fred wobus . com

Whales are generally classified in two groups – baleen and toothed whales – and both show adaptations that prevents the bends that would otherwise result after diving hundreds of metres deep.

While scientists used to believe that both groups evolved from a single deep-diving ancestor, a new theory proposed by Brian Beatty puts the idea forward that the overcoming of the bends evolved independantly in both groups.

By analysing whale bone fossils they found that whales were still suffering from decompression syndromes around the time where both lineages split apart, but modern whales of either group can both dive deep without adverse effects.

Read more about this fascinating research into when anti-bends adaptations first arose in whales:

Early whales got the bends – life – 08 May 2008 – New Scientist

The above picture is a painting by Noel Ashton depicting a Sperm Whale diving © IFAW

A new project called the Great Australia Shark Count has thus far determined at least 4,022 sharks swim in waters surrounding the land down under.

Read the whole story:
Discovery News – Australia Shark Count Breaking Records

About five short-snouted seahorses (Hippocampus hippocampus) have been spotted during routine conservation surveys over the last year or so, leading scientists to think they have probably established a resident population.

Read more:
Seahorses discovered in the River Thames – life – 07 April 2008 – New Scientist

So just when you though you had the food chain all sussed out, some clever people and their deep-diving robotic toy find little shrimp happily feeding on something at some hideously dark depth, where the sun don’t shine:

Deep Antarctic waters are teeming with krill – small shrimp-like creatures near the bottom of the food chain – in a discovery which has amazed scientists.

Read the full story here:

New Scientist: ‘Amazing’ discovery finds krill in Antarctic abyss

The abstract of the paper is available online:

Current Biology : Adult Antarctic Krill Feeding at Abyssal Depths

Usually krill eat phytoplankton (minute marine plants that drift in the sunlit surface layers), but at that depth there is no light. And where there’s no light, there can be no plants.

There is life at any depth of the ocean, but it gets very sparse with the fading light at depth and increasing distance from land.

So the big question is: What do these tiny shrimp eat at a depth of 3000m?

The abstract only says that the little critters were “actively feeding” but not on what. The New Scientist article has some more clues
and reports the researcher speculating that they feed on plankton remains (“lumps of gunge“) raining down from the sunlit surface waters.

The fascinating phenomenon was described by Rachel Carson in “The Sea Around Us” as the “The Long Snowfall“. And while the marine snow of particles certainly feeds some of the sparse deep-sea life, it seems amazing that it sustains “significant numbers” of Antarctic krill.

So, we’ll have to wait for them to send down their remotely operated vehicle (ROV) a couple more times to find out.

So, I wonder… Does the ROV take passengers?

From the facebook cause "Save the sharks" comes this message:

Sharkwater, the Rob Stewart documentary on sharks, is being released in the UK this Friday, the 22nd.

The film strives to dispel the myths about sharks and expose the current threat they face from over fishing and finning.

You can find details of the film on the following web site:

http://www.sharkwater.com

screenings are listed here:

http://www.sharkwater.com/screenings.htm

The more shark awareness is promoted the more chance we have of slowing down the current rate of decline of the shark populations – sadly the message all too often only reaches as far as the ears of the people that are already listening. Sharkwater provides us with a chance to change this, Rob Stewart has done all the hard work in putting it together, all we need to do is spread the word and encourage people to go along to watch.

As a foot note, IUCN have just announced that they will be adding a further nine species of sharks to their official list of animals at threat of global extinction, including the Scallop Hammerhead, which will be listed as endangered.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/02/18/eashark118.xml