marine life Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Favorite World Press

The FWP weekly digest of wondrous wildlife happenings
and other interesting items from the natural world

Creatures to meet | Things to learn
Things to do

Lisa S. French

1-minute read

Just when we thought we’d discovered every wild and wondrous creature that occupies Australian waters, another unique specimen drifts out of the seagrass and onto our radar. Despite its moniker, the leafy seadragon (Phycodurus eques) is no moat-dwelling flame thrower. In fact, it’s not a dragon at all, or even a reptile, but a uniquely beautiful species of fish with frond-like appendages that extend from rings of bony armor encircling its body.

The leafy seadragon’s fishy foliage serves as camouflage that helps the marine animal hide from both predators and prey in the reefs of its southwestern coastal habitat. While the seadragon may have a delicate appearance, don’t let those frills fool you. The voracious carnivore is a crustacean ambush artist, using the suction power of its tubular snout to capture vast quantities of tiny mysid shrimp.

The fish species most likely to be mistaken for underwater escarole has another highly distinctive characteristic: male leafy seadragons pitch in with pregnancy in a big way—they carry and brood eggs. Female seadragons transfer up to 250 eggs to their mate for eight weeks of safe-keeping until they hatch. Some scientists believe that females pass off eggs to papa to hide soon-to-be seadragons from predators—crafty!

Until recently, there were only two known species of seadragons, the leafy and the common (Phyllopteryx taeniolatus). In 2015, for the first time in 150 years, a new seadragon was discovered in waters off the coast of Western Australia, Phyllopteryx dewysea, a.k.a. the Ruby Seadragon. The brilliantly colored, crimson fish is not quite as elegant as its leafy cousin, but it’s splendid just the same.

Researchers think that we’ve only identified 1.6 million species out of an estimated 8.7 million globally. Now that we’re plus one fancy red seadragon, there are 7,099,999 species to go, give or take. That’s a lot of living things to factor into the healthy functioning of our planet. We’d better get busy!

If you’d like to read a lyrical ode to one of the world’s most ornate ocean dwellers, you can get free access to Miho Nonaka’s poem The Leafy Seadragon, through JSTOR.

And if you want to learn more about some of Australia’s most extraordinary animals, we invite you to explore WW’s wildlife down under.

…

Lisa S. French August 7, 2021

Fishy Antifreeze

1-minute read

It’s officially summer in the northern hemisphere. With record-breaking high temperatures already being recorded in the U.S., Canada, parts of Europe, and the Arctic, it looks like 2021 is going to be another climate change-intensified scorcher.

If you’re in need of a way to keep cool—really cool—how about a little cold water swimming? And what could be more refreshingly chilling than a dip in a polar sea? Well, as tempting as that may seem when the thermometer reads 116°F, unlike polar fishes, we gill-free types are just not equipped to last long in cold water. So what do our piscine pals have that we don’t to help them survive frigid marine temperatures? Bodies fortified with antifreeze.

To manage the challenges of a life lived in icy seas, Arctic and Antarctic fish species that aren’t able to migrate to warmer waters evolved with antifreeze proteins in their blood and body tissues. These protective proteins lower the freezing point of polar fishes to below water temperature. When they come into contact with ice crystals either on their skin or gills or through eating or drinking, the antifreeze binds to the ice to prevent the scaly swimmers from turning into fish-icles. Now, how cool is that?

If you’d like to learn more about which animals have adapted to life in the coldest environment on the planet, the New Zealand government has created a splendidly informative poster of the wildlife occupying the world’s largest marine protected area in Antarctica’s Ross Sea.

And if you’re keen to swim with fishes of the non-polar variety this summer, courtesy of The Guardian, scientist Heather Massey has some tips on how to avoid hypothermia while paddling in open waters.

Fishy business aside, just a reminder that extreme heat, like extreme cold, can be life-threatening. If you’re suffering through triple-digit temperatures and can’t make it to a pool or the beach, Google the location of your nearest cooling center and head on over. For tips on how to manage a heat wave without air conditioning, check out this list from MedicineNet. Keep cool. Stay safe.

…

Lisa S. French June 29, 2021

The Prophecy of the Manatee

2.5-minute read

What does the manatee, Florida’s beloved native marine mammal, have to teach us about the importance of maintaining healthy coastal ecosystems? As recent environmental events indicate, quite a lot. A keystone species, the gentle, slow-moving occupants of the Sunshine State’s rivers, marshes, and lagoons are sensitive to environmental stressors that impact the normal functioning of their underwater world. Although manatees have few natural enemies, harmful changes in water quality have become a matter of life and death for the iconic animals—alerting us to the fragility of marine ecosystems.

