There they were, those fabulously blue and clear glass, ummm, well, what are these clumps of electric blue-see-through-kind of-jellyfish-like things on the beach???
Photo credit: Wikipedia Commons
C. Coimbra Photo
C. Coimbra Photo
Some people call these electric blue visitors, By-the-Wind Sailors because they blow in from the middle of the Pacific Ocean where the water is warmer. Their real name is Velella velella and they are cnidarians (a sea-life form than includes jellyfish and coral and with out a backbone or spine).
The last time these sailors landed on West Coast beaches was in 2006. Scientists don't know why they sometimes wash up on the beach. They are not dangerous.
How does a whale sleep in the ocean? Caught with a GoPro camera on a drone, this sleeping humpback whale just drifts along at the water's surface.
Whales, like humans, are mammals and must breathe air, right? Because we live on land, we don't have to worry about breathing when we sleep. But whales, how do they do this?
Scientists believe that whales don’t sleep at all like humans because they must “think” at all times about breathing.
“…unlike fish, whales do not have gills which fish use to extract oxygen from the water, so (whales) must come to the surface get their oxygen.”
“Depending on the species whales are able to hold their breath anywhere from 5 minutes to over an hour.” That means that whales are always aware of their breathing and need for oxygen.
So, whales must always think breathing—even when asleep—because if they ignore their need to surface and breathe, they would drown. This is called “conscious breathing.”
Fortunately, marine mammals have very special lungs. The can bring in more oxygen from the air than humans.
Imagine a surprise visit by a Vampire Squid. Well, that probably won't happen to most of us. BUT, now through October 8, 2014, you can watch live exploration of the Gulf of Mexico's deep water exploration, "The 2014 Nautilus Expedition."
Back to that Vampire Squid business. This is what surprised the scientists today, June 27, 2014:
What is really cool about the Nautilus Expedition live website, is you can send a question to the explorers in the control room and receive a live response to your question. So, budding oceanographers, see you aboard the Nautilus!
Sea Star feeding on mussels. Susanne Skyrm/Marine Photobank.
Imagine exploring tide pools along the Pacific Ocean coastline and not seeing any sea stars (starfish--but they are not really fish). Sea stars are the colorful stars of the tide pool.
We reported earlier that sea stars are dying all along the Pacific Coast. Scientists think that "sea star wasting disease," may be caused by warming waters.
If you come across sea stars in a tide pool this summer, let them be. Please don't poke them or pick them up to have a closer look.
Did you know that when a northern elephant seal is born that it cannot swim like most other marine mammals? That is one of the reasons why an elephant seal must be born on land. Did you know that a northern elephant seal pup can gain about 10 pounds a day by nursing on its mother's rich milk? Did you know that the pup's mother looses about 20 pounds a day while nursing her pup? That is one of the reasons why she abandons her pup after just 4 weeks to return to sea. How does the pup survive? First, it weighs about 300 pounds when its mother leaves. Now the pup is a weaner. It joins other weaners in a "weaner pod" and rests until all the big adult elephant seals are off the beach--sometime near or in March. Then the weaners play on the beach and in the water and teach themselves how to swim and dive. When April nears, most of the weaners leave their birth beach and go out to sea for the first time. They return sometime near September. This video "Unaga Learns to Swim" shows a newborn pup through the day it finally leaves to go to sea.
Plastic bottle caps often become food for the fish and birds. That's a bad thing because plastic isn't meant to be food. The students at Carmel River School decided to put all those colorful plastic caps we find tossed on the street, or on the beach, to good use: Make a huge mural on an ugly wall inside the school yard.
Here are more ocean critters made from bottle caps that will become part of this mural at Carmel River School.
