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For the health of the ocean and all who depend on it, this is big news: In November, Mexico became the latest nation to create a large, fully protected marine reserve.
The manta ray, shown here, is one of at least 37 species of sharks and rays that have been documented in the archipelago.
The Revillagigedo Archipelago National Park, the country's largest marine protected area, is larger than the state of New York and protects 57,176 square miles (148,087 square kilometers) from fishing and other extractive activities.
The Revillagigedo Islands and their system of seamounts are a critical waypoint for large migratory species traversing the Pacific Ocean, including whales, dolphins, sea turtles, tunas, billfish and 37 types of shark and ray. The islands are also home to more than 360 species of fish, 26 of which are found nowhere else on the planet.
Take a dive beneath the surface with us and check out some of the natural treasures that are now safeguarded in Revillagigedo.
The
Revillagigedo Archipelago is a critical waypoint for migratory species
such as dolphins, whales, sharks, tunas, and sea turtles.
Humpback whales, which seek warmer waters for their calving grounds, make their winter home in Revillagigedo.
At least 366 species of fish, including 26 found nowhere else on the planet, call the Revillagigedo Archipelago home.
In May and June, large schools of silky, Galapagos, and silver tip sharks frequent Revillagigedo's warm waters.
Matt Rand directs the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project. He works with citizens, governments and scientists around the world to protect and conserve some of the Earth's most important and unspoiled marine environments.
Researchers in Australia are now looking for a “mysterious giant sea monster” that ate a 9 foot long great white shark. They had previously planted a tracking device on the 9 foot great white to monitor its behavior, vital statistics and swimming patters. However, a few weeks ago, the 9 foot shark’s tracking device ended up on shore.
The researchers also noticed something strange. Analysis from the tracker showed that the shark suddenly experienced a rapid rise in temperature. It also swiftly dove down to 580-meters or 1,900 feet under the waves. Scientists explained that the sudden rise of 30 degrees from the shark’s original temperature is because it entered a different animal’s digestive system. The unexpected dive could also be described as the larger animal’s descent to the deep. After the shark disappeared, the tracking device was found about two and a half miles from the area where the great white was tagged.
Dave Riggs, a documentaryfilmmaker for "Hunt for the Super Predator", said that he was blown away with the data taken from the shark’s tracking device. Everyone started asking who, or what, could have caused the 9 foot shark to disappear. The answer is pretty simple. Naturally, smaller fishes get eaten by bigger fishes. According to the researchers, larger sharks were seen around the area where the shark disappeared. The also added that these sharks are so big that they could have easily eaten another great white shark and they’re also able to swim down to depths monitored by the tracker.
(Phys.org) —A team of scientists have unmasked the intricacies of how sharks hunt prey—from the first whiff to the final chomp —in a new study about shark senses that was supported by the National Science Foundation and published in the peer-reviewed journal PLOS ONE.
The study, led by scientists from the University of South Florida, Mote Marine Laboratory and Boston University, is the first to show how vision, touch, smell and other senses combine to guide a detailed series of animal behaviors from start to finish. Results show that sharks with different lifestyles may favor different senses, and they can sometimes switch when their preferred senses are blocked. That's hopeful news for sharks trying to find food in changing and sometimes degraded environments.
"This is undoubtedly the most comprehensive multi-sensory study on any shark, skate or ray," said Philip Motta, a USF biology professor and internationally-recognized shark expert who co-authored this study.
Sharks in Western Australia are now tweeting out where they are — in a way.
Government researchers have that monitor where the animals are. When a tagged shark is about half a mile away from a beach, it triggers a computer alert, which tweets out a message on the . The tweet notes the shark's size, breed and approximate location.
Since 2011, Australia has had ; there have been six over the past two years — the most recent .
Sea monsters lying in wait for unsuspecting prey sounds scary enough. But slap on a tail that let them run down their dinner—much like today's great white sharks—and mosasaurs could truly be considered one of the ancient world's nightmares.
And that's exactly what a new study published September 10 in Nature Communications has confirmed.
Scientists working from the University of Florida have been attempting
to establish the basis for increased shark attacks around the main
Hawaiian islands. According to their findings, observed patterns in the
migration of tiger sharks could hold the key to explaining some of these
deadly attacks.
Shark Attacks
The study was seven years in duration and used innovative techniques
to investigate the movement of the life-threatening predators around the
Hawaiian archipelago. This is a region well known for its frequent
shark attacks.
A group of marine biologists from Manoa's Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in the University of Hawaii has carried out a research on tiger sharks.
They have come up with some interesting findings. There is one
interesting fact about tiger sharks and that is they give birth in
Hawaiian waters during fall months and in summers.
Thresher sharks slap fish to death, according to a new study that adds sharks to the list of ocean predators that can kill with just a slap.