Manatees, a.k.a sea cows, need two things to stay comfortably in the swim: access to warm water (at least 68°F) and a whole lot of vegetation to eat. The 1,000-pound animals can consume up to 10% of their body weight a day in plant matter, primarily seagrass. Because manatees don’t have blubber to keep them warm like whales and dolphins, the colder the water, the more calories they need to survive. The seagrass that manatees depend on for the bulk of their diet, in turn, depends on sunlight for photosynthesis.

As reported in Science, 761 manatees wintering in one Florida lagoon died of starvation in 2021 due to a shortage of seagrass. Because massive algal blooms resulting from excess nitrogen and phosphorous in the water prevented sunlight from reaching carbon-storing seagrass beds, the plants that support manatees, as well as sea turtles, fish, crustaceans, and mollusks, failed to reproduce. Although Florida manatee numbers have doubled from 3300 in 2001 to close to 7000 in 2021 thanks to protective legislation, last winter’s die-off represents a gut-wrenching 10% loss of the marine mammal’s population.

In addition to struggling to survive the algal blooms that diminish life-supporting seagrass, manatees, and other marine life, are facing the environmental effects of toxic red tides that are increasing in size and duration due to rising ocean temperatures. Between 2017 and 2018, an estimated 200 manatees died from ingesting and inhaling the neurotoxic algae from a year-long red tide event.

Despite the manatee’s status as a protected species, as with many living creatures, its capacity to adapt to adverse environmental and climate impacts is limited. The fate of the manatee and other marine animals rests on protecting and restoring life-supporting habitat. Changes to the population and well-being of the silent marine sentinels speak volumes about the health of coastal ecosystems and marine biologists and conservationists are paying close attention. They’re developing strategies to provide manatees with adequate food supplies and warm-water sanctuaries when temperatures drop and promoting policies that will help to improve water quality year-round in a rapidly warming world.

To find out how you can become a citizen scientist and help make coastal ecosystems user-friendly for the magnificent manatee and other aquatic creatures, check out this fact-sheet from the University of Florida, which includes tips on how to reduce nutrient runoff and the next right thing to do if you come across a manatee in distress.

Wherever you are in the world, if you’re looking for another great reason to head to the beach, the Ocean Conservancy has more bright ideas on how to participate in the global mission to combat water pollution by starting a local trash cleanup. And for ten simple ways to help power the pristine by reducing your plastic footprint stop by the World Wildlife Fund. Planet tidying—good for water, good for people, good for wildlife.

…

Lisa S. French June 17, 2021

Why the Big Brain, Octopus?

2.5-minute read

The world was a vastly different place when we posted our first entry dedicated to the beauty, mystery, and magic of nature in December of 2018. We can’t be sure what challenges lie ahead post-pandemic, but as long as the planet keeps going, so do we. And like Earth, we rely on a little help from our friends, so thank you very much for reading! We’re celebrating our 100th blog post with a title tweak from Weekly Wondrous to Wild & Wondrous, some insight on the intelligence of the octopus—and a mountain of cake. We hope you’ll join us!

Coming out of your shell has its benefits. For example, you might become smarter and grow lots of limbs—if you’re an octopus, that is. When the marine mollusk shed its shell about 530 million years ago, it got two anatomical upgrades: super flexible arms, and a bigger brain to coordinate them. While the octopus may resemble a vacuum bag with adjustable attachments, there is more to the weirdly wonderful animal than meets the eye. It has evolved to become one of our oceans’ most clever occupants.

High intelligence typically occurs in long-lived species like elephants, apes, whales, and dolphins that have to manage interdependent social bonds. Although octopuses only live about two years, are usually loners, and don’t nurture their young, the invertebrates developed a very sophisticated nervous system that rivals vertebrates in size and complexity.

So, why the big brain? Researchers at the University of Cambridge believe that once the octopus emerged from its protective housing, the increase in intelligence and growth of flexible limbs enabled the shell-less mollusk to survive in a much wider range of environments. The 300 species of octopus have adapted to diverse marine habitats all around the world. Plus, the vulnerable, soft-bodied animals needed more developed sea-smarts to protect themselves from predators.

