Portal:News Articles
From Microcosm Aquarium Explorer
Tracking Puerto Rico's Freshwater Gems. Peter Kwak/NCSU
Documenting Caribbean Island Stream Species
While best known for its marine species, both large gamefish and coral reef denizens, Puerto Rico is also home to poorly documented populations of freshwater aquatic fishes in its many rivers and forest streams. Now a team of researchers led by North Carolina State University has made a significant advance in understanding the diversity and species numbers found in the island's freshwater ecosystems. Read more...
Forage Fish Alarm Sounded
An alarming new study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources finds that one-third of the world’s marine fish catches are ground up and fed to farm-raised fish, pigs, and poultry, squandering a precious food resource for humans and disregarding the serious overfishing crisis in our oceans. Read more...
Snakeheads: Invasive Aquatic Aliens
One aquatic horror film proclaimed it "Part fish. Part snake. Pure Evil." National Geographic dubbed it "Fishzilla." Fishermen call it a "Pike on Steroids." The US Fish and Wildlife Service acknowledged the name "Frankenfish" and noted that Giant Snakeheads (Channa micropeltes) had "reportedly attacked, and in some instances killed, humans who approached the mass of young" being guarded by their parents. Read more...
Saving Australia's Smallest Fish
ANCIENT artesian springs boasting arguably Australia’s most endangered fish species have been saved for future generations with the purchase of a Central Queensland property by conservation group Bush Heritage Australia. The artesian spring network has allowed for the survival of the world’s only remaining population of the endangered Redfin Blue-eye (Scaturiginichthys vermeilipinnis) – Australia’s smallest freshwater fish. Read more...
Game Wardens Seizing Banned Pet Amphibians
They are invasive species, growing large and predatory, posing a threat to native fishes, smaller frogs, birds, and other aquatic life. A Florida company is marketing African Clawed Frogs as tadpoles to unsuspecting mail-order buyers in states where they are banned. Read more...
Vanishing Chinese Fishes Found in Buddhist Ponds
Yunnan Province, once a wildlife paradise in southwest China, is the native habitat of many alpine fishes, including some rare species found nowhere else in the world. Chinese biologists say this natural endowment in biodiversity is now in peril, and many rare piscine species are at the brink of extinction. Some, in fact, may only be found living in ancient Buddhist temple fish ponds. Read more...
Megafish Project Looks for the Planet's Largest Freshwater Fishes
They are the behemoths that ignite the imaginations of fishermen and the growing concerns of conservation biologists. Led by aquatic ecologist Zeb Hogan, Ph.D., the recently launched Project Megafishes is starting to track and document the conservation status of the world's largest freshwater fish species. Read more...
From Rails to Reef
Forty-four retired New York City subway cars were sunk off Maryland’s Atlantic coast for the creation of a new artificial reef on Friday, May 16, 2008. Biologists expect the cars that once carried throngs of diverse Big Apple residents and tourists to be quickly adopted by marine fishes and invertebrates. Read more...
Scientist Finds Hidden Set of Jaws in Moray Eels
How do long, slender snake-like creatures manage to stuff large, struggling prey into their narrow mouths and down their throats without using paws or claws? A new study reveals that the slender, snake-like moray eel--which may reach up to about nine feet in length--captures and consumes its prey (usually large fish, octopuses and squid) with a unique strategy that involves using two sets of jaws. Read more...
Swimming Anemone Discovered in Alaska
There are unknown creatures—including a "walking", swimming sea anemone—lurking under the windswept islands of the Aleutians, according to a team of scientific divers from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
While completing the second phase of a two-year broad scientific survey of the waters around the Aleutian Islands, scientists have discovered what may be three new marine organisms. During the dives, two potentially new species of sea anemones have been discovered. Read more...
Cracking the Zooxanthellae Code
A team of Australian coral researchers has taken a major stride towards revealing the workings of the mysterious ‘engine’ that drives the Great Barrier Reef, and corals the world over. The science has critical importance in understanding why coral reefs bleach and die, how they respond to climate change – and how that might affect humanity, they say. Read more...
Banggai Cardinal Lands on IUCN Red List
Barely more than a decade after being introduced to the marine aquarium trade, the elegant Banggai Cardinalfish (Pterapogon kauderni) has been placed on the IUCN Red List. Read more...
Who's the Smallest of Them All?
The authors of a paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, who say their 7.9 mm-long fish from a peat swamp in Southeast Asia is the smallest fish and vertebrate known, have failed to make note of work published last fall that describes sexually mature, male anglerfishes measuring 6.2 mm to 7.4 mm in length. Read more...