For this latest study, published in PLoS ONE, Simon Oliver of the Thresher Shark Research and Conservation Project and his colleagues observed thresher sharks hunting schooling sardines. The action took place in the waters off of a small coral island in the Philippines.
Sharks are the stuff of nightmares for many people, and
while most of us may have not have even actually encountered a real shark, just
watching movies and videos about them sends chills down our spines. The movie Deep
Blue Sea, released in 1999, captured audiences with its jaw-dropping portrayal
of sharks.
One of the sharks showed in the movie was a mako shark. This
shark, also known as a shortfin or longfin mako shark depending on the
subspecies, is a huge mackerel shark that lives in almost all of the world's
oceans and seas. Shortfin sharks are known to dwell in tropical and temperate
waters while longfin sharks prefer to live near gulf stream waters.
Many mako sharks are known to dive deep, about 490 ft or 150
m from the water's surface. However, these sharks also have a tendency to stay
near by the island shore or at coral reefs especially when hunting.
Around the western parts of the Atlantic, these sharks can
be seen in the Maxican Gulf ,Nova Scotia and Argentina. Up north in Canada,
they are common but not abundant. It’s been observed that if there are many
swordfish in one area of the ocean, you’re more than likely to find multiple
mako sharks nearby. Swordfish more or less live in the same environmental
conditions asmako sharks and they are
their natural prey.
Mako sharks are known to take long travels and swim rapidly
when hunting. A female mako captured and tagged in California was recaptured in
the Pacific after just a few days. It’s estimated that the mako shark can swim,
at an average, over 58 km in a day.
If you ask moviegoers, especially the older crowd, what their scariest movie is to date, you’d probably get Jaws as an answer all the time. Directed by Steven Spielberg, the movie shocked millions of moviegoers, forever ingraining the images of man-eating sharks into our minds. It starts with showing how a small island community, whose chief income maker are its wonderful beaches, becomes shocked with news of a shark attack.
Sheriff Martin Brody finds the victim’s remains and starts to contemplate on closing all the beaches and turn the area to a ‘no swimming’ zone. However, Mayor Larry Vaughn, together with many local businessmen, disagree with the idea. Sheriff Brody backs down, but then regrets it after a boy is killed by another shark attack. The boy’s mother places a bounty on the shark and the small island community then becomes swamped with fishermen and shark hunters. Quint, a fisherman from the island who has extensive experience in hunting down sharks, becomes interested and offers his services. Soon, Sheriff Brody and Quint, with the help of Matt Hooper, a marine biologist set off to capture and kill the shark.
The shark featured in the movie is a great white shark, which has made a name for itself as one of the largest shark species. Found in many of the world’s oceans, the largest great white shark ever recorded was 20 feet in length and weighed 2,268 kilograms, however, there are claims of even bigger great whites swimming in the deep. These sharks reach their maturity at 15 years and can live over 30 years.
Although many people fear these massive apex predators, they are actually shy of humans. Some great whites do swim near boats, but only because they are used to humans feeding them.
Mako sharks took new sizes and intelligence variables in the 1999 action/sci-fi thriller Deep Blue Sea which starred Thomas Jane, Saffron Burrows and Samuel L Jackson. In the movie, researchers dealt with genetically modified mako sharks in a contained research facility which was dedicated in finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease.
The plot took an interesting turn when three of the genetically modified – now bigger, faster and smarter – makos escaped from their enclosures, leading to a story where the once captors were now escaping from the captive sharks.
Though the mako sharks in Deep Blue Sea were comparably as large as Great Whites, mako sharks in real life aren’t exactly known for their gigantic size, but their link with human shark attacks is quite famed as their intelligence and speed is also one which many seafarers have heard about in one point in time.
In fact, the mako shark’s reputation for speed and intelligence was what made it the “star” in Deep Blue Sea, which looked into how potentially dangerous the mako shark is if it were actually bigger in size.
Highly migratory as a species, mako sharks are predatory, oftentimes following a prey’s life cycle and attacking particularly when a prey is vulnerable.
Given how limited knowledge about them is, inaccurate estimations of the mako’s lifecycle peg them to live as long as 32 years when talking about female makos, as males tend to live as long as 29 years. They could grow as large as 260cm for males and 335cm for females, based on the same study conducted by Natanson et al. in 2006.
As predators, they tend to swim under or beneath their prey, lurking away from a prey’s line of sight, then burst upwards in attack.
Silent, fast and smart, makos are often encountered in tropical and offshore temperate waters in different parts of the world, and if you do have plans of a snorkeling or scuba diving trip, it’d be best to ask if mako sharks are known to prowl in the locations you intend to spend your water-adventures in.