Just how smart are they? Problem solving and tool use are two hallmarks of advanced cognitive abilities in animals, and octopuses are able to do both, which means they’re pretty darn clever. Octopuses use stones and shells as armor against sharks and to block the entrance of their dens. When hiding places are hard to come by, they haul around coconut shells to use as makeshift mobile homes. And if they are caught between a den and a coconut shell, to discourage attacks, octopuses can change their skin color to mimic advancing predators. The masters of multi-tasking are also skilled at finding and extracting food from hard-to-reach places. Not only do they use their big brains to figure out how to pry open clams, mussels, and oysters, they can fetch food from a maze, open boxes, and remove lids from jars.

If you’re wondering if all octopus limbs are created equal, each of the eight arms can bend, lengthen, shorten, and turn clockwise and counter-clockwise in all directions. Scientists at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory observing ten wild-caught octopuses have recorded 16,563 arm movements in 120 minutes of video. Top that!

Similar to an elephant’s trunk, the octopus’ exceptionally flexible arms are primarily made of muscle and connective tissue and rely on internal pressure to create movement. Although they have a wide variety to choose from, octopuses prefer to use specific arms for specific tasks, like rear arms for walking versus front arms for exploring, and some are lefties and some are righties.

It’s obvious that the octopus is not your run-of-the-mill mollusk. Aiming to pass on the sea creature’s big brain benefits to humanity, scientists and engineers are continuing to study its cognitive ability and complex arm movements to help develop bio-inspired soft robots for use in medicine and industry. All we can say to that is, we’re glad you came out of your shell, octopus!

If you’re also feeling inspired by the marine animal’s amazing maneuverings, you can download giant Pacific octopus wallpaper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium for your daily viewing pleasure.

…

Lisa S. French February 21, 2021

Welcome Little Big Whales

1.5-minute read

In the how-about-some-hopeful-news category, two baby bright spots have appeared in the Atlantic Ocean, helping to dispel a bit of the 2020 gloom. As recently reported by CNN, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has announced dual special deliveries. North Atlantic right whales, 13-year-old Chiminea, and 16-year-old Millipede have successfully given birth and been observed swimming alongside their newborn calves off of the coasts of Georgia and Florida.

At a time when the small remaining population of fewer than 400 North Atlantic right whales is struggling to survive, these two youngsters are very welcome additions to their pod. According to an April 2020 study from universities in Denmark and Australia, the critically endangered species has been declining at a rate of about 1% a year. The two biggest threats to the rare animals are ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear. In one year alone, between November 2016 and November 2017, 17 juvenile and adult whales died from strikes and entanglements. More than 83% of North Atlantic right whales carry scars from getting caught in fishing gear.

Scientists aiming to come up with strategies to keep northern right whales safely in the swim have been analyzing how their health and environmental conditions compare to those of the growing populations of tens of thousands of Southern right whales (pictured above) in Argentina, Australia, and New Zealand.

Although right whales can grow up to 50 feet long and weigh up to 140,000 pounds, North Atlantic right whales are significantly smaller, have less blubber, and are in poorer overall condition compared to southern whales. Researchers believe that the reduced body size is negatively impacting resilience and female whales’ ability to support their calves. Northern right whales only give birth every seven years, while southern whales reproduce about every three years. Not a single northern whale was born between 2017 and 2018.

The primary difference between the two populations is the location. Southern right whales live in remote environments while their northern relatives occupy heavily developed coastal areas with some of the world’s busiest and noisiest shipping lanes. As oceans warm due to climate change, North Atlantic right whales follow their food supplies into cooler waters and higher traffic areas leading to strikes. In light of the daily challenges to the animals’ existence, the birth of two healthy calves is all the more remarkable. Well done, ladies!

It’s clear that North Atlantic right whales are going to need additional support to increase their chances for survival. You can learn more about the ongoing efforts to keep one of the planet’s largest mammals out of harm’s way from the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium.

…

Lisa S. French December 15, 2020

The Platypus: You Could Even Say It Glows

1.5-minute read

As quirky creatures go, the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is a pretty tough act to follow. The web-footed, duck-billed, paddle-tailed, venom-producing water dweller is one of only five egg-laying mammals on Earth. Although the ancient, semi-aquatic oddity has been paddling around the streams, lakes, and lagoons of eastern Australia for around 110 million years, researchers have only recently discovered another unusual platypus-ian trait—biofluorescence. Platypus fur contains special proteins that absorb sunlight and re-emit it as a blue-green glow under ultraviolet (UV) light.

