Our world under the waves

Common cuttlefish, the charismatic cousins of octopuses (left) along with two iterations of the USS Cuttlefish. The earlier vessel (top right) was launched in 1906 and then decommissioned in 1919. The later vessel (bottom right) was launched in 1933 and decommissioned just after world war II.

375-pound loggerhead sea turtle returns to Atlantic Ocean after 3 months of rehab in Florida A 375-pound (170-kilogram) sea turtle has been released back into the Atlantic Ocean after three months of rehabilitation in Florida.

A brief feel good story for anyone who needs one.

Beaches can often come with warnings of venomous sea creatures. Take this jellyfish flag from Zarautz, Basque Country, Spain, an area that has seen (among others) the occasional Portuguese man o’ war. They’re not true jellyfish, but they do sting and it does hurt.

Media Monday #48 🧱

The ocean can influence practically all kinds of decoration, including those within the home. This particular mural pays homage to the coral reefs off the coast of Kilifi, Kenya, part of a rich mosaic of coastal habitats that also stretch into Tanzania and Mozambique.

How do you restore a damaged seagrass bed in the Florida Keys? One solution may be to encourage birds to poo on it
Compared to the damage from boat propellers, and the grounding of a passenger ferry in 2016, the effect of planting these T-shaped PVC stakes was (hopefully) minimal.

Portuguese Man O' War Found To Be Four Species Not One After 250 Years Thanks to citizen science, the researchers were able to compare over 4,000 images.

First they’re revealed to not be jellyfish (although they are related), now there’s four known species instead of just one. What’s next for the Portuguese man o’ wars I wonder?

These images (and samples) were taken by the Cyana, a lightweight sub operated by the French National Centre for Ocean Exploration (Cnexo), later Infremer, from 1969 to 2003, completing over 1,300 dives during its long service. It now resides at the Cité de la Mer, Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, Normandy.

Media Monday #47 📽️
It’s not just the sharks who star in schlocky horror films. With the right direction and suspension of disbelief, even the smaller sea creatures can become unreasonably deadly. Even the poster is too gnarly to show here (follow the link if you dare)
www.imdb.com/title/tt3723...

When cousins fight, it’s rarely pretty.
Like any other starfish hunting any other kind of prey, this individual will evert their stomach (i.e. turn it inside out) out through their mouth and digest this sea cucumber before sucking it all up again.

Plymouth swimmers spot 'shark' in the water Spectators were reassured that the water was safe

Some sensational scenes from last year.
If anyone is in the Plymouth area, the Shark Trust are running activities this year for Shark Month, until the end of July.

A collection of earrings in the form of a dolphin from the ancient Etruscans, Romans, Greeks and Cypriots.
Like with many designs based on real life animals, you do have to account for some artistic liberty with the source material.

Tiko and the Shark (1962) ⭐ 7.3 | Drama 1h 28m

Media Monday #46 🎥
🦈and Happy Shark Awareness Day 🦈

This lesser known film from the 1960s is a rare case of an interaction between a shark and a human being portrayed in a positive light. A topic that was covered in the latest original article on the Our world under the waves site.

This copper flask (with a brass spout) has a very distinctive scallop pattern printed on it.
The Missouri historical society dates it somewhere between 1840-1890 and remarks how similar it is to those made by the American Flask and Cap Company.

Dolphins Have Local Accents On Opposite Sides Of New Zealand In New Zealand, even dolphins have funny accents.

It’s not just the people of New Zealand who have distinctive accents.

Sunfish in the sea, sunfish on the streets of Kamaishi, Japan.
If you ever meet the former you're going to notice. With sizes reaching 14 feet by 10 feet and a weight of nearly 5,000 pounds, they are the largest bony fish on the planet.

Media Monday #45 🏖️

Just a few looks of the “The Map”, a mosaic that stretches 2,500 square feet by the shore at Kellogg Park, La Jolla, California, USA. All made using hundreds of thousands of pieces of tile, glass and fossils.
The whole thing was put together using a technique called LithoMosaic.

