fbpixel Multimedia Archives - Page 2 of 4 - Mission Blue

Blog Archives
Photo of the Day ~ Great Hammerhead

Up close and personal in the Bahamas with a Great Hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran.) Many theories have been put forward about the function of the hammer – amongst these, the most popular are that it helps the great hammerhead to scan larger areas of the ocean floor for food, and that it maximises the area of the sensory organs (known as the ampullae of Lorenzini) that can detect chemical, physical and thermal changes in the water, as well as electric fields.
Photo: (c) Bill Eastwick…

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Week ~ Harbor Seal

A common seal (Phoca vitulina) at the surface in the evening. Harbor seals are also the most widely distributed pinniped. They are found in temperate, subarctic, and arctic coastal areas on both sides of the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans. Five separate subspecies have been identified, each common to a specific coastal region.
Harbor seals are hunted primarily for their skins, oil, and meat. Their tendency to remain in the same area year-round puts them at greater risk for hunting. The Lake Ontario population was exterminated by the early 1800s, and the Greenland, Hokkaido, and Baltic Sea populations are currently under severe threat. In the Gulf of Alaska, populations have declined dramatically during the last 20-30 years.
Harbor seals are thought by a few to “compete” with commercial fisheries for food sources and unfortunately this myth results in many harbor seals being killed by humans needlessly.…

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment
Ocean Acidification – A Clear and very present danger

From their ongoing ‘Sea Change’ series, Seattle Times environmental reporter Craig Welch and photographer Steve Ringman “present an extraordinary window on a scientific fact: The oceans are rapidly acidifying.” If we don’t act fast to undo the damage, the consequences for the oceans – and for us, whose lives depend on them – are profound. The Seattle Times explores how ocean acidification could alter the seas on a scale almost too big to fathom.
The video, “Sea Change” was produced by PBS NewsHour, using The Seattle Times’ reporting and video, and funded in part by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Featured Photo: This pteropod, also known as a sea butterfly, comes from Puget Sound. The tiny shelled creatures are an important food source for many fish and seabirds.…

Posted in Multimedia |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Week ~ Walking Shark

Mission Blue partners at Conservation International have played a part in the discovery of a new species of Epaulette Shark, or Walking Shark (Hemiscyllium Halmahera.) Discovered in Halmahera in north eastern Indonesia, this will be the ninth recognized species of walking shark in the world.
These are relatively small sharks with the largest only reaching 121 cm (48 in) in adult body length. Instead of swimming, these sharks “walk” along the ocean floor by wriggling their bodies and using their small paddle-like pelvic and pectoral fins to push themselves forward across the ocean floor. It will only swim if being pursued by a predator, and even then, not for long. 
The good news is, according to Dr. Mark Erdmann, the local government and emerging dive tourism industry is excited to promote its newly-named endemic species.…

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Week ~ Sargasso Fish

Our photo of the week is the Sargassum Fish, Histrio histrio, to celebrate Mission Blue’s Sargasso Sea Hope Spot and the work of the Sargasso Sea Alliance. An iconic resident of the Sargasso Sea, it’s life is typically spent adrift on tropical and warm temperate oceans among floating Sargassum Weed. Although the Sargassum Fish is capable of swimming quite rapidly, it often crawls through the Sargassum Weed, using its pectoral fins like arms.
The unique appearance of the fish features stalked, grasping, limb-like pectoral fins with small gill openings behind the base, a trapdoor-like mouth high on the head, and a “fishing lure” on the snout. The Sargasso Fish is an ambush predator and also a cannibal – one individual was found to have 16 juveniles in its stomach!…

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Day ~ Plumose Anemones

Earlier this month, Mission Blue Board Director Dan Laffoley found these Plumose Anemones on a reef just north of St Martins, during his explorations in and around the Isles of Scilly European Marine Site and Marine Conservation Zone – a jewel in the crown of UK MPAs.
Photo: (c) Dan Laffoley
 …

Posted in Multimedia |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Day – King Penguins Cozy up in South Georgia

King Penguins, Aptenodytes patagonica, are one of the key iconic Antarctic species that we are working hard to protect as we continue to fight for the Antarctic Ocean.  King penguins have been equipped with depth recorders and have been found to regularly dive to 500m (1600ft).  Deep dives tend only to occur during the daytime with only shallow dives being recorded at night.
Photo Courtesy of David Neilson…

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment
Photo of the Day ~ Flamboyant Cuttlefish

The Flamboyant Cuttlefish, Metasepia pfefferi, also known as Pfeffer’s flamboyant cuttlefish, is a species of cuttlefish occurring in tropical Indo-Pacific waters.  This particular fellow lives in Mission Blue’s Coral Sea Hope Spot, at Tubbataha Reef,  a coral reef atoll and a Natural Marine Park in the Sulu Sea, Philippines. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1993, the huge atoll has been under protective management for twenty years.
Recently it has been discovered that the Flamboyant Cuttlefish’s muscles contain a highly toxic compound that is yet to be identified. Research by Mark Norman with the Museum Victoria in Queensland, Australia, has shown the toxin to be as lethal as that of a fellow cephalopod, the Blue-ringed octopus. Another interesting thing about this animal is that it walks as often or even more than it swims. …

Posted in Multimedia, Photo of the Day |

Leave a comment