Stingrays In the News!

Chinese Fisherman caught a record breaking Stingray, weighing in near 3,300 pounds.

A stingray that kills its prey with a giant electric shock has been found off the coast of Britain, it emerged today.

The ocean monster, which generates a power surge so strong it is like being plugged into the mains, normally lives in the warmer waters of the Mediterranean.

Now experts fear shoals of marbled stingray - a relative of the fish that killed Australian crocodile hunter Steve Irwin - will invade Britain this summer due to global warming.

So British readers, be careful at Brighton.

A Talking Whale and one who blows bubbles

Japanese scientists at the Kamogawa Sea World aquarium has been taught to speak.

Nack, a 23-year-old beluga whale at the Kamogawa Sea World aquarium in Chiba Prefecture, has been taught to make different noises for a bucket, diving goggles and a pair of diving fins, said Takashi Murayama, a professor at Tokai University who has been training the creature for the last five years.

"Beluga whales are very intelligent, friendly and they enjoy being trained in this way," he said.

"Right now Nack only knows three words, but we are working on the whale recognising different people and giving them a sound as well.

"After that, we want to teach it to express likes and dislikes, something that is interesting instead of boring, and be able to say if something is painful," he said.

Nack gives off short, high-pitched sounds to identify the diving fins, a long, higher-pitched note for the goggles and a short, lower tone for the bucket.

This is the first breakthrough for human-cetacean communication on modern record, outside of the movie Day of the Dolphin, where dolphins also learn how to blow up a ship.

The picture above is another Beluga whale in Japan, who has recently learned how to blow bubbles, can raspberries be far behind?

Right Whale Glamour Shots

Check out these amazing shots of a right whale.

Dolphins, Jerks of the Sea: Part 4

Ah Dolphins, how can I point out your flaws this week? This week I'm going to take us back to some earlier dolphin posts of mine and point out tool using. This will lead us into what will fill out this 5 week series (possibly to be revisited when Dolphins shock me once again with their inappropriate behavior =P) .

Part 4: Tools

As I have already established, Dolphins are fond of Bling. Using particularly choice pieces of flotsam to attract mates. But their fascination with material comforts doesn't end there.

Dolphins are possessed of:

"the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly, and learn from experience." This definition is separate from social traits or the ability to learn tricks (which can be done through conditioning), which many laymen confuse with animal intelligence. Some research shows that dolphins do exceptionally well in this aspect indicating very high intelligence, even surpassing the intelligence level of a chimpanzee, which is generally believed to be the highest amongst non-human animals. Dolphins also seem capable of discriminating between numbers, which is a highly abstract ability. However, many scientists now tend to rank dolphins about the level of elephants in "intelligence" tests and say that dolphins haven't shown any unusual talent with problem solving compared with the other animals classed with very high intelligence."

That means they're at least capable of stealing your wallet, but that's conjecture on my part. Some species of dolphins have been observed using sponges on their snouts in order to protect them while hunting. They then teach this behavior to their babies so that they won't abrade their delicate nose-skin when eating poisonous stinging things.

Dolphins also create their own toys,


What the hell was that, you ask? That was a stable underwater toroidal air-core vortex rings, that's right, dolphins are way ahead of us in underwater bubble technology.

There are two main methods of bubble ring production: rapid puffing of a burst of air into the water and allowing it to rise to the surface, forming a ring; or swimming repeatedly in a circle and then stopping to inject air into the helical vortex currents thus formed. The dolphin will often then examine its creation visually and with sonar. They also appear to enjoy biting the vortex-rings they've created, so that they burst into many separate normal bubbles and then rise quickly to the surface.

As if all of these things weren't enough, dolphins have the most dangerous tool of all, Language.
Each dolphin has an individual name,

“Each animal develops an individually distinctive signature whistle in the first few months of its life, which appears to be used in individual recognition.”

Since we've established that dolphins have their own names, they probably make up ones for people too, like "dumb ass nose breather number 5" and "fat bringer of dead fish" and "the dude who I will someday bite in the face." Again, conjecture, but I went to elementary school, I know how nicknames work, and if dolphins are anything like us, they're laughing at our expense.

Dolphins, Jerks of the Sea: Part 3

Show me a person that hates dolphins and I'll show you a person with no heart. People love dolphins because they're so much like humans, but we're jerks and so are they. Let's dive right in to:

Part 3: Infanticide

Again, show me a person who hates baby dolphins and well... you see where I'm going.

