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Photo of the Day ~ Yeti Crab

The deep water Yeti crab is so unusual that a whole new family of animal had to be created to classify it.
Kiwa hirsuta was found on the floor of the 7,540-foot-deep (2,300-meter-deep) Pacific Ocean some 900 miles (1,500 kilometers) south of Easter Island. In many ways the newly discovered species remains a mystery. Its hairy pincer arms host colonies of bacteria, which it may cultivate for food, for protection from toxic fluids issuing from nearby volcanic vents, or as “sensors” that help the blind animal find a mate.
Photographer Unknown
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Photo of the Day ~ Mauve Stinger

Commonly known as the Mauve Stinger, or Pelagia noctiluca,  this exquisite animal  is found around the globe in temperate waters. In Latin, Pelagia means “of the sea”, nocti stands for night and luca means light thus Pelagia noctiluca can be described as a marine organism with the ability to glow in the dark.
Mauve stingers can move vertically, but are unable to propel themselves horizontally and so are carried by currents. They move up and down in response to migrations of their prey, zooplankton.
They are most venomous in the Mediterranean, but their sting is usually limited to the skin surface with local pain only.  In an unprecedented event on November 21, 2007, an enormous 10-square-mile swarm of billions of these jellyfish wiped out a 100,000 fish salmon farm in Northern Ireland.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Honeycomb Moray

Photographer Tony Wu reported from Ambon, Indonesia, a magical nighttime encounter with a moray he named Barney. Scientists would rather we refer to this noble critter by his Latin name, Gymnothorax favagineus.  They are also known as the leopard moray, tesselate moray or laced moray, and to us, a beautiful face is just that, a beautiful face.
The Laced moray can grow up to 300cm in length, and as such are one of the larger species of moray eel. They feed mainly on small fish and cephalopods.  It has been observed that adults are prone to be aggressive in the wild.
They are found in the Indo-Pacific, and East Africa to Papua New Guinea, north to southern Japan, south of Australia.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Shark Swarm

During an organized shark dive, photographer Justin Lewis dressed in chainmail to get in the middle of a group of feeding sharks in the Bahamas. The Bahamian Reefs Hope Spot is located East and South of Florida and host forest, wetlands, swamps, and the Andros Barrier Reef, the second largest barrier reef in the western hemisphere. The Bahamas Island eco-region consists of over 3,000 low-lying islands and covers over 14,000 square kilometers.
Photograph: Justin Lewis Photography…

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Photo of the Day ~ Zebrafish Larvae

These strange-looking creatures may look like ear-less teddy bears with tails – but this micrograph is actually two-day-old zebrafish larvae, as seen through a scanning electron microscope. The image was captured by Jurgen Berger and Mahendra Sonawane, both employees at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology.
The zebrafish, or Danio rerio, is a common tropical fresh-water fish. Within three months, the larva turns into an adult (the two holes above the mouth in the picture above show not its eyes but a developing olfactory system.) During the larval stage, the zebrafish has the ability to regenerate fins, skin, heart and brain. Learn more about this fascinating critter here: zebrafish.org…

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Photo of the Day ~ World Penguin Day

Emperor penguins mill in the depths as they prepare for their swift ascent to the sea ice. “Once they start to launch,” says Nicklen, “within 30 seconds they’re all standing on the ice.”
Why is today the most important Penguin Day ever? In less than three months, two dozen countries and the EU (the Commission for Conservation of Antarctic Living Marine Resources meets in Germany July 15) will decide whether to create the world’s largest marine reserves. CCAMLR will vote on one proposal from New Zealand and the United States, and another sponsored by Australia, France and the EU.
A consensus vote would create reserves in marine areas that are teeming with life, and arguably the best penguin habitat on Earth.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man On Ice

Da Vinci’s 500-year-old Vitruvian Man was reinvented on the Arctic Sea Ice in 2011 with the help of Mission Blue Partner Greenpeace and Los Angeles artist John Quigley in an effort to “draw attention to how climate change is causing the rapid melting of sea ice beyond most predictions.”
Constructed with copper banding, which was later removed and recycled, a team of Greenpeace activists laid out “Melting Vitruvian Man” on an ice sheet which was the size of four olympic-size swimming pools, following artist Quigley’s specifications.

Using Greenpeace’s ice-breaker, the Arctic Sunrise, they travelled to a remote area 500 miles from the North Pole, after scouting for the perfect ice canvas from the air. The installation was created in the Fram Strait between Greenland and Norway’s Svalbard Islands.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Deepwater Horizon Disaster 2010

Today’s Photo of the Day serves as a stark reminder of the largest scale environmental disaster that has yet to befall the United States, the Deepwater Horizon Disaster.  Now, at the third anniversary of the disaster, how much have we learned? And how far have we come in terms of avoiding future disasters?
Skimmer ships, floating containment booms, anchored barriers, sand-filled barricades along shorelines and dispersants were used in an attempt to protect hundreds of miles of beaches, wetlands, and estuaries from the spreading oil from the Deepwater Horizon.
Photo (c) Daniel Beltra
Daniel Beltra Photography…

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Photo of the Day ~ Australian Flatback Sea Turtles Protected

We just received some amazing news – A hope story from Australia! After years of hard work, one of the most pristine areas on the planet and it’s critters have won protection!
So today we will take a minute to raise a glass to everyone who worked on the Kimberly project as we look forward to a better future where common sense and good science guides energy policy and development! ~ Ed.
Mission Blue partners at SeaTurtles.org have succeeded in helping Australian activists to win a major victory in the fight to save sea turtles on the pristine Kimberley coast from a massive natural gas plant!
After three years of non-stop opposition from around the world, late last week oil giant Woodside Petroleum scrapped its controversial and unpopular Browse Basin natural gas refinery at James Price Point near the town of Broome in Northwest Australia.…

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Photo of the Day ~ Shards of Turquoise Ice on Lake Baikal

Lake Baikal, in the southern part of eastern Siberia, is an incredible natural wonder of the world that one can only hope to visit at least once in their lifetime. Mission Blue founder Sylvia Earle had the opportunity to dive there with James Cameron in a Russian Academy of Science sub in August of 2010. It’s not just the oldest freshwater lake on Earth, at 20 to 25 million years old, it’s also one of the largest and deepest, holding an astounding one-fifth of the world’s freshwater.
The images from this March are astounding! Photo (c) Jeffersons Opinion
Learn more here: http://bit.ly/10MkgSY…

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