World's oldest whale found with 100-year-old harpoon in its side ‘He couldn't have been that bothered if he lived for another 100 years.’

That’s one way to estimate the age of such a long-lived animal, especially one as elusive as a bowhead whale.

That’s a very small baby lobster (part of a plankton sample collected off Plum Island, Massachusetts, USA in 2011).

Megalodons- An even bigger boat? by Matthew Norton The ocean today is a beautifully diverse world, full of stunning habitats, wonderfully weird phenomena and species who have originated from many diverging walks of life. Even so, …

NEW ARTICLE OUT NOW***

Megalodons, the largest species of shark ever to roam the seas (so far as we know). But were they really the supermassive great whites we once thought them to be?

Discover the answer to this question and more in this special 50th article from Our world under the waves:

In case anyone’s ever wondered how on earth barnacles make a living, this is how. Called their cirri, these feathery little legs expand and retract into the water, filtering out any tiny pieces of food and plankton that pass them by.
Living in the sea is a bit like living in a soup.

Pom pom crab: The crustacean that uses anemones as boxing gloves These tiny crustaceans, also known as boxer crabs, use the venomous anenomes to protect themselves from predators and to eat with. They also wave them around while fighting with each other.

Just because us humans can weaponise the attributes of other animals (e.g. limpet mines), doesn’t mean we have all the fun.

*** NEW ARTICLE COMING SOON***

Megalodons were powerful prehistoric sharks. But were they the supermassive great whites we assumed them to be?

YouTube video by IGN Octodad: Dadliest Catch PC Launch Trailer

Media Monday #44 🕹️
When it comes to ocean based video games, I doubt you can get any weirder than Octodad. Where you play as the titular octopus going around in a suit and trying to do normal, everyday things so that no one realises he’s not human.
A ludicrous concept with hilarious results.

In case anyone was curious about the specifics of why you shouldn’t antagonise a stingray.
One way to avoid this scenario is to shuffle your feet through the sand, giving the ray a chance to swim away, rather than deploying their stinger in self defence.

Jaws helped spur a fishing frenzy – so how have the world’s sharks fared since the 1975 release? The film made us afraid to go back in the water. It ultimately gave sharks more to fear from us.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of Jaws, a film synonymous with summer blockbusters and the demonisation of sharks.
Even so, the film has also inspired a deep fascination with sharks for many people, including David Sims, the author of this article, and yours truly.

These robust sea squirts (Atriolum robustum), also known as pine cone squirts, have red colour pigments they can show off. But sometimes this can be obscured by the yellowy green of their symbiotic algae.

Just one of the ways that colour can be a tricky mistress when identifying a species.

Media Monday #43 🎨

Some stunning cuttlefish, as depicted in this Vintage Lithograph from 1882. Follow the link below and you’ll find how much influence cuttlefish had in making artworks as well as ‘posing’ for them.

ourworldunderthewaves.com/2021/01/03/c...

A sight to behold, a crab surrounded by rings of gold on a copper disc. Made somewhere between 500-800 B.C and belonged by the Moche civilisation, who lived in what is now modern day Peru.
Their cultural views were thought to often blur with the natural world.

What can sharks teach us about our hearts? This time of year, it's hard to escape sharks—on TV at least. But perhaps that heartbeat-like theme from "Jaws"—da-dum, da-dum—has you wondering, "What might I learn about my own heart from a shark?"

Despite what certain films would have you believe, sharks do have a heart. And with one peculiar similarity to our own hearts that aren’t found in many other fish groups.
The potential insights they offer may have help treat stroke and heart attack victims.

Happy 115th Birthday to Jacques Cousteau.
Co-inventor of the Aqualung, which brought about scuba diving as we know it, and one of the greatest advocates for the ocean of the last century.