In the summer of 1997, a dead baby bottlenose dolphin washed onto a Virginia beach. Its body was badly bruised; it had broken ribs and a punctured lung. One telltale clue gave scientists a grim surprise: bite marks that matched the exact pattern of the teeth of an adult bottlenose. Researchers concluded an adult dolphin had murdered a young baby or calf, a practice known in nature as infanticide.

Now scientists are amassing startling evidence that suggests the beloved animals have a violent side as well. Dolphins seem to be killing porpoises, a related sea mammal, and baby dolphins in droves, wielding their long snouts as clubs and their jagged teeth to slash their victims to death. Can it be that dolphin behavior simply resembles that of most large animals, who are capable of being playful or violent by turns?

As if that weren't enough, look at this possible connection to Part 2: Ruthless Killers

But why would bottlenoses kill porpoises? Since harbor porpoises are roughly the same size as baby dolphins, Scottish researchers speculate that dolphins may practice their infant-killing techniques on porpoises. Infanticide is not uncommon in nature, especially among mammals. When food supplies dwindle, a mother gerbil, for example, may eat the weakest of her babies to ensure she has enough energy to produce food for her other infants. Scientists theorize that bottlenose dolphins may have more in common with these "cannibal animals" (see sidebar, right) than was previously thought.

ACK!!!!! Say it ain't so flipper.

Next week it just gets worse.

Dolphins, Jerks of the Sea: Part 2

Dolphins! So winsome and likeable, also, such jerks. Last time we covered the lascivious malignancy of these beloved creatures. And while I love the horny sacks of blubber, the juicy details of their transgressions are too good to keep out of the blog. This time we're going further into the seedy underbelly of Dolphin life with....

Part 2: Ruthless Killers

[WARNING: if you're under 18 you should make sure reading this is ok with your parents, that means you Wallace, if your parents haven't looked at this blog yet they should.]

Now, the murderous impulses of Dolphins is going to cover a couple of weeks here, so we'll just get started here with murder based on racism.

That's right, Dolphins are racist pricks. *Pause for GASP* Not all dolphins, and in the history of every human on this earth is an ancestor who killed someone in another tribe. That's just the honest truth of how human society evolved so get over it.

Dolphins have often been accused of killing other cetations, porpoises specifically, and engaging in vicious war against other pods of dolphins of the same and different species.

The differences between dolphins, porpoise and whale species are pretty specific, but basically, if it's less than a certain number of feet long on average the cetation species is a porpoise, if it's on average longer than that but smaller than a Killer Whale, it's a dolphin, and longer than that you've got a whale species. These species, despite occasional violence will often pod together when migrating and get along well together in captivity. Often morale among whales and dolphins actually increases in captivity when more than one cetation species is housed together.

My point here is that the species here are pretty similar, yet dolphins will brutally attack porpoises. That's a jerk move.

Of course, this won't shock you at all when you read next weeks installment...

Dolphins, Jerks of the Sea: Part 1

Dolphins, I like Dolphins a lot, they're charming, playful, are historically and anecdotally likely to save sailors at sea, and are always a welcome sight to me when out on a ship. They're some of our nearest competition for smartest creature on Earth but as much as I adore these crazy cetations, they're jerks. Plain and simple. Over the next few weeks I plan to examine a few of the things that make these magnificent assholes so neat, and so very like us.

[WARNING! If you're under 18 you should make sure your parents give you permission to read this. That means you, Wallace, your parents will be so mad at me =P ]

Part 1- Horny Little B******ds

Dolphins are one of the only species that engages in sexual activity for purposes other than procreation. Dolphins are often seen mating regardless of whether they are showing signs of fertility. These encounters strengthen pod bonding but also are part of normal playing. Dolphins are even known to have casual encounters with dolphins of the same gender.

But The Pirateologist General, you ask, what makes that such a jerky thing? The answer is the darker side of Dolphin sexuality. Rape and prostitution.

Dolphins have been observed forcing other dolphins into sexual intercourse violently and often in gangs that isolate a single female and assault her. They've also been witnessed flipper high-fiving and jumping for glee as they corner terrified females. Now, this behavior isn't exclusive to dolphins in the animal kingdom; look up ducks those little feathery psychos are cruel. But what makes it exceptional is that dolphins have been known to rape humans.

