Barreleye - The Pacific Transparent Fish

The head seems a fighter-plane cockpit

Its highly sensitive eyes are included in its transparent head shield, working the two green spheres as lenses of its tubular eyes.

Above the mouth, the two dark capsules that appear to be eyes, actually contain the fish’s olfactory organs, or the equivalent of nostrils.

The fish, discovered alive in the deep water off California's central coast by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, is the first specimen of its kind to be found with its soft transparent dome intact. The 15 cm Barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) had been known since 1939, but only from mangled specimens dragged to the surface by nets.

Ocean's of Truth

Plankton - Life under a Microscope

I found on You Tube an interesting movie about one of the tiniest living forms on earth. Even so, these living creatures, which are drifting animals organisms, feed great predators and inhabit the pelagic zone of oceans, seas or bodies of fresh water.

Plankton includes organisms with a wide range of sizes, from microscopic to jellyfish forms.

The effects of global warming, on the plankton population, has been a case study for the past decade. Dependent on light levels and nutrient availability, no doubt that the environmental variations felt lately had its impact on these fragile organisms levels.

El Nino's heat wave, for instance, produced an abnormal decreased of world level plankton  influencing populations of zoo plankton, fishes, sea birds and marine mammals.

Steve De Neef - 2011 Under Sea

Highlights of 2011 from Steve De Neef on Vimeo.

Free Among the Sea

A nice week to everyone!

The Blind Mexican Cave Fish

This is the blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) along with its sighted cousin the Mexican tetra. 
Credit: Professor Richard Borowsky

 

The blind Mexican cavefish (Astyanax mexicanus) have not only lost their sight but have adapted to perpetual darkness by also losing their pigment (albinism) and having altered sleep patterns. New research published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology shows that the cavefish are an example of convergent evolution, with several populations repeatedly, and independently, losing their sight and pigmentation.

The blind cavefish and the surface dwelling Mexican tetra, despite appearances, are the same species and can interbreed. The cavefish are simply a variant of the Mexican tetra, albeit one adapted to living in complete darkness. A team of researchers from Portugal, America, and Mexico studied the DNA from 11 populations of cavefish (from three geographic regions) and 10 populations of their surface dwelling cousins to help understand the evolutionary origin of the physical differences between them.
While results from the genotyping showed that the surface populations were genetically very similar, the story for the cave populations was very different. 

 

The cave forms had a much lower genetic diversity, probably as a result of limited space and food. Not surprisingly the cave populations with the most influx from the surface had the highest diversity. In fact there seemed to be a great deal of migration in both directions.

It has been thought that historically at least two groups of fish lived in the rivers of Sierra de El Abra, Mexico. One group originally colonized the caves, but became extinct on the surface. A different population then restocked the rivers and also invaded the caves. more here

Carbon dioxide is afecting fish brains

 In this photo, fish are seen swimming over coral in Indonesia's Wakatobi archipelago. Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish, with serious consequences for their survival, according to new research.

New studies have proved that the constantly emition of human carbon dioxide may be affecting the brains and central nervous systems of sea fish.

According to scientists, these brain damages, have serious consequences for their survival, according to new research. The issue is now under meticulous studies from here.