#ee porpoises

[2myskeleheart]

Machine Girl eyeshadow palettes inspired by Loungefly’s KORN palette

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Sensors suction-cupped onto whales’ backs are helping biologists answer two big questions. Why are whales so large? And why aren’t they bigger?

Being big can boost the ability of whales to reach more food and with less effort. That can help them access deep-sea prey that would be beyond the reach of many other creatures. In a new study, scientists estimated how much energy 13 species of whales and porpoises use — and gain — when foraging. They conclude that how big the creatures get depends on how and what they eat and how much food they can find.

Jeremy Goldbogen works at Stanford University in California. As a comparative physiologist (Phiz-ee-OL-oh-gist), he studies how the bodies of animals work. He specializes in whales. For the new study, he worked with a large team of researchers to learn how whale size relates to what whales eat and how they get it.

Toothed whales, such as orcas, echolocate (Ek-oh-LOW-kayt) to hunt for individual prey. The whales’ size appears to be limited by how much food they can grab during one dive, the researchers report. That’s not the case, though, for blue whales and other filter feeders. They open their mouths wide and bring in a large gulp of water — along with whatever is in it. Then they shove the water back out between big baleen plates. Afterward, they swallow the food caught behind those plates.

These animals tend to be much larger than their toothed cousins. Filter feeders alive today aren’t constrained by food availability. So they might be limited by other factors, such as how large a body they can physically support. These animals might even be on their way to evolving to become bigger still, the team suggests in the December 13 Science.

“This is a fascinating study,” says Samantha Price. She is a biologist at Clemson University in South Carolina who studies how animals’ bodies have evolved. She was not part of the new research. Biologists have been thinking about the evolution of bigness for a long time, Price says. These researchers, “through incredible effort, actually got some data about these hard-to-study behaviors,” she notes.

In the last 5 million years, whales have become larger than ever, Goldbogen says. The blue whale grew into the largest creature ever throughout the history of life. He says that could be due to changes in glacial cycles, winds — even ocean currents. Those changes have focused upwellings of nutrients in pockets of the sea. The nutrients attract dense patches of tiny crustaceans, fish and other animals. And that creates whale buffets.

Being large has helped whales exploit such food bonanzas in a few ways. Bigger creatures can travel farther using less energy per unit of mass. So big whales can cross wide swaths of barren ocean to reach food-rich upwellings. Larger bodies also support larger lungs. And more air means more time for feeding during dives.

Simply put, bigger whales were thought to be more efficient at finding food, Goldbogen says. But that was mostly just an educated guess, he adds. Researchers didn’t have good data about how much energy whales gained from food or used while diving and hunting. “We just didn’t know much about what these animals were actually doing underwater,” he explains.

[ciliabillyscience]

Porpoise of life.

Murry W.Rhodes (C)20211207 Did you ever imagine having a porpoise?. How cool would that be? Spliching, Splashing and swimming and flipping like flipper with an EE, ee, EE, ee dialogue as you solve the worlds unsolvable problems with your best aquatic pal. Ahh the fun of it.. Of course we would all appreciate having a life that allowed us to have a porpoise as a pal similarly as having a life…

[liliannorman]

Why some whales become giants and others are only big

Sensors suction-cupped onto whales’ backs are helping biologists answer two big questions. Why are whales so large? And why aren’t they bigger? 

Being big can boost the ability of whales to reach more food and with less effort. That can help them access deep-sea prey that would be beyond the reach of many other creatures. In a new study, scientists estimated how much energy 13 species of whales and porpoises use — and gain — when foraging. They conclude that how big the creatures get depends on how and what they eat and how much food they can find. 

Explainer: What is a whale?

Jeremy Goldbogen works at Stanford University in California. As a comparative physiologist (Phiz-ee-OL-oh-gist), he studies how the bodies of animals work. He specializes in whales. For the new study, he worked with a large team of researchers to learn how whale size relates to what whales eat and how they get it.

Toothed whales, such as orcas, echolocate (Ek-oh-LOW-kayt) to hunt for individual prey. The whales’ size appears to be limited by how much food they can grab during one dive, the researchers report. That’s not the case, though, for blue whales and other filter feeders. They open their mouths wide and bring in a large gulp of water — along with whatever is in it. Then they shove the water back out between big baleen plates. Afterward, they swallow the food caught behind those plates. 

These animals tend to be much larger than their toothed cousins. Filter feeders alive today aren’t constrained by food availability. So they might be limited by other factors, such as how large a body they can physically support. These animals might even be on their way to evolving to become bigger still, the team suggests in the December 13 Science.

“This is a fascinating study,” says Samantha Price. She is a biologist at Clemson University in South Carolina who studies how animals’ bodies have evolved. She was not part of the new research. Biologists have been thinking about the evolution of bigness for a long time, Price says. These researchers, “through incredible effort, actually got some data about these hard-to-study behaviors,” she notes.

In the last 5 million years, whales have become larger than ever, Goldbogen says. The blue whale grew into the largest creature ever throughout the history of life. He says that could be due to changes in glacial cycles, winds — even ocean currents. Those changes have focused upwellings of nutrients in pockets of the sea. The nutrients attract dense patches of tiny crustaceans, fish and other animals. And that creates whale buffets. 