Why the need for built-in brightness? Because the platypus is primarily active at night, scientists believe its biofluorescence could be an adaptation to the murky, low-light underwater world it inhabits. By absorbing rather than reflecting UV light, the fluorescent fur of the platypus may help keep it hidden from the prying eyes of predators with UV sensitive vision. Navigating in stealth mode could be especially important to the animal’s survival, given that it closes its eyes and ears underwater and can’t see or hear when trouble is headed its way.

While St. Nick’s reindeer could probably do with a break, it looks like he won’t be hitching a submersible sleigh to a team of platypuses anytime soon. Unlike Rudolph’s blinking, bright-red nose, the nocturnal animal’s blue-green fluorescence isn’t visible to the naked human eye.

You may also be interested to learn that the platypus doesn’t glow it alone. Fluorescent substances that emit light in shades of yellow, green, red, blue, and pink have also been found in the bones, fur, and skin of birds, reptiles, amphibians, and other night critters, including the flying squirrel, which glows hot pink and the water opossum, which glows purple.

Blue platypuses, pink flying squirrels, and purple opossums! We might have to spring for a UV flashlight!

…

Lisa S. French December 7, 2020

Keeping High-Tech Tabs on Endangered Sea Turtles

2-minute read

These are tough times for sea turtles. For over 100 million years, the armored reptiles (Chelonians) have peacefully paddled the Earth’s oceans, but due to overharvesting, loss of nesting habitat, and chronic egg collecting and trafficking, six out of seven species are currently listed as threatened or endangered.

In addition to being valued for their obvious sea creature charisma, turtles play a vital role in the health of undersea ecosystems, helping to bolster coastal economies around the world. Because demand for turtle products is at an all-time high, the marine megafauna is at extreme risk of becoming extinct in the wild, and conservationists are racing to develop advanced tracking systems to help keep closer tabs on eggs, turtles—and traffickers.

Satellite monitoring of sea turtles in aid of conservation began 25 years ago. With advancements in the miniaturization of tracking tags and improvements in bandwidth, transmission, and data analysis, GPS technology has come of age, and scientists can monitor all seven species in oceans globally. A small tracking device, easily attached to a turtle’s shell, can capture information about the animal and its environment, including how it navigates the oceans, where it feeds and nests, how many clutches of eggs it lays, down to the granular level of describing flipper beats and daily dives. Changes in signal speed or movement can also indicate that a turtle has been fished or captured and taken ashore.

Pinpointing the location of adult turtles and nesting sites is a fundamental aspect of conservation. Protecting sea turtle eggs from the devastating impacts of poachers is also essential to the species’ long term survival. To help ensure the tiny reptiles get the chance to crack out of their shells and trundle to the sea, the ingenious scientists at Paso Pacifico have taken egg monitoring to the next level with the creation of InvestEGGator. Designed to document the movement of illegally harvested sea turtle eggs, the 3-D printed wildlife tracker employs web-based smart-phone applications to covertly trace poachers. The plastic devices replicate olive ridley turtle eggs in size, shape, texture, and weight and can be hidden in turtle nests and remotely monitored in real-time to deter poachers and reduce illegal trade. Turtley egg-citing!

Whether olive ridley, Kemp’s ridley, leatherback, or hawksbill, sea turtles need safe operating space to survive on land and in our oceans. By mapping and monitoring adults, eggs, and nesting sites, working with local communities to promote conservation, and strengthening enforcement of anti-poaching laws, conservationists aim to keep sea turtles right where they belong—paddling around the big deep blue. If you’d like to learn more about mission-critical efforts to save sea turtles from extinction, check out what’s happening at the World Wildlife Fund.

…

Lisa S. French October 19, 2020

A Fish with Tooth-Covered, Retractable Eyeballs? Meet the Whale Shark!

2-minute read

If you’ve been celebrating Shark Week by binging and cringing your way through Jaws 1-4, you’re probably thinking that the massive teeth of those fictional fish are pretty darn scary. Well, maybe not the teeth so much as their limb-chomping potential. Now imagine a real-life shark with close to 3,000 teeth in its five-foot-wide mouth and a couple of thousand more covering its eyeballs. Talk about the fear factor! Except the real-life shark with all of those teeth is the whale shark (Rhincodon typus), and despite being about the size of a big yellow school bus, the primarily plankton-eating fish is quite a gentle creature.

