Ghostly ‘Winged’ Octopus Caught on Camera

A rarely seen white deep-sea octopus has been captured on camera in high definition by researchers. The octopus features two “wings” which make it look just like the ghosts from Mario videogames, aka Boos.

The Grimpoteuthis bathynectes octopus, also nicknamed the Dumbo octopus, was filmed with an HD video camera at a depth of more than 6,500 feet about 200 miles off the coast of Oregon.

Little is known about the deep-sea octopuses, which live near the hydrothermal vent fields — fissures in the Earth’s surface generally found near volcanically active places that release geothermally heated water.

Original article here.

World’s Biggest Gathering of Whale Sharks

To see a single whale shark — the world’s largest fish, a solitary behemoth that can grow to school-bus size — is a rare experience.

Seeing hundreds gathered in one place is unprecedented.

The so-called "Afuera gathering" took place in August 2009 off the northern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, not far from the waters around Cabo Catoche. Dozens of whale sharks have converged there each summer since 2002, drawn by crustaceans that feed on massive plankton blooms fueled by upswellings of nutrient-rich deep-sea water.

The Afuera whale sharks are just eating, not mating; the mating habits of whale sharks are a mystery to biologists. The gathering contained no juveniles, only adults; biologists don’t actually know where juvenile whale sharks live, where they’re born or even how they’re born. Whale sharks are literally a colossal mystery.

Read more in the original article here.

High-Speed Video Shows How Hummingbirds Really Drink

New high-speed videos of hummingbirds overturn nearly two centuries of conventional wisdom on how they drink.

Researchers previously thought tube-like channels in their tongues sucked up fluid by capillary action. But the new analysis shows that their tongues actually trap nectar by curling around it.

Read more in the original article here.

Humpback Whales May Be Migratory Astronomers

An eight-year project that tracked humpback whale migrations by satellite shows the huge mammals follow uncannily straight paths for weeks at a time.

The results suggest a single migratory mechanism isn’t responsible. Instead, humpbacks may use a combination of the sun’s position, Earth’s magnetism and even star maps to guide their 10,000-mile journeys.

According to scientists, they are going across some of most turbulent waters in the world, yet they keep going straight.  They’re orienting with something outside of themselves, not something internal.

Humpback whales feed during the summer near polar oceans and migrate to warm tropical oceans for the winter, where they mate and calves are born. A one-way trip can last upwards of 5,000 miles, making the cetaceans the farthest-migrating animal on Earth. (One was tracked migrating 6,200 miles).

To better understand humpback migrations, scientists embedded satellite tags in seven South Atlantic and nine South Pacific whales from 2003 through 2010.  The researchers found that, despite surface currents, storms and other distractions, the humpbacks never deviated more than about 5 degrees from their migratory courses.  In about half the segments mapped by the researchers, humpbacks deviated by one degree or less.

Read more in the original article here.

Orangutans Use Simple Tools to Catch Fish

Orangutans swim about as well as they fly, but research on three Indonesian islands shows that these long-limbed apes nonetheless catch and eat fish.

Orangutans living in Borneo scavenge fish that wash up along the shore and scoop catfish out of small ponds for fresh meals.  Over two years, scientists saw several animals on these forested islands learn on their own to jab at catfish with sticks, so that the panicked prey would flop out of ponds and into a red ape’s waiting hands.

Although orangutans usually fished alone, scientists observed pairs of apes catching catfish on a few occasions. In one case, an orangutan cringed and pulled away as its companion extracted a fish from a pond. Scientists suspect that the onlooker was learning — or at least trying to learn — how to nab aquatic snacks.

Observations of fishing by orangutans raise the likelihood that hominids ate meat, including fish, before the emergence of the Homo genus around 2.5 million years ago. Anthropologists have traditionally held that meat-eating first assumed prominence among early Homo species and fueled brain expansion.

Fishing isn’t common among primates, but it does occur. Chimpanzees occasionally pluck fish out of ponds. Some monkeys that swim well, including certain macaque and baboon species, also catch fish with their hands.

Read more in the original article here.

Salamander Has Algae Living Inside Its Cells

In a symbiotic union more complete than any previously found in vertebrates, the common spotted salamander lives with algae inside its cells.

Such a degree of cross-species fusion was long thought to exist only among invertebrates, whose immune systems are not primed to destroy invaders. But algae live inside the salamanders from before birth, possibly passed down from parent to offspring.

That spotted salamanders and algae live in symbiosis was first noted in the 19th century, and in the 20th century researchers worked out the relationship’s mutual benefits. Salamander eggs provide a nitrogen-rich environment for algae to grow; algae oxygenate the embryos, which develop deformities without them.

But algae were believed to float outside the embryo itself, in the egg’s nutrient broth.  Now scientists have noted that algae’s distinctive green glow didn’t just emanate from eggs, but from inside embryos.

Algae invade spotted salamander embryos early in their development, when individuals are just beginning to take shape inside their eggs, as the brain folds up and tissue layers-to-be first organize themselves. As an embryo develops, algae suffuses its body, but most becomes concentrated along its gut and alimentary canal.

Read more in the original article here.

Poisonous Frogs are More Fit

After testing hundreds of frogs representing dozens of species on an amphibian version of a treadmill, researchers have determined that colorful, highly poisonous frogs have the greatest aerobic capacities.

Earlier studies had suggested a link between poison and metabolism in frogs, but involved just a handful species.

In frogs, especially bright colors generally signify toxicity, informing predators of their prospective meal’s unpalatability. But whereas most poisonous animals produce venom naturally, the frogs distill it from their food.

To find the right insects, they forage far and wide, rather than waiting for whatever fare passes by. Evolution would seem to have produced aerobic adaptations that help poisonous frogs roam, then amplified coloration as a defensive signal.

It’s also possible that bright coloration evolved first, providing some sort of advantage — predator defense, perhaps, or help finding mates — that allowed those frogs to range farther than their drab brethren. That in turn could have allowed them to specialize in eating uncommon, toxin-enabling insects.

Read more in the original article here.

Baby Bald Eagles Will Hatch on Live Webcam

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Three bald eagles are expected to hatch in Decorah, Iowa, between March 30 and April 1, 2011, and you can watch it happen on the above webcam.

The nest was built 80 feet up a cottonwood tree near the Decorah Fish Hatchery in 2007, and all 8 of the parents' children have entered the world on camera.

Viewers will be able to see tiny cracks lacing through the eggs before they hatch. The zoomed-in view gets so close, you can count the scales on the eagles’ feet.

The mother eagle laid the eggs on Feb. 23, Feb. 26 and March 2. All three were caught on camera and are up on YouTube.

Original article here.

Sperm Whales May Have Names

Subtle variations in sperm-whale calls suggest that individuals announce themselves with discrete personal identifier. To put it another way, they might have names.

The findings are preliminary, based on observations of just three whales, so talk of names is still speculation. But scientists say "it's very suggestive."

The scientists have for years studied the click sequences, or codas, used by sperm whales to communicate across miles of deep ocean. In a study published in 2010 in Marine Mammal Science, they described a sound-analysis technique that linked recorded codas to individual members of a whale family living in the Caribbean.

To read more and hear audio of the whale codes, see the original article here.

Video: Hike the 2,200-Mile Appalachian Trail in 4 Minutes

Green Tunnel from Kevin Gallagher on Vimeo.

Above is a video comprised of the 24 daily pictures that hiker Kevin Gallagher took during his six-month hike of the 2,200-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in the spring of 2005.