Animals

[CaaC (John)+]

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This tiny glowing snailfish can survive in the arctic thanks to antifreeze proteins

The proteins prevent large ice grains from forming inside their cells and body fluids.

A species of tiny fish, the variegated snailfish (Liparis gibbus), lives in the icy cold waters off Greenland. Incredibly, they’re able to avoid freezing solid and survive in these sub-zero temperatures by producing antifreeze proteins inside their bodies.

Scientists have known about these kinds of antifreeze proteins since the 1970s, but according to a new study the snailfish takes the crown when it comes to producing them – their genes have the highest expression levels of antifreeze proteins ever observed.

It’s not all that makes this tiny fish extraordinary.

Researchers decided to investigate antifreeze proteins only after encountering another of its exceptional abilities: biofluorescence – they glow green and red.

But the authors warn that these highly specialised fish could face a significant threat in the future from warming oceanic temperatures due to climate change. The research has been published in the journal Evolutionary Bioinformatics.

“Similar to how antifreeze in your car keeps the water in your radiator from freezing in cold temperatures, some animals have evolved amazing machinery that prevent them from freezing, such as antifreeze proteins, which prevent ice crystals from forming,” says co-author David Gruber, a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History and a distinguished professor of Biology at the City University of New York in the US.

“We already knew that this tiny snailfish, which lives in extremely cold waters, produced antifreeze proteins, but we didn’t realise just how chock-full of those proteins it is – and the amount of effort it was putting into making these proteins.”

Unlike some species of reptiles and insects, fishes aren’t able to survive their body fluids even partially freezing. Despite this, some can still survive in the extreme environments of the polar oceans thanks to the production of antifreeze proteins inside their bodies.

Antifreeze proteins were first discovered in Antartic fish in a 1971 study, but have since been found to have evolved independently in many different organisms: from bacteria, to plants, lichens, insects, and vertebrates.

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These proteins don’t work exactly like conventional antifreezes, for instance the ones you put into car’s cooling system, which work by dissolving in the water and lowering its freezing point.

Instead, they limit the growth of ice crystals to manageable sizes by binding to them.

There are five different classes of fish antifreeze proteins produced by five different gene families, which are primarily produced in the liver and then exported to the blood.

In a 2019 expedition Gruber and co-author John Sparks, who is a curator and professor in the Department of Ichthyology at the American Museum of Natural History, found that snailfish is the only polar fish reported to biofluoresce.

These snailfish genes have the highest expression levels of antifreeze proteins ever observed,  among the top one percent of expressed genes in the fish.

The finding highlights just how important the antifreeze proteins are to the snailfish’ survival, but also raises a red flag as to how they’ll fare in a warming world.

“Since the mid-20th century, temperatures have increased twice as fast in the Arctic as in mid-latitudes and some studies predict that if Arctic sea ice decline continues at this current rate, in the summer the Arctic Ocean will be mostly ice-free within the next three decades,” concludes Sparks.

“Arctic seas do not support a high diversity of fish species, and our study hypothesises that with increasingly warming oceanic temperatures, ice-dwelling specialists such as this snailfish may encounter increased competition by more temperate species that were previously unable to survive at these higher northern latitudes.”

https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/arctic-snailfish-antifreeze-proteins/

 

[Tommy]

[Azeem]

[CaaC (John)+]

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Dugong: Animal that inspired mermaid tales extinct in China

Researchers have declared a mammal related to the manatee - said to have inspired ancient tales of mermaids and sirens - extinct in China.

Only three people surveyed from coastal communities in China reported seeing the dugong in the past five years.

Known as the ocean's most gentle giant, the dugong's slow, relaxed behaviour is likely to have made it vulnerable to overfishing and shipping accidents.

It still exists elsewhere in the world but is facing similar threats.

Prof Samuel Turvey, from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), who co-authored the research study, said: "The likely disappearance of the dugong in China is a devastating loss."

Scientists at ZSL and the Chinese Academy of Science reviewed all historical data on where dugongs had previously been found in China.

They found there had been no verified sightings by scientists since 2000.

In addition, the researchers turned to citizen science to interview 788 community members living in those coastal regions identified, to determine when local people had last seen one.

On average, residents reported not having seen a dugong for 23 years. Only three people had seen one in the past five years.

This has led the researchers to declare the dugong functionally extinct - meaning "it is no longer viable... to sustain itself", Heidi Ma, postdoctoral researcher at ZSL, told the BBC.

The dugong is a unique character of the sea. Weighing in at almost half a tonne, it is the only vegetarian marine mammal.

Similar in appearance and behaviour to the manatee, but distinguished by its whale-like tail, its gentle - seemingly benign - disposition has led some to believe that it inspired ancient seafaring tales of mermaids.

Sadly, its habitat close to shore in China left it vulnerable to hunters in the 20th Century who sought the animal for its skin, bones and meat.

After a notable decline in population, dugongs were classified as a grade-one national key protected animal by the Chinese State Council in 1988.

But researchers believe that the continuing destruction of its habitat - including a lack of seagrass beds for feed - has caused a "rapid population collapse".

The UN Environment Programme estimates that 7% of seagrass habitat is being lost globally every year because of industrial and agricultural pollution, coastal development, unregulated fishing and climate change.

Prof Turvey said its extinction in China should act as a warning to other regions that house dugongs - including Australia and East Africa - calling it "a sobering reminder that extinctions can occur before effective conservation actions are developed".

