#sea-devils--homo-aqua

#sea-devils--homo-aqua

"While whales and dolphins may temporarily move out of areas where there is significant naval sonar activity, the intensity of modern maritime conflict poses lethal risks."

Experts warn that seal bites can lead to amputations, with many individuals who work with seals having lost parts of their fingers due to bites.

When light shines through water, colors with longer wavelengths are absorbed by the water, with the longest wavelengths absorbed first. Blue and violet have the shortest wavelengths of visible light, so they are able to penetrate the deepest.

Longnose spurdog sharks, locally known as kalb al-bahr, are sold on Libyan fish markets. Fishermen catch them even though they are carrying eggs, driven by economic necessity.

"Not only are acts like that illegal, but it's really harming a very important, like, a biodiversity hotspot that we have right out here," Brent Fish, an aquarist with Birch Aquarium, stated.

During major floods, thousands of tiny fish convene at Luvilombo Falls in the upper Congo River Basin to undertake a peculiar vertical migration, described for the first time today in Scientific Reports.

Young fish that spent more of their waking hours being active tended to live longer than did more-sluggish fish. Young fish that restricted their sleep schedule to evening hours also reached a riper age than did those that slept more during the day.

Few transformations in the history of life have been as extreme as the embrace of the ocean by seagrass. Like whales and dolphins, modern seagrasses descend from land-dwelling ancestors.

We think that in this early deuterostome, the median eye contained both ciliary and rhabdomeric cells. As a result, both cellular lineages were incorporated into a single, ancient, cyclopean eye, which later evolved into the vertebrate eyes.

From dramatic aquatic encounters to deep caves to fish and amphibians closely guarding their eggs, there's an entire world below the surface that few of us ever really get to see. That's where images like those in the annual Underwater Photographer of the Year (UPY) come in, glimpsing some of the darkest depths and most alluring and fragile ecosystems on the planet.

'Orcas are psychos,' quipped a close friend recently. He wasn't joking, nor was he ill-informed. In fact, he is probably the world's leading historian of whales and people. He had just watched a BBC Earth clip, narrated by David Attenborough, in which three killer whales separate a male humpback calf from his mother in the waters of Western Australia. The video's closing footage, with two of the orcas escorting the naive youngster to his imminent death, resembles nothing so much as a kidnapping:

In February 2023, an article in the Mexican press announced the capture of a vessel some 195 nautical miles from the port of Lazaro Cardenas in the state of Michoacan. It had been carrying nearly 700 pounds of cocaine packaged in plastic-wrapped bricks, in addition to 1,650 liters of hydrocarbons in 33 plastic containers. Two Ecuadorian fishermen were among the five detainees, and their immigration records showed unusual activity.

The bodies of the crabs displayed male reproductive structures, while other parts showcased female features, including gonopores, said K.S. Anoop Das.

Some deep-sea fish may be able to see light in a different way from most other vertebrates, according to a new study. The fish, found in the Red Sea, have what the scientists behind the new study describe as hybrid photoreceptorslight-sensing cells in the retina that combine elements of two distinct kinds of photoreceptors, cones and rods. In human retinas, cone cells enable us to see in bright environments, detecting color and fine detail,

Which animals came first? For more than a century, most evidence suggested that sponges, immobile filter-feeders that lack muscles, neurons and other specialized tissues, were the first animal lineages to emerge. Then, in 2008, a genomic study pointed to a head-scratching rival: dazzling, translucent predators called comb jellies, or ctenophores, with nerves, muscles and other sophisticated features. That single study ignited a debate that has raged for nearly 20 years, sparking fierce arguments about how complexity evolved in animals.

She looks really good for what I can see through the window,

The lava heron also has a much thicker bill than other closely related herons - an adaptation linked to feeding among sharp volcanic rocks and hard-shelled prey. "What we learned was something that hadn't been reported before," Mendales said. The discovery underscores how much remains unknown, even in iconic places like the Galápagos, said John Dumbacher, the Academy's curator of birds and mammals and Mendales' thesis adviser.

We've documented sightings of glass squids to better understand the remarkable transformations they undergo from hatchlings to adults. This new observation, captured in ultra high-resolution 4K, allowed us to zoom in on a juvenile likely no bigger than a baby carrot and reveal more details than we have been able to see before.