While sharks are a notoriously toothy bunch, scientists at the Okinawa Churashima Research Center studying optical adaptations in vertebrates recently discovered that the whale shark has tiny teeth where they didn’t expect to find them—around its iris. So why does the whale shark need eye armor? Unlike most vertebrates, the fish has no eyelids to protect its small, protruding peepers from underwater hazards. The oak leaf-shaped tooth-like projections, known as denticles, shield the shark’s eyes from abrasions as it travels the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans in search of the large quantities of food that it needs to survive.

As if that evolutionary adaptation weren’t freaky enough, the whale shark has another unusual eye protection mechanism to compensate for its lack of lids. If the situation calls for it, the whale shark can retract its eyeballs into its eye sockets. One eye retraction event observed by researchers was in response to camera strobes. It seems that despite being popular subjects for underwater photographers, whale sharks are no fans of the flash. Although a few other lidless species, including electric rays, guitarfish, and leopard frogs can also tuck in their eyeballs, the whale shark’s retractable, armored eye combo is fairly rare.

Sadly, like many shark species, the whale shark is threatened with extinction. The global numbers of the large, slow-moving fish have more than halved over the last 75 years as a result of overfishing, bycatch (see video), and propeller strikes. The whale shark is now listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as endangered. As recently reported in Science, sharks are now functionally extinct in the waters of eight countries.

Even though these dentally well-endowed creatures may look like they can handle whatever comes their way, sharks still need all of the support that they can get when it comes to protecting their habitat. You can learn more about these fascinating fish and what you can do to help keep them safely in the swim from Ocean Conservancy. And you can track migrating whale sharks in real-time via satellite courtesy of Conservation International.

…

Lisa S. French August 15, 2020

Conservation Takes Flight

2.5-minute read

With one in four species currently at risk of extinction, conservationists dedicated to maintaining the biodiversity of our big, beautiful planet are tackling an urgent to-do list—from monitoring whale health to conducting penguin counts, to planting a trillion trees. Over the last decade, scientists have added a hi-tech tool to their arsenal to help solve some of our most challenging environmental problems—the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), commonly known as the drone.

Thanks in part to rapid innovation in smartphone technologies like the miniaturization of cameras, GPS, and sensory devices, advances in the development of environmental drone applications are revolutionizing the mapping, monitoring, and recovery of the natural world. Customized drones rigged out with mission-specific gear like tracking systems, optical and thermal cameras, and seed dispersers are enabling the observation, protection, and restoration of flora and fauna in both wide-open and previously inaccessible places.

One promising new drone design developed by Macquarie University in Sydney, NSW, Australia, is helping biologists to safely assess the health of marine megafauna. Sidling up to a pod of migrating humpback whales to collect biological samples is tricky business. Now, researchers can get a snapshot of the cetaceans’ physical condition through UAV capture of whale blow without endangering the animals—or the humans. If you are wondering what in the world whale blow is, it’s the vapor that forms from warm air exhaled through the blowhole in the top of a whale’s head when it surfaces to breathe. Drones swoop in and hover over the humpbacks and collect the vapor in a remote-controlled petri dish for analysis of respiratory bacteria, lipids, hormones, and DNA. These custom-built mini sky-labs are helping researchers keep tabs on health changes of individual marine mammals resulting from increasing environmental stressors like climate change and water pollution.

Another breakthrough in planet-preserving drone technology from U.K.-based environmental services company Dendra Systems may seriously speed up the rate of global reforestation and ecosystem restoration. Using a combination of satellite images and drone-collected data to pinpoint locations for seed dispersal, Dendra aims to plant 500 billion trees by 2060. Customized “SKAI-Tractors” capable of firing seedpods into the ground at the rate of 120 per minute will enable governments to restore forests 150 times faster and ten times cheaper than planting by hand. At a time when we are losing an estimated 27 soccer fields of forest every minute, Dendra’s technology represents a radical improvement in the speed and accuracy of reforestation.

