Tribute to Steve Irwin, a guy who genuinely loved nature and animals.
This man was beyond real
“Crocodiles are easy. They try to kill and eat you. People are harder. Sometimes they pretend to be your friend first.” – Steve Irwin (r.i.p.)
okay but that snake bit him right in the neck and he didnt even flinch
thats how you know he’s australian….
Funny joke aside, he also knew that the snake he was handling was not venomous, it was only biting him to show it was not happy with the situation it was put in. If it was venomous, he wouldnt have had it that close to himself
“If we can teach people about wildlife, they will be touched. Share my wildlife with me. Because humans want to save things that they love.”
To deep-sea explorers, liquidspace is the final frontier, full of the weird and wonderful.
Lonny Lundsten, senior research technician at the Monterey
Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), is no exception.
He was part of a team that published research about and
produced a video of an unusual species of “ghost shark” in deep-sea habitat off
California’s central coast—the first time the species (the pointy-nosed blue
chimaera, Hydrolagus trolli) has ever
been seen alive.
This animal’s unusual features probably fascinate us for the
same reasons they fascinate Lonny. Its lateral line system makes it look stitched
together, a little like Frankenstein’s monster. Lonny says these visible lines allow
the chimaera to sense vibrations or movements in the water and likely help it find
prey.
One of the male’s copulatory organs is actually located on
its head. Lonny says it’s thought to be used to grasp and hold a female during
copulation. Other striking features include bony tooth plates; a long, slender,
pointed tail; large eyes; and large pectoral fins.
Lonny says exploring the deep sea proves the adage that
truth is stranger than fiction.
“The things I see are so remarkable and startling that I
don’t need to imagine what might be in the deep sea,” he says. “Carnivorous
sponges are my current specialty. They are such a bizarre animal…amazing and
utterly surprising!”
Exploring the deep sea is MBARI’s specialty, and its
scientists have an impressive suite of technological tools at their disposal, especially a remotely operated vehicle that can descend into the ocean’s depths. Lonny conducts a lot of his research watching HD video footage of animals and
habitats as filmed by the ROV.
“MBARI is using state-of-the-art technology to push into the
deep sea, down to 4,000 meters. This is an environment that is largely
unexplored and certainly hasn’t been filmed using high-definition video
cameras,” he says. “We use specialized lighting systems and HD cameras that can
resolve details down to about a millimeter in size…we can observe animal
behavior, and we can see what the habitat looks like where they’re found.”
Lonny reminds us that exploring the deep sea 100 years ago
was mostly done by “dragging a net through the water column or along the
seafloor, basically taking a big scoop of whatever was there” and working with
the pieces—often literally.
“In many cases scientists had fragments of animals, animals
that had been damaged or destroyed, with colors that no longer represented how
they appear in life,” he says. “Now we see these animals in their own
environment, we can see their habitat, their abundance, and the other organisms
that live near them. We make stunning video observations and then we can carefully
collect them so they are undamaged.”
Lonny says he’s grateful that his job has made his
dreams come true of discovering new species and exploring new habitats.
“The coolest thing is that I get a sense of what it must
have felt like for early explorers in human history to go places nobody’s ever
been and to see things that nobody’s ever seen before,” he says. “It’s truly
exciting and rewards me with a feeling of awe and wonder for the natural
world.”
Need more ghost shark in your life? Watch the full video! ⬇
This story is excerpted from the summer 2017 issue of our member
magazine, Shorelines. Become an Aquarium
member and you’ll receive many benefits—unlimited admission; discounts on tours,
sleepovers and merchandise; special night events and more—including exclusive
notification of when new issues of Shorelines
are available online!
I had a biology teacher that told us this story about an octopus at an aquarium in Australia. The staff were concerned because their population of crustaceans kept disappearing. No bodies or anything. So they checked the video feed to find out what’s up.
Across from the the crustacean tank was a small octopus tank. This little fucker squeezed out of a tiny hole at the top of his tank, walk across the hall, and get into the crustacean tank. He would then hunt and eat. After he was done, he crawled back out and get back in his tank
Here’s the kicker: security guards patrolled the area. The staff realized that the octopus had memorized the security’s routine. It would escape and be back between the guards’ round.
