Latest news with #marinebiology
ABC News
7 hours ago
- Science
- ABC News
Office worker finds endangered spotted handfish dead on Hobart street
A critically endangered spotted handfish found dead on a Hobart street was largely intact and looked as if it had just "flopped out of the water" when discovered by office worker John Retallick. Mr Retallick found the fish, Brachionichthys hirsutus, on Victoria Street in the city centre last week when he briefly left his office to purchase groceries at a milk bar. He has donated the unusual find to the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, where genetic samples have been taken and the handfish preserved for future research. An estimated 2,000 spotted handfish exist in the wild. Mr Retallick remains shocked by his find. Carlie Devine, principal investigator in spotted handfish research at the CSIRO, said the fish may have ended up on a city street after being taken by a seabird. "It is a really interesting story: how did an iconic Tassie fish end up in the CBD?" Ms Devine said. "It's pretty incredible." When Mr Retallick stumbled upon the dead fish, he immediately knew what it was. "I went, 'Oh my god, that's a handfish!'" he said. He rushed back to his office for a container and found a reusable glass coffee cup. "I filled it with water and just got it [the fish] and popped it in," Mr Retallick said. He said the handfish was "still damp" when he found it and later realised it was missing a fin. Mr Retallick, who had previously worked at the museum, contacted friend and former colleague Richard Hale so he could donate the specimen. "I called [Richard] and said, 'I'll give you a million-to-one odds if you can guess what I've just found on the street.'" Mr Retallick hopes its inclusion in the museum's collection will help improve knowledge of the species. There are 14 handfish species, all of which are found only in southern Australia and mostly in Tasmania. The spotted handfish inhabits the Derwent Estuary in Tasmania, where it lives in sheltered coastal bays. The elusive species uses its "hands" to walk, rather than swim, through the soft sediment it likes to inhabit. Once common, the species has experienced a rapid decline and faces many threats. These include water pollution, predation from introduced species such as the northern Pacific seastar, and habitat destruction by boat mooring chains and historical fishing practices. Ms Devine thought it was likely the handfish found by Mr Retallick died of natural causes. Spotted handfish have a short life span of five to 10 years. The specimen's large size of approximately 11 centimetres suggests it reached a natural, albeit sad, endpoint as an adult handfish. Ms Devine said it was likely there was a simple explanation for its death and discovery, particularly because of its missing upper fin. "It looks like something has had a go at it," Ms Devine said. "It possibly being translocated by a seabird sounds pretty plausible." She said if a dead handfish was found, it should be put in a freezer straight away and reported to the Wildlife Incidents Hotline at NRE Tasmania or the National Handfish Recovery Team. "We do get the occasional email from the public about seeing one. Senior curator at the museum David Hocking said the largely intact specimen was a rare example of an adult spotted handfish in the state collection. It now offers present and future opportunities for research on the species. "These sorts of specimens are really valuable because they give us a record of the species at a moment in time," Dr Hocking said. "It means that researchers in the future can keep coming back to these specimens to look at them to see how the population genetics might change over time." Dr Hocking said there had been much speculation about how the handfish came to be on Victoria Street, but agreed with Ms Devine about what might have happened. "It possibly washed up on a beach … [and] was probably picked up by a seabird, flown over, and dropped in town," he said. He encouraged the public to contact appropriate organisations if any "rare" or "unusual" animal specimens were found, but warned against touching birds because of avian influenza. "Get in touch and someone can go and investigate it," Dr Hocking said.
Telegraph
18 hours ago
- Science
- Telegraph
Creatures found living off gas in Pacific Ocean's deepest trenches
A strange menagerie of creatures living off methane have been found in the darkest depths of the Pacific Ocean. Spiky white worms and tiny marine snails were filmed picking their way through swaying fields of tube-worms, more than five miles from the surface. Chinese explorers who visited the area by submarine also found huge beds of clams and large patches of white, snow-like microbial mats. The waving carpets of worms looked so much like countryside meadows that scientists labelled them 'Cotton Field' and 'Wintersweet Valley', while the blanched microbial mats were dubbed 'Icy River'. The creatures are all the more remarkable because they live in complete darkness along major fault-lines where two tectonic plates meet, surviving on hydrogen sulfide and methane produced by seismic activity. The Kuril–Kamchatka Trench, formed by the Pacific Plate moving beneath the Okhotsk Plate, was the site of this week's earthquake which sent tsunami waves crashing onto the shores of the US and Japan. It is not known how the newly-discovered creatures have been impacted by the earthquake. The new expedition covered more than 1,500 miles, exploring the trench at depths ranging from 3.6 miles to 5.9 miles beneath the surface. It was led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering who said finding a 'flourishing' community in such a hostile environment made it likely similar ecosystems were thriving in other harsh environments. The team says it now wants to find out how life manages to survive in the high pressure environments of hadal trenches – the very deep fissures at the bottom of oceans. It has collected a number of samples to study in the lab. Co-lead author on the study, Xiatong Peng, from China's Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Science, said: 'Hadal trenches, some of the Earth's least explored and understood environments have long been proposed to harbour chemosynthesis-based communities. 'Yet, despite increasing attention, actual documentation of such communities has been exceptionally rare.' 'Here we report the discovery of the deepest and the most extensive chemosynthesis-based communities known to exist on Earth. 'Given geological similarities with other hadal trenches, such chemosynthesis-based communities might be more widespread than previously anticipated.' Creatures that exist in such inhospitable locations are known as 'extremophiles' and they were first discovered living in hydrothermal vents in the 1980s. Trawls from the region had pulled up chemical-eating worms, but it is the first time that such a diverse and thriving living community has been found living at such depths. The communities are dominated by marine tube-worms called siboglinid polychaetes and molluscs called bivalves, which synthesise their energy using hydrogen sulfide and methane seeping out of faults in the tectonic plate. Further analysis suggests that the methane seeping out of the cracks is made by microbial processes in organic matter found in sediments. The images were taken by the manned submersible equipped with a high-definition camera system. The research was published in the journal Nature.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Science
