Oh, blech.

From Cape Canaveral.

Scientists study fish farts with robot fish-fart detector!

Oh man, Science magazine is great. From it, I learned that scientists are studying fish farts. Second, they use a robot fish to do it!

Via.

Researchers recorded barely-audible, cricket-like noises they think could be nighttime fish farts. The team programmed a torpedo-shaped robot called a glider to head out to sea…By comparing the grunts and whistles on their recordings to known fish calls, researchers found red grouper and toadfishes were the most frequent fish sounds recorded.... The probable farts were…most likely a group of fish releasing gas from an internal buoyancy organ called a swim bladder. By mapping these sounds, the researchers hope to get a better picture of species distributions and likely spawning areas…

Is it any surprise that one of the loudest farters was the toadfish?

Oh, that crazy pearlfish.

Did you know that the pearlfish lives inside the anus of the sea cucumber during the day? This is actually quite interesting!

Behold the Fanfin Sea Devil

It lives WAAAAY down deep in the sea. (Lucky for you!) Via.

Guess where the Vampire Squid lives!

If you were to dive down to about 2,000 to 3,000 feet, you might disturb a vampire squid.

You’d know if you did, too, because when it’s upset, the vampire squid squirts glowing slime.

Even better, Its scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, translates to “vampire squid from hell.”  (Good thing it’s only six inches across!) Via.

Nature's Perfect Poop

Via.

At his blog, Thomas Hayden has a theory about the animal with the perfect poop: the copepod.

Copepods live in the ocean, where they drift around and eat plankton. But because the plankton is sort of spiky, copepods wrap their poop up so that it doesn't hurt hurt them on the way out.

Via.

So yes, copepod poop comes with its own wrapper. And after a copepod busts a grumpy, the grumpy sinks to the ocean floor, where it becomes food for other animals.

What if humans had a system like this? Thomas Hayden says we would poop something that looks like a "nicely wrapped burrito." Niiice!

Fun Fact of the Day

Scientists call catfish "swimming tongues" because they have more than 250,000 taste buds located all over their bodies.


Yay.

Meet the Bristle Worm

Lucky for us, it lives deep in the ocean. *shiver* See a horrifying photo series on bristle worms here.

This is a deep-sea siphonophore.

What, you've never heard of a deep-sea siphonophore?

Oh, and sorry about that music. Oy!

The Giant Cuttle (Sepia apama) isn't so much gross...

...as it is AWESOME! (By doug.deep.)

The hagfish unleashes its snot!

The hagfish (a.k.a., the slime eel) oozes mucus from pores all over its body. It does this for defense . . . and as this hagfish being attacked by a shark shows, it works like a disgusting charm! (Sorry about the auto-play.)

Sea Pigs!

Deep at the bottom of seas all over the world are sea cucumbers. (These are animals, not plants.)

And one type of sea cucumber is known by the scientific name Scotoplanes globosa. Did you see that? Even scientists call them globosa! But they're more commonly known as sea pigs. They're pretty cool animals. 

They just cruise along the ocean floor, eating and looking cute and disgusting at the same time. Learn more about sea pigs at Animal Planet. (I did!)

The Goblin Shark would like to say "Hi!"

Don't be afraid just because the goblin shark has a mouth INSIDE of its mouth (like Alien!). Just have a look at the slo-mo footage at 0:30 of this video and—

Be afraid! Be VERY afraid!

Whoa!

This humpback anglerfish made me burp up some oatmeal just now. (From Mark Laita's amazing book, Sea.)

Let's go to the beach!

On second thought, we can go, but stay OUT of the water. After all, this Chinese beach in Quindao is suffering an explosion of algae growth. When that happens, a thick green covering blankets the—

Hey! I said stay out of the water!

Photographs and story

 from National Geographic.

Sheesh, all you can do at this pool is SWIM.

02, a photo by nycscout on Flickr.

Okay, who's going to tell him...

...to stop peeing in the pool?

From here.

Who peed in the reservoir?

Here in Portland, some of our drinking water is stored in big outdoor reservoirs, like this one at Mt. Tabor. This worked out fine until the other day, when some bonehead was spotted urinating INTO the reservoir.


Why would he do something that stupid? According to this Oregonian article, "I thought this was a sewage treatment plant."


Yes, despite the crystal blue water, lack of any stink, and pretty outdoor setting, this somehow SEEMED like a good idea. Which still wouldn't have been SO bad, except the city of Portland then drained the whole reservoir and "threw it away."


Yep, 7.8 million gallons gone because of six-to-eight ounces of pee. (Which is totally germ-free, BTW.) 


Will the urinating criminal be charged with a crime? A police spokesperson said, "He's not out of the water yet."


Ziiiiinnngggerrrr!

Call me a landlubber if you want...

...but I'm still not going aboard the good ship FartButt.

In Lake Titicaca dwells a giant frog...

High in the mountains, over 12,000 feet up on, between Peru and Bolivia, is the highest big lake in the world.

It is called Lake Titicaca.

And in Lake Titicaca is a giant frog.

It’s called the Lake Titicaca frog.

Who saw that coming?

This giant frog has big folds of skin, which help it get more oxygen in its system. They also makes the Lake Titicaca frog look pretty wacky!

Fun Fact: The frog's scientific name is Telmatobius coleus: “aquatic scrotum”.

Learn more at the National Wildlife Federation. 

Photos from here.