Articles

The Marine Science Institute's monthly column, Science and the SeaTM, is an informative and entertaining article that explains many interesting features of the marine environment and the creatures that live there.  Science and the SeaTM articles appear monthly in one of Texas' most widely read fishing magazines, Texas Saltwater Fishing, the Port Aransas South Jetty newspaper, the Flour Bluff News, and the Island Moon newspaper. Our article archive is available also on our website.

May 1, 2013

When the Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Sharks may be top predators in the sea, but they can be prey as well, especially as babies. Researchers have learned that young sharks can sense nearby predators and then act to avoid detection — even when still in their egg case.

Biologists already knew sharks can sense possible prey by detecting electrical fields produced by nearby fish. However, scientists did not know whether shark embryos would adjust their own biological processes to reduce their risk of being discovered as prey themselves.

 

April 1, 2013

Goby Guardians of the Coral

If the home that gives you shelter and houses your food were threatened, you’d likely do what you could to protect it. Gobies are no different. These tiny fish — just an inch long —live in coral, which protects them from predators and lets them eat algae on the coral and plankton from the surrounding water. But the coral sometimes needs protection too, and gobies are up to the job.

March 1, 2013

Seeking Answers to Whale ‘Speech’

You’ve heard of whales singing, but what about talking? If that sounds crazy, most marine biologists would have agreed until they had heard it — a whale trying to imitate human speech. In fact, they had not realized it was physically possible for whales to make those kinds of sounds until a beluga whale named NOC spoke up.

February 1, 2013

Oil: the Breakfast of Champions

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill that began in spring 2010 was one of the largest ecological disasters of recent history. The big question has been — how do we clean up all that oil? Maybe we don’t have to do it all: man’s disaster has been bacteria’s feast, and the amount of oil these microscopic creatures have chowed down is colossal.

In the five months following the spill, naturally occurring bacteria digested 200,000 tons of oil and gas from the Gulf of Mexico. That’s equivalent to the weight of 415 fully-loaded 747 airplanes carrying maximum loads.

January 1, 2013

Circling the Globe on Cruise Control

While Magellan’s first circumnavigation of the world made history, circling the globe is a regular annual trip for many albatrosses.

There are 21 species of these great seafaring birds — 19 of them are threatened or endangered, mostly due to being caught on baited hooks set by longline fishing boats. Albatrosses spend about 80 percent of their lives at sea. They don’t breed often and may spend one or two years between breeding seasons at sea foraging for squid, krill, fish and crustaceans.

December 1, 2012

Dad Does the Dirty Work

While seahorses certainly are a unique-looking fish, that’s hardly their most unusual trait. Seahorses and their relatives, pipefishes, are the only family of fish in which the males become pregnant and give birth.

The process begins with males seeking out the largest females, who provide the largest size and greatest number of eggs. The pair swim together, “hold tails” and “dance” for several mornings. Then, an 8-hour courtship dance leads to the actual mating.
November 1, 2012

The Real Blue Bloods of the Sea

If being a “blue blood” is a sign of royalty, then horseshoe crabs may be the kings and queens of the sea. In fact, their unique blood is one reason they have survived for more than 450 million years.

Horseshoe crab blood is actually gray-white to pale yellow most of the time because it rarely carries much oxygen. But when oxygenated, horseshoe crab blood is blue because it contains the copper-based compound, hemocyanin, instead of the iron-containing hemoglobin that gives most other creatures red blood.

October 1, 2012

Horseshoe Crabs: True Survivors

Horseshoe crabs are known as “living fossils” because they have survived on Earth for more than 450 million years. Although they have evolved in small ways over the millennia, they haven’t changed nearly as much as the world around them. Over the years, horseshoe crabs have seen the rise and fall of the dinosaurs, lived through the rise of the mammals and survived three major extinctions, including a huge one 250 million years ago that wiped out about 96% of marine creatures and 70% of large land animals.

September 1, 2012

A Neighborhood for Everyone
There is a lot of activity atop the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, but like an iceberg, there’s more below. Fish, crustaceans, mollusks, corals and other sea creatures make their home among the legs and cross-members of these giant manmade structures.
August 1, 2012

A Taste for the Toxic
Swelling up like a balloon is a pretty dramatic defense mechanism, but many species of pufferfish pack an even deadlier weapon — poison.

This poison is called tetrodotoxin, a word coined after the puffer fish’s scientific name. It’s a potent neurotoxin that can kill even humans when ingested. Though this toxin was first identified in puffers, the fish don’t actually make it themselves — in a way, they borrow it.

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