In an effort to engineer an even faster, smarter drone, scientists at Brown University and the University of British Columbia are drawing inspiration from nature to enhance the speed and agility of the miniature flying machines by analyzing the uniquely flexible wing structure and flight dynamics of bats. Researchers believe that the stretchy skin and multi-jointed wing configuration of the furry, night fliers may hold the key to improving the lift, maneuverability, and efficiency of drones, especially when flying in challenging environments.

It’s clear that inventive upgrades in drone technologies used for reforestation, and wildlife and ecosystem monitoring and management will continue to play a pivotal role in combatting the increasing global threats to biodiversity. So, to all of you flight-tech game changers out there working to protect and preserve the natural heritage of our planet, first, thank you very much, and second, please drone on.

…

Lisa S. French March 3, 2020

Exceptionally Eel-ectric

Compared to many of the creatures featured on Weekly Wondrous, the electric eel (Electrophorus electricus) scores relatively low on the cuddlesome quotient, however, what the high-voltage South American river dweller lacks in animal magnetism, it makes up for in shock value. And the most shocking eel of them all, the new species Electrophorus voltai, was discovered this fall by scientists at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

But before we get to that electrifying story, perhaps you are wondering, “What are eels, anyway? Reptiles? Amphibians? Fish? Amphishians?” Strictly speaking, electric eels are not true eels but a species of electric fish—long, blade-shaped knifefish to be exact, and more closely related to carp and catfish than eels. The 800-plus species of true eels primarily live in saltwater, while electric eels can only be found in the murky freshwater habitats of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. It was there, in the highland waters of the Brazilian Shield, that the approximately 8-foot long, 860-volt-producing Electrophorus voltai was identified—the strongest living bioelectricity generator known to date. To put that impressive eel power into perspective, the human body is only capable of producing and transmitting between 10 and 100 millionths of one volt over a distance of approximately one-millionth of a meter, a fact for which those of us who travel by crowded subway are quite grateful.

Like all species of electric eels, the E. voltai produces its record-breaking current through the stimulation of thousands of synchronized stacked cells called electrocytes in three pairs of electric organs that take up 80% of the length of its body. The Smithsonian researchers theorize that the 30% increase in electricity-generating potential from the highest previously recorded E. electricus measurement of 650 volts may be an adaptation to the reduced conductivity of the waters where the E. voltai species began its evolution about 7.1 million years ago.

Electric eels make full use of their innate ability to self-generate jolts, utilizing their piscine electro-pulses for eel-to-eel communication, navigation, self-defense, and to locate and stun small fish and invertebrate prey. The objects of the carnivorous fish’s shocking attentions are captured through a highly effective two-step strategy, which researchers at Vanderbilt University have compared to a type of remote control. First, the eel transmits an electric pulse, which causes whole-body contractions in its prey, revealing its location, then a second shock is administered to immobilize the target for ease of swallowing.

In case you are curious as to how eels manage to avoid electrocuting themselves when they get down to their meal-zapping business, one hypothesis is that the amount of the electricity flow is small in proportion to the eel’s body but significant to the size of its prey, and of very short duration (about two milliseconds). In addition, a large percentage of the current dissipates into the water, further reducing its impact on the eel’s critical organs.

Studying and understanding how eels generate and transmit electricity has inspired all manner of technological and medical innovations that benefit humankind, ranging from the first electric battery in 1799 to the ongoing development of soft robots, cardiac pacemakers, and artificial organs. While an effort has been made to determine what it would take to run a Tesla Model 3 on eel power for one hour, the estimated requirement of 7,200 eels in 144,000 gallons of water indicates that particular research endeavor to be a non-starter for both the Tesla and the eels.

Two hundred and fifty years after the discovery of the first electric eel species in South America, the recent identification of the E. voltai in the same region is yet another compelling testament to the extreme importance of protecting and maintaining biodiversity hotspots like the Amazon. Given that approximately 85% of our planet’s flora and fauna remain to be discovered, it’s clear that preserving wild spaces is critical to the continued study of the living world. As biologist and naturalist E.O. Wilson writes in The Diversity of Species, “We should preserve every scrap of biodiversity as priceless while we learn to use it and come to understand what it means to humanity.”

Full disclosure: While eels are clearly some of the most remarkable creatures on Earth and can be strikingly beautiful, we empathize if you are somewhat eel-averse as we confess to hyperventilating a bit while researching this one. However, since getting fish-zapped outside of the Amazon is a low probability event, we can rest easy and simply file these slippery fellows under “admire from afar.”

…

Lisa S. French October 31, 2019