Enormous Shark’s Secret Hideout Finally Discovered

After half a century of searching, scientists have finally discovered what happens to the world’s second largest shark every winter: It has a Caribbean hideout.

Basking sharks, which can grow up to 33 feet long and weigh more than a Hummer H1, spend the late spring, summer and early fall in the temperate regions of the world’s oceans. But then they pull their great disappearing act, eluding scientists throughout the winter months.

Scientists tagged the giant fish off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts and tracked them by satellite, piecing together their mysterious winter wanderings. He discovered the beasts were absconding to the depths of the Caribbean, some voyaging as far as the Brazilian coast, though the attraction of these destinations poses yet another mystery.

The basking shark about three miles per hour with its four-foot-wide mouth gaping open, filtering through almost 500,000 gallons of water every hour for its plankton sustenance.

The sharks were found to travel well-outside their known range, spending months in the warm waters of the Caribbean and even deep into the southern hemisphere. They also periodically dove to more than 3,000 feet, and often stayed at those depths for months at a time. One shark remained at a depth of nearly 600 feet for upward of five months.

No one has ever seen a baby basking shark, no one’s found a pregnant shark, knows when they reproduce or what their gestation period is.

Original article here.

Infrared Proteins Give Deep View Inside Living Animals

A fluorescent protein found in an extremophile bacteria could give scientists an unprecedented view inside living animals.

The proteins, which glow with tissue-penetrating infrared light, could be used to tag cells in living animals, allowing researchers to watch real-time biological processes that have until now been hidden.

The scientists found the protein in Deinococcus radiodurans, an extremophile microbe, that emits infrared light. The original protein was relatively dim, but they tweaked its amino acid content to make it brighter. They then injected mice with infrared proteins that attached to genes in their liver cells.

Using a specialized microscope called a fluorescence molecular tomograph, which assembles three-dimensional images from two-dimensional scans taken at different depths in a target specimen, the liver shells showed up glowing through layers of living tissue.

Original article here.

Galapagos Islands: National Geographic Video

The Galapogos Islands were Darwin's laboratory for the study of the origins of life. See the creatures he studied in 1835 -- giant tortoises, sea turtles, flightless cormorants, iguanas, and penguins.



For more National Geographic videos, click here.

Whale Fossil Found in Limestone Kitchen Counter

Underwater Photography Contest

Below are some of the results from the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science amateur underwater photography contest:

This photo was the overall winner. It shows two boxer crabs (Lybia tesselata) ready for a fight. The crabs defend themselves by carrying tiny stinging sea anemones in their claws:



The male banded jawfish (Opistognathus macrognathus) holds brooding eggs in its mouth until they're ready to hatch:



This pygmy seahorse is only about a half-inch tall and has flesh that blends masterfully well with the sea fans it lives among:



This shot of a dwarf minke whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata acutorostrata) was caught just after daybreak on part of Australia's Great Barrier Reef. The photographer was only 6 or 7 feet away:



This shot is of the Molly Miller blenny, also known as the combtooth blenny:



These scarlet-striped cleaning shrimp (Lysmata grabhami) were spotted in the Florida Keys:



Original article here.

Food Art

Below are several examples of "food art" taken from this gallery:

Newly Discovered Iron-breathing Microbes

Researchers have reported that a reservoir of briny liquid buried deep beneath an Antarctic glacier supports microbes that have lived in isolation for millions of years. It's a bit like finding a forest that nobody has seen for 1.5 million years.

The discovery of life was in a place where cold, darkness, and lack of oxygen would previously have led scientists to believe nothing could survive.

Despite their profound isolation, the microbes are remarkably similar to species found in modern marine environments, suggesting that the organisms now under the glacier are the remnants of a larger population that once occupied an open fjord or sea.

Chemical analysis from the inaccessible subglacial pool suggests that its inhabitants have lived by breathing iron leached from bedrock with the help of a sulfur catalyst. Lacking any light to support photosynthesis, the microbes have presumably survived by feeding on the organic matter trapped with them when the massive Taylor Glacier sealed off their habitat an estimated 1.5 to 2 million years ago.

The samples were taken at Antarctica's Blood Falls, a frozen waterfall-like feature at the edge of the Taylor Glacier whose striking red appearance first drew early explorers' attention in 1911. Scientists have determined that the coloration is due to rust, which the new research shows was likely liberated from subglacial bedrock by microorganisms.

Original article here.

Vast Black Coral Forest Found

The narrow stretch of water known as the Strait of Messina hides the world's largest forest of black coral, according to a new survey of the Mediterranean sea bed.

Using an underwater robot, marine biologists found almost 30,000 colonies of Antipathella subpinnata coral at a depth of between 180 and 328 feet.

The coral was found near the town of Scilla, off the coast Calabria in southern Italy.

Images taken by the robot showed a seascape completely dominated by spectacular tree-like colonies of black coral, some more than 3 feet high. This is the first time these rare species have been observed in their natural habitat.

A living organism that grows like a plant in deep sea waters, black coral derives its scientific name from the Greek words "anti," for against, and "pathos," for disease. Indeed, black coral amulets were once believed to protect against diseases and evil spirits.

The most highly sought after of all coral species for their use in jewelry, all black corals are listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which records species at risk of extinction if trade is not controlled.

Original article here.

Extinct Animals Photographed Alive

Below are several examples from this list of 11 extinct animals that have been photographed alive.

Tasmanian Tigers:



Quagga:



Bubal Hartebeest:



Baiji River Dolphin:



Original article here.

Crab Riding Jellyfish

Below is a video of a crab hitching a ride on a jellyfish. Small juveniles of this species -- called Graceful Rock Crabs -- are often seen riding jellyfish. The crabs steal food from the jellyfish and also clean off parasitic amphipods.