A couple of weeks ago we deployed 3 Platform Terminal Transmitters (PTTs) onto 3 hawksbill sea turtle females after they nested (we discussed planning for this in a previous post). The process could not have been fun for the 3 turtles, but we tried to minimize our impacts while setting us up to get some invaluable information.
First, we did standard measurements […]
A recent study showed that the greenland shark, an animal that scientists had previously suspected was long-lived, can reach ages of nearly 400 years. Previous research in the 1930s had shown that these fish, which can grow up to 5 meters in length, only grow about 1 centimeter per year. This is a surprisingly slow growth rate, even for the extreme […]
Weather has always been hard to predict. One of the difficulties is developing enough weather stations throughout the world to compile the data needed for accurate predictions. Well, now scientists are starting to learn from the worlds expert travelers: birds. In a recent study, scientists placed small GPS trackers on these long-ranged fliers allowing them to accurately calculate wind speeds wherever […]
Last year I reported on hearing a chorus of narrow-mouthed toads (Gastrophryne carolinensis) here on Abaco (link to original post). However without a specimen I couldn’t confirm its presence here. Almost exactly a year later a high school student, Donte Richard, remembered that post and called my attention to an adult in his backyard.
This new observation is about 850 […]
Finding new species these days is usually the business of researchers who work with small things like insects and crustaceans. However, every once in a while researchers uncover big animals. These rarities have hidden away in thick forests, on the top of remote mountains, or deep in the sea – places far from human eyes. For that reason, it’s remarkable when […]
This years exceptionally strong El Niño event, and the abnormally high water temperatures that it has produced, has triggered what appears to be the largest coral bleaching event ever. Widespread bleaching is currently underway throughout the Pacific and is expected to continue for months to come. Researchers have already documented over 99% of the reefs (4 out of the 520 surveyed) in […]
Here is an quick update from Dr. Dean Grubbs on his recent research on West Andros. Some really neat stuff (although with all of those sharks, makes me a little wary to survey our reefs there).
We dart tagged and took genetic samples from 54 sharks and rays on this trip (17 blacktip sharks, 19 lemon sharks – including […]
With the Bahamas Natural History Conference underway, a good time to remind everyone about our paper archive – now over 700 papers available in a searchable database. Topics include essentially anything relevant to science being conducted in the country. Let me know if your papers are not included, and we will get them up.
We collected these shrimp in a small blue hole near Little Harbour last month. It is pretty surreal to snorkel in it – literally thousands and thousands of these shrimp scattered across the bottom. We sent some specimens to Robert Ditter at FIU and he has sent along some information about them (recent presentation here, papers here and
Recently we’ve been posting a lot about fungi, particularly fungi that are able to cause disease. However, it’s important to remember that fungi are an extremely diverse group of organisms. Some fungi may cause disease and have a negative interaction with their host while some may be beneficial by making nutrients more accessible (mycorhizza symbionts, for example) to their […]
