many of the them the size of buses, wound up in the same corner of the Atacama Desert.

"That's the top question," said Mario Suarez, director of the Paleontological Museum in the nearby town of Caldera, about 700 kilometers (440 miles) north of Santiago, the Chilean capital.

Hydroplaning Dolphins - Planet Earth - BBC

Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin

Source: Monterey Bay Aquarium


Otterly Delightful! from Litton Weekend on Vimeo.
This week’s episode of “Ocean Mysteries with Jeff Corwin” was filmed at the Aquarium! In it, Jeff goes behind the scenes to learn about our sea otter conservation work. Episode #112 - Go West - Otters Airdate: 11/19/2011
More Info Here

Sharks And Seals: Amazing Underwater Images From National Geographic's New Book "Ocean Soul"

Click Here to read the article and view the amazing slide show.

 

Southern right whale. New Zealand, 2007

Swimming with Great Whites

Reporter Jupp Baron Kerckerinck swims with great white sharks near Isla Guadalupe in the open waters of the Pacific.



Source: CNN

Researchers are getting to know a population of Spotted Eagle Rays in Florida in efforts to protect them.

Rare gray whale's route surprises scientist

This photo of

CAPTION

By Craig Hayslip, Oregon State University

A western pacific gray whale busily swimming south into California waters has thrown scientists for a loop. The critically-endangered species, with only about 130 known individuals left, was thought to winter near the South China Sea. Instead, the first tagged individual took off from Russia, swam across the Bering Sea and Gulf of Alaska to the coast of Oregon, and began working his way south.Dubbed "Flex," the male whale was lounging in Russia's Sea of Okhotsk near the Sakhalin Islands in October, where the whales have their summer feeding grounds. Scientists don't know where they breed but they thought they knew where they wintered.

Surfing Dolphins

Source: BBC

Dolphin Photo Identification Explained

from Sarasota Dolphin Research Program by Blair Irvine

Individual bottlenose dolphins can be identified by their dorsal fins. But how exactly is that done? And why bother?

A new report published by NOAA, with SDRP staff members Brian Balmer and Randy Wells as co-authors, explores the use of photo identification as a tool for making abundance estimates of inshore populations of bottlenose dolphins.
Abundance estimates are critical for dolphin stock assessments along the Atlantic Coast and the Northern Gulf of Mexico, because they inform management policy decisions.
You can’t manage the conservation a dolphin population unless you know how many dolphins there are. Right?

SDRP Veternarian is Finalist for Fellowship

from Sarasota Dolphin Research Program by Blair Irvine

Deborah Fauquier, DVM, has been named as a finalist for a prestigious Marine Policy Fellowship offered by the National Sea Grant College Program.

Deb, is already a marine mammal veternarian, and she led the vet team during the 2010 dolphin health assessments in Sarasota Bay. Read more about her life as a marine mammal vet below.

Currently completing her PhD in Ocean Sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Deb’s dissertation research investigated the effects of brevetoxin on sea birds in Sarasota Bay, Florida.

Brazil Tagging Trip A Success

from Sarasota Dolphin Research Program by Blair Irvine

 5 endangered Franciscana dolphins were captured, tagged and released, by a tri-national team of veterinarians and conservation scientists in Babitonga Bay, Brazil.

The dolphins are being tracked with satellite-linked transmitters to learn about their activities, dive patterns, and range in Southern Brazil.

This is important new information because Franciscana dolphins are threatened by coastal development, pollution, and gillnets, but little is known about their movements. Learning about their movements will allow conservationists and policy makers make plans for their protection.

SDRP Researchers Assist with Oil Spill-Health Assessment

from Sarasota Dolphin Research Program by Blair Irvine

 

NOAA recently completed a dolphin health assessment project in Barataria Bay, LA, examining and sampling dolphins for possible sub-lethal effects of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill on bottlenose dolphins.

A team of about 50 veterinarians, biologists and wildlife epidemiologists worked together to conduct the comprehensive health evaluations.
SDRP Director Randy Wells is a co-investigator on the project. SDRP staff members Brian Balmer, Jason Allen and Aaron Barleycorn were also part of the team, as were a number of medical and veterinary researchers who collaborate with the SDRP in our Sarasota Bay research.

Red Tides Influence Juvenile Dolphin Behavior

from Sarasota Dolphin Research Program by Blair Irvine

 Social behavior, activity budgets and ranging behavior of juvenile bottlenose dolphins change during red tides.

They spend less time alone, and they associate in larger, less stable groups, that include a greater diversity of companions.

Harmful algae blooms, called red tides in Florida contain neurotoxins which impact prey fish abundance  and potentially dolphin health.
New research by the SDRP’s Dr. Katherine McHugh and other SDRP staff documents the impact of red tide on juvenile dolphin behavior.