- Yahoo
'Communities' of strange, extreme life seen for first time in deep ocean
Beds of clams, mats of bacteria that look like ice and fields of tube worms - these are just some examples of the strange, extreme life that an expedition to the deepest parts of the ocean has observed, filmed and photographed. Diving in a human-occupied submersible to ocean trenches in the northwest Pacific Ocean, a Chinese-led research team captured pictures of life at depths of more than 9km (5.6miles). The deepest marine life filmed before this expedition was at 8,336m - a snailfish that was filmed swimming in a deep ocean trench off the coast of Japan in 2023. These new observations are published in the journal Nature. Although it was accepted among marine scientists that there would be life at these depths, scientists on this mission say the abundance of animals they saw from the windows of their submersible was "amazing". The scientific expedition covered more than 2,500km - exploring trenches at depths ranging from 5,800 to 9,533m. Researchers travelled in a submersible vehicle called Fendouzhe, which can operate at depths of more than 10km for several hours at a time. The team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering, discovered what they describe as "thriving communities" of creatures. "It's exciting - especially for a deep sea scientist - to go to a place that human beings have not explored," one of the lead researchers, Dr Xiaotong Peng, told BBC News. "It's a great opportunity to discover new things. And what we saw was quite amazing." Scientists photographed and filmed what looked like fields of marine life - dominated by various different types of tube worm and mollusc. These animals live in the pitch dark and under vast pressure. With no sunlight, life at these depths is fuelled by chemicals that seep out of the ocean floor. Hydrogen sulfide and methane seep out of faults - or cracks - in the Earth's crust. The scientists say they have recorded species never seen before. In future studies, they hope to work out how the bodies of these so called "chemosynthetic" or chemical-fuelled creatures convert these chemicals into energy. "They must [also] have a trick to adapt to life in super high pressure," added Dr Megran Du, also from China's Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering. "That's another question we need to answer." The findings challenge "long-standing assumptions" about life's potential at such extreme depths and pressures. They also suggest that these communities of animals, rather than extreme rarities, are actually widespread. Prof Andrew Sweetman, a senior scientist from the Scottish Association for marine science told BBC News that the discovery showed that whole "ecosystems driven by methane may exist in the deepest parts of the ocean". And how did it feel, for a scientist, to descend to such extreme, pitch-black depths? Dr Du told BBC News: "Some people might find it frightening, but I always encourage my students - look through the window at the bottom of the sea," she said. "You will be inspired." Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
a day ago
- Science
- The Guardian
Thousands of giant cuttlefish under threat from South Australia's toxic algal bloom
Thousands of giant cuttlefish gather in South Australia's Spencer gulf amid fears the state's toxic algal bloom could prove catastrophic for the globally unique species. These rare cuttlefish are genetically distinct from any other population the world and only gather once a year to breed in the same small area off the coast of Whyalla. Scientists fear the ongoing toxic algal bloom, which has already decimated marine life in other parts of the gulf, could pose a significant threat to the cuttlefish population.
BBC News
a day ago
- Science
- BBC News
'Communities' of strange, extreme life seen for first time in deep ocean
Beds of clams, mats of bacteria that look like ice and fields of tube worms - these are just some examples of the strange, extreme life that an expedition to the deepest parts of the ocean has observed, filmed and in a human-occupied submersible to ocean trenches in the northwest Pacific Ocean, a Chinese-led research team captured pictures of life at depths of more than 9km (5.6miles).The deepest marine life filmed before this expedition was at 8,336m - a snailfish that was filmed swimming in a deep ocean trench off the coast of Japan in new observations are published in the journal Nature. Although it was accepted among marine scientists that there would be life at these depths, scientists on this mission say the abundance of animals they saw from the windows of their submersible was "amazing".The scientific expedition covered more than 2,500km - exploring trenches at depths ranging from 5,800 to 9, travelled in a submersible vehicle called Fendouzhe, which can operate at depths of more than 10km for several hours at a team, led by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering, discovered what they describe as "thriving communities" of creatures. "It's exciting - especially for a deep sea scientist - to go to a place that human beings have not explored," one of the lead researchers, Dr Xiaotong Peng, told BBC News. "It's a great opportunity to discover new things. And what we saw was quite amazing."Scientists photographed and filmed what looked like fields of marine life - dominated by various different types of tube worm and mollusc. These animals live in the pitch dark and under vast no sunlight, life at these depths is fuelled by chemicals that seep out of the ocean floor. Hydrogen sulfide and methane seep out of faults - or cracks - in the Earth's scientists say they have recorded species never seen before. In future studies, they hope to work out how the bodies of these so called "chemosynthetic" or chemical-fuelled creatures convert these chemicals into energy."They must [also] have a trick to adapt to life in super high pressure," added Dr Megran Du, also from China's Institute of Deep Sea Science and Engineering. "That's another question we need to answer." The findings challenge "long-standing assumptions" about life's potential at such extreme depths and pressures. They also suggest that these communities of animals, rather than extreme rarities, are actually Andrew Sweetman, a senior scientist from the Scottish Association for marine science told BBC News that the discovery showed that whole "ecosystems driven by methane may exist in the deepest parts of the ocean".And how did it feel, for a scientist, to descend to such extreme, pitch-black depths?Dr Du told BBC News: "Some people might find it frightening, but I always encourage my students - look through the window at the bottom of the sea," she said. "You will be inspired."