My friend who worked at Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha, Nebraska had a similar story. Rare fish were disappearing, they suspected theft, and so set up a camera. An octopus was unlocking the top of its tank, walking across the suspended walkway, unlocking the other tank, eating his fill, re-locking the other tank, then re-locking its own tank.
I can’t remember what zoo this happened at, but there was another octopus somewhere who was unscrewing a water valve in the room where its tank was located and routinely flooding the place. The staffers had no idea what it was until they filmed the octopus caught in the act.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN!! But, sir, it has already released itself!
My dad worked in a lab and one of the rooms had a tank with an octopus in it. If they didn’t go play with the octopus he got bored and would climb out of his tank and steal the paperwork off the desks, and drag stuff into his tank to let the scientists know he was upset with them.
In a simple experiment, researchers at the University of Chicago sought to find out whether a rat would release a fellow rat from an unpleasantly restrictive cage if it could. The answer was yes.
The free rat, occasionally hearing distress calls from its compatriot, learned to open the cage and did so with greater efficiency over time. It would release the other animal even if there wasn’t the payoff of a reunion with it. Astonishingly, if given access to a small hoard of chocolate chips, the free rat would usually save at least one treat for the captive — which is a lot to expect of a rat.
The researchers came to the unavoidable conclusion that what they were seeing was empathy — and apparently selfless behavior driven by that mental state.
I love them so much because they’re about as sharp as a baseball and their anatomy is ridiculous to the point of them literally being classified as plankton for years because they just sort of get blown around by the ocean and look confused, but because they lay more eggs than ANY OTHER VERTEBRATE IN EXISTENCE, evolution can’t stop them
Why is no big predator coming and gnawing on them?
Their biggest defense is that they’re massive and have super tough skin, but they do get hunted by sharks or sea lions sometimes and they just sort of float there like ‘oh bother’ as it happens
Even funnier, because they eat nothing but jellyfish they’re really low in nutritional value anyway, so they basically survive by being not worth eating because they’re like a big floating rice cracker wrapped in leather.
Perfect example of “survival of the fittest” NOT meaning being some hyper aggressive, muscular manly asshole. This creature fell upon the complete opposite combination of traits and just rolled with it and evolution was like “well, it’s working, somehow".
My cat brought us a present today. I have never seen a rabbit SO angry.
****He was set free 10 minutes after being caught, photographed, and driven to a nearby field 🙂
“Fuckin cat thinks I’m a fuckin chew toy. Fuckin humans puttin me in a fuckin box with a fuckin carrot like its gonna make this WHOLE SITUATION SO MUCH FUCKIN BETTER! DO I LOOK LIKE BUGS BUNNY TO YOU, FUCKER?!?”
Customer (calling from Ireland): “Yes hello, I would like to -”
Sheep in the background: *gentle baa*
Customer: “Uh, sorry, what I want to do is -”
Sheep: *slightly more insistent baa*
Customer: “No, not now! -cough- Excuse me. I have a reservation and -”
Sheep: *VERY LOUD ACCUSATORY BAA*
Customer:“Arnulf! Please be quiet, I am on the phone! … Sorry, I sincerely apologize on behalf of Arnulf.”
me: “I love and forgive him.”
Customer: “Don’t, he doesn’t deserve it. Anyway, I’m calling about -”
Arnulf: *small, very self-satisfied baa*
I once took my kids to a local farm and we found a lil goat with its horns stuck in a fence, just sitting there kinda mournfully on the grass. We tried to help it get free but it was stuck tight. We petted it for a while and fed it some grass (as it had lawnmowered a circle around itself as far as it could reach), and then went back to the ticket office to tell them it needed help, but before I’d said more than: “There’s a goat-” the guy cut me off with a weary wave and said, “Yeah, we know. Stuck in the fence. That’s Brenda. She can get herself out whenever she wants. She just likes the attention.”
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