People often think of mangroves as smelly muddy places that ‘get in the way’ and block your view of the water.
It’s true they can be smelly, sticky places, but they’re also an important habitat for juvenile fish and crabs which we want to catch when they’re adults. So what is that smell and which fish get a benefit from those mangroves?
We all know marine turtles lay eggs and don’t provide any parental care for their turtle hatchlings. The mothers do leave some food for the hatchlings though, as yolk in the eggs. But how healthy is this yolk?
Mammals suckle their young and when they do, they can pass environmental pollutants from their bodies to their offspring’s. But are toxins that maternal turtles accumulate when feeding, passed on to their turtle hatchlings within the eggs? And if so, does it affect the turtle hatchlings’ chances of survival?
Sea kraits (Laticaudine) are sea snakes. They’re front-fanged (proteroglyphous) venomous elapid snakes and are common through much of the Indo–Pacific region. When they’re pregnant, the females stop eating! Seems like a strange thing to do when you need energy and nutrients to make eggs.
Why would they do that?
Francois Brisçhoux, Xavier Bonnet and Richard Shine set out to find out why by studying two of these kraits; Laticauda laticaudata and L. saintgironsi, on small islets in the Lagoon of New Caledonia. What a cool field site
The false water rat (Xeromys moyides) doesn’t live in any old mangroves. They’re picky and look for certain qualities in the real estate they choose. They need a dry house site and safe roads taking them to their supermarkets. Competition for real estate is tough on the edge of a growing city! Find out some more about Australia’s water mouse.
A significant quantity of all fish caught are used for ‘non-human-food’ purposes. What are these ‘non-human-food’ purposes?
Fish are used for two main purposes that do not relate to human food.
Dr Steve Palumbi of Stanford University in the USA is putting together a series of MICRODOCS. They’re pretty interesting so I thought I’d promote them here and encourage you to check them out.
Along the beaches of Queensland and Northern New South Wales, northerly winds often bring with them blue bottles or Portugese man o’ war jelly fish. The blue bottle (Physalia physalis) is a small jellyfish (Siphonophora) with a powerful sting. Sometimes know as a marine stinger it can inflict a nasty sting when its tentacles wrap around the tender skin of your torso or thigh. But the blue bottles have other things on their cnardarian minds…there is a predator out there and a beautiful one at that
Recent fish kill in south east Queensland near Bribie Island related to development and building works.
