This short, silent video shares a few behind-the-scenes moments from the ”fish tornado” photograph, titled David and Goliath, taken in Cabo Pulmo, Baja California Sur, Mexico by photographer Octavio Aburto.
“As people have seen this image, I have been getting a lot of messages in my inbox and phone calls asking me “is this photo real?” And “how did you congregate all these fish in one place to take the photo?”
“My response to these questions has been this — of course it is real. Fish, as is the case with many other animals, have certain behaviors that they perform when they reproduce. For example, when monarch butterflies mate they travel hundreds of thousands of kilometers, crossing from Canada down through Mexico to form unbelievable congregations. Sea turtles also have unique reproduction behavior —some travel the entire Pacific just to return to the beaches where they originally hatched. Birds fly hundreds of kilometers to certain areas to nest as well. These behaviors are well known within terrestrial animals and within the scientific community we have also known of these behaviors with fish and other marine creatures for many years. In Cabo Pulmo for example, blacktip reef sharks and mobula rays also congregate in large numbers to mate during the winter season.
“Even after I explain this unique behavior and the spectacular spawning aggregations of fish that occur naturally, some people don’t believe this image is real.
“In some ways I think this photo, and others like it, force people to think about the environment and more specifically in this case the ocean, dwindling fish populations the health of marine ecosystems worldwide and our role in it all.”
via EarthSky.org.
‘Tis the season for scary creatures with toothy grins. From the team at MBARI, deep-sea fish with some serious teeth!
Listed in the order they appear: Aristostomias scintillans (Shiny loosejaw), Anoplogaster cornuta (Fangtooth), Tactostoma macropus (Longfin dragonfish), Chaenophryne, Chauliodus macouni (Viperfish), Tactostoma macropus (Longfin dragonfish), Chauliodus macouni (Viperfish), Tactostoma macropus (Longfin dragonfish).
via It’s Okay to Be Smart.
Underwater footage shot whilst scuba diving in the Fiji islands and Tonga. Featuring colorful coral reefs, huge schools of tropical fish, sharks, humpback whales, underwater caves, scuba divers and much more marine life from the south Pacific.
Bonus: click the CC button for closed captions on this video from Bubble Vision, or enjoy the convenient list that they put together in the video description, (click Show More below the vid) for labeled names of the dive sites and marine life in each shot.
Thanks, @MollyWesterman.
Ben Sproul was standing on a shallow sandbar offshore near Kill Devil Hills, NC when a huge school of Jumping Mullet raced by. He managed to catch the short, exciting moment on video.
And why are they jumping? They could be avoiding predators, but there are a few theories (and old answers) as to why and one includes their need to absorb more oxygen. From australianmuseum.net.au:
The research of Hoese (1985) suggests that Sea Mullet use this second category of movements to fill the pharyngobranchial organ (an area at the back of the throat) with air.
The trapped air is believed to allow the fish to remain active in water of low oxygen concentration for about five minutes.
Several interesting lines of evidence support this theory. The number of jumps is correlated with the concentration of oxygen in the water. The less oxygen, the more jumps.
Secondly, Sea Mullet feed during the day often in bottom sediments that have low oxygen concentrations. Jumping occurs much more commonly during the day. Sea Mullet rarely jump at night.
via Science Dump.