Mostly, when a dolphin gets excited around humans, it leads to playful bumping and generally being annoying, no more than a gal might expect in a packed bar on a Saturday night. A dolphin's penis is on average about 13 inches and is prehensile (think a monkey's tail), and when excited, a dolphin may prod or grab with it. But sometimes it goes too far... Like this story of a swimmer off the coast of Norway in 1999.

On to Prostitution, Dolphin females will trade sexual favors for choice food, an attractive sponge, what passes for money in dolphin pods. I'll stop here for a moment to allow you to recover from the iniquity... ok, deep breath, good? good.

While dolphin's standards aren't exactly exacting, Jessica Alba who has spent time with dolphins for both movie roles and on her own time, seems to attract their ardour.

She told MTV: "I don't know if anybody knows this but dolphins get excited, even when you are a human being - and they have long, long... (penises).

"I didn't know this until I was being poked by a few of them, which was very rude.

"I think I learned my lesson. I sort of request female dolphins after that because those are horny little b******s."

Per Omnia Saecula does the Ocean- The Echeneis

Hey all!
It's a Cross-Posting Spectacular! this time from Per Omnia Saecula's Weird Medieval Animal Monday!

The Echeneis!



According to The Beastmaster, "The echeneis is a fish, half a foot in length, that clings to ships and delays their passage. When this fish attaches to a ship, even in the high winds of a storm the ship will not move, but seems to be rooted in the sea. The echeneis is found in the Indian Sea."

Seriously, that is an impressive fish. Only six inches long and it can stop SHIPS. He must work out a lot.

Enchirius is a little fish unneth half a foot long: for though he be full little of body, nathless he is most of virtue. For he cleaveth to the ship, and holdeth it still stedfastly in the sea, as though the ship were on ground therein. Though winds blow, and waves arise strongly, and wood storms, that ship may not move nother pass. And that fish holdeth not still the ship by no craft, but only cleaving to the ship. It is said of the same fish that when he knoweth and feeleth that tempests of wind and weather be great, he cometh and taketh a great stone, and holdeth him fast thereby, as it were by an anchor, lest he be smitten away and thrown about by waves of the sea. And shipmen see this and beware that they be not overset unwarily with tempest and with storms.

The Encyclopedia Mythica tells us of how this little fishy plagued Caligula.

Today, he survives as the Echeneis naucrates, or "Live Sharksucker," or "Slender Suckerfish."

Neither of which are likely names that he chose for himself. Poor guy.

Sincerely, Jennifer Lynn Jordan

Leggy Lotharios and Underwater Bling, Flirting among sea creatures.

Several articles have come out recently that show some entertaining and charming mating rituals among sea-creatures.
Octopus couples hold hands!!!

For decades, scientists have viewed octopuses as unromantic loners, with mating habits nearly devoid of complex behavior. But new research from the University of California, Berkeley, has found that at least one species of octopus engages in such sophisticated lovemaking tactics as flirting, passionate handholding and keeping rivals at arms' length.

"This is not a unique species of octopus, which suggests others behave this way," said Roy Caldwell, a professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and co-author of the study.

In the wild, researchers observed macho octopuses that didn't just mate with the first female that crossed their path. Many picked out a specific sex partner and jealously guarded her den for several days, warding off rivals to the point of strangling them if they got too close. When flirting or fighting, they would signal their manliness by displaying striped body patterns.

But Cephalopods were not the only creatures whose dating displays were analyzes by scientific voyeurs...

Dolphins Love their Bling:

Amazon river dolphins, also known as botos or pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis), live mostly off fish in the Amazon River basin, with the occasional turtle or crab.

The botos had often seemed to play with items such as sticks or lumps of hard clay, thrashing them against the surface of the water or tossing them with flicks of their heads.

One day scientists noticed that three botos that held objects in their mouths were all adult males. This prompted speculation that such behavior might not be play at all.

Martin and his colleagues found the overwhelming majority of those who carried items were adult males, which are larger and pinker than females.

"It's particularly interesting that the complexity of this behavior in these dolphins is considerably greater than that in chimps," Martin said. "Chimp males break off branches, thrash them around and make a lot of noise to show off how macho they are — bit like blokes with big motorbikes and Ferraris, I guess. Botos, however, are much more subtle, and often use their objects in what appears to be a ritualistic way."

Males typically held objects when there were adult females present.

"This species has a mythical reputation for enchanting and seducing women in Amazon communities, and you could believe that they really are enchanting their own females with this object-carrying behavior," Martin said.