The species is found in 37 other tropical regions in the world - in particular the shallow coastal waters of the Indian and western Pacific Oceans - but is classified as "vulnerable" on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) red list of threatened species.

Countries are currently meeting in New York to sign a new UN marine treaty which would put 30% of the world's oceans in protected areas.

Kristina Gjerde, high-seas policy adviser for the IUCN, told the BBC: "The dugong is a sad example of what is happening to the marine environment where there is increasing encroachment of human activities."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62638485

 

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by CaaC (John)
Spacing correction

[Azeem]

What are some of the good animal featuring movies ?

I really liked the Two Brothers, two tiger cubs separated at birth and then united. Watched it so many times on HBO. 

[MUFC]

 

[Tommy]

3 minutes ago, MUFC said:

 

I'm worried. 

[Azeem]

Last known photo of the Barbary Lion which existed in North Africa, 1925

[Azeem]

 

[Azeem]

Malabar Giant Squirrel native to India

[Tommy]

3 hours ago, Beelzebub said:

Malabar Giant Squirrel native to India

That's the most punk squirrel I have ever seen. 

[Azeem]

 

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Beelzebub said:

 

Is that CGI? Look at how the tail stops moving. 

Hmm, I guess it's edited, and there wasn't really Tom & Jerry on TV. 

[CaaC (John)+]

4 hours ago, Tommy said:

Is that CGI? Look at how the tail stops moving. 

Hmm, I guess it's edited, and there wasn't really Tom & Jerry on TV. 

That's the first thing I thought when I saw the tail not moving but it's still funny how the kitten jumps and runs. 

[CaaC (John)+]

 

[Azeem]

Fascinating

[Azeem]

 

[CaaC (John)+]

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Wolves: Humankind’s new best friend?

Wolves are capable of showing attachment to humans, disrupting the dog “domestication hypothesis.”

Dogs only developed the capability to emotionally attach to humans after they were domesticated from wolves over 15,000 years ago – well, that’s the prevailing theory. Now, a Swedish study adds to a growing body of evidence questioning this hypothesis.

A research collaboration between Stockholm and Lund Universities has demonstrated that not only do wolves have the ability to develop social relationships with humans, but these behaviours are similar to those of domestic dogs raised in identical conditions.

12 dog and 10 wolf puppies were hand-raised by the same female human caregiver in a standardised and identical way. Then, researchers performed a “Strange Situation Test,” originally designed for testing attachment in human infants, on each of the animals. This essentially involved their familiar caregiver and a female stranger taking turns to come in and out of the room containing the dog or wolf.

The animal’s behaviour was then recorded and measured against several identified categories including positive or inquisitive behaviours such as exploration, physical contact, social play, greeting and actions more indicative of stress or fear, such as standing by the door, following, crouching, pacing or tucking of the tail.

Throughout the test, wolves demonstrated that they spent more time greeting and in physical contact with the familiar person than the stranger. This strongly suggests that, like dogs, wolves are more than capable of forming attachments to humans, and, as evidenced by the age of the animals, it is not a capability solely restricted to wolf puppies.

“It was very clear that the wolves, like the dogs, preferred the familiar person over the stranger,” said Dr Christina Hansen Wheat from Stockholm University in Sweden. “But what was perhaps even more interesting was that while the dogs were not particularly affected by the test situation, the wolves were and paced the test room.” When the familiar person re-entered the room, the pacing behaviour stopped, “indicating that the familiar person acted as a social stress buffer for the wolves”.

This is the first time this sort of attachment behaviour has been shown in wolves, and Hansen Wheat believes it “complements the existence of a strong bond between the animals and the familiar person”.

Hansen Wheat suggests the ability for wolves to show attachment to humans makes sense when considering human-wolf interactions in prehistoric times. “Wolves showing human-directed attachment could have had a selective advantage and could have been a potential target for early selective pressures exerted during dog domestication,” she says.

The team hope to continue investigating and comparing the behaviours of dogs and wolves raised in identical circumstances, to contribute further to our growing understanding of the role domestication has played in our developing relationship with humankind’s best friend.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/wolves-humankinds-new-best-friend/

 

[Stan]

 

[Tommy]

1 hour ago, Stan said:

 

Maybe it was on their bucket list. 

[Azeem]

Google hammer head bat. 

[Dr. Gonzo]

On 29/05/2022 at 05:25, Beelzebub said:

Rhino easily move into one corner when it charges at you, dash away and repeat it.

Rhinos are a lot faster than you think  - assuming this is a normal sized room, I think you'd be pretty fucked with a rhino in the room.

If I've got a laser pointer, I think I could distract the cat. If I've got nothing, I'll take my chances on trying to befriend the gorilla for 37 minutes like @Tommy

[Bluewolf]

17 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Rhinos are a lot faster than you think  - assuming this is a normal sized room, I think you'd be pretty fucked with a rhino in the room.

If I've got a laser pointer, I think I could distract the cat. If I've got nothing, I'll take my chances on trying to befriend the gorilla for 37 minutes like @Tommy

Anyone that thinks they could survive in a room with a Rhino for 37 minutes must have a death wish... 

Here is a pretty good idea in this opener... 

 

[Azeem]

Americans think they will have guns to back up

[Azeem]

Dracula Parrot native to Papua New Guinea, has a head of a vulture and body of a parrot