Being large has helped whales exploit such food bonanzas in a few ways. Bigger creatures can travel farther using less energy per unit of mass. So big whales can cross wide swaths of barren ocean to reach food-rich upwellings. Larger bodies also support larger lungs. And more air means more time for feeding during dives. 

Simply put, bigger whales were thought to be more efficient at finding food, Goldbogen says. But that was mostly just an educated guess, he adds. Researchers didn’t have good data about how much energy whales gained from food or used while diving and hunting. “We just didn’t know much about what these animals were actually doing underwater,” he explains.

Whale trackers

Goldbogen and an international team of researchers worked to change that. They employed technology-packed sensors. The researchers used suction cups to stick the sensors to the backs of whales. In all, the team attached sensors to 300 whales. These belonged to 13 species. They ranged from 50-kilogram (110-pound) harbor porpoises to 150,000-kilogram (330,000-pound) blue whales. Over a decade, the team tracked more than 10,000 feeding events. “It was no small task,” Goldbogen says.

The tags relayed data that became a daily diary of the whales’ activity. Pressure sensors and accelerometers tracked the whales’ movements and depth. Hydrophones recorded sounds. These included the clicks and buzzes used to hunt and socialize. And cameras captured video of the animals’ surroundings. All together, these data helped the researchers tell when filter-feeding giants opened their mouths to lunge at swarms of krill. They could show when sperm whales echolocated an octopus. And they allowed the researchers to gauge how much energy different species use on each dive.

Researchers approach a blue whale off California to attach a tracking device in the summer of 2019. The tag sticks to the whale via a suction cup and lets scientists record its foraging behavior. Elliott Hazen/NOAA. Photo taken under permit ACA/NMFS #16111

The team also captured sonar readings of prey density. They even dissected the stomach contents of stranded whales. That info, plus data from the tags, painted a detailed picture of what different whales ate. Then the researchers calculated an energy budget for each species. That refers to how much energy an animal has to spend to get food and how much it gains from eating that food. Such budgets help show how foraging efficiency relates to body size. 

Toothed whales usually hunt squid or octopus. Being big helps these whales dive deep to access more food, the researchers found. But after a point, their foraging efficiency falls with increased size. True, a giant squid offers a lot of fuel. But such prey are few and far between. What’s more, finding them takes a lot of energy. There just aren’t enough in the ocean for the whales to get any bigger, Goldbogen says.

Explainer: Tagging through history

In contrast, bulk filter feeders get more efficient with size. These eaters target dense swarms of tiny krill and other crustaceans. In a single gulp, the whales can get a huge number of calories. (Goldbogen says calculations suggest more than 10 million of them!) And it takes less effort than chasing down a squid. So blue whales and other filter feeders may not be limited by a lack of prey. Instead, their top body size may be due to other factors. Maybe it’s how far a whale heart can pump blood, or how large a jaw can grow. The study didn’t look at such factors or try to figure out what the physical limits on their growth might be. But it may not be possible physically to engulf more krill than big whales already do.

Or it’s possible the size of these ocean giants might not be limited at all. The creatures might still be evolving to get even bigger. That could be true as long as populations of krill stay abundant. Speculates Goldbogen, “Perhaps, millions of years from now, we’ll see even bigger ocean giants.”

Why some whales become giants and others are only big published first on https://triviaqaweb.tumblr.com/

[claireelizabethwhite]

8th July 2018

DA FATEFUL TALE O MARION PARDONE

This is the story of a Shetland witch. I first encountered Marion Pardone in October 2016 when Mum heard an interview about her on BBC Radio Shetland. I listened and was intrigued. This woman was executed in 1644 for capsizing a boat and drowning its passengers whilst disguised as a porpoise. How did this happen?

My search for clues began at Shetland Archives. Brian Smith and Angus Johnson led me swiftly to trial papers. Here, in seventeenth century language, Marion’s misdeeds were detailed over ten pages. They described a Hillswick woman with an evil tongue who cursed those whom she wished ill. Her human and animal targets became victims of sickness, harm and death. She ‘took away the profit’ from produce by spoiling brewing and filling the udders of cows with blood and fetid water. Two ravens, agents of the devil, were seen accompanying her on a three quarter mile walk. Marion failed to learn The Lord’s Prayer or say it in her lifetime. Her fateful act, though, was consorting with another witch to drown a fishing boat’s passengers one fair Hillswick morning in a safe spot by the shore.

Marion and her husband, Swene, were brought to see two of the boat’s corpses and lay their hands on them days after death, when ‘all their blood was vanished and dissolved from any natural course’. One bled at the collar bone whilst blood gushed from the hands and fingers of the other ‘to the great admiration of the beholders, and revelation of the judgement of the almighty.’ Marion was, by this proof, brought to judgement, convicted and condemned. She was taken to the west hill of Berrie in Scalloway (pictured at the top of this blog post), strangled and burned in ashes.

In December 2017 the Shetland Archives team directed me towards Samuel Hibbert’s A Description of the Shetland Islands (1822) for further information on Marion Pardone and witchcraft more generally. In this book I was interested to read that ‘It was usual with the Shetland dealers in sorcery, like the ancient magicians of Scandinavia, to use incantations.’ Hibbert gives this example:

About fifty years ago, a woman, of the parish of Dunrossness, known to have a deadly enmity against a boat's crew that had set off for the Haaf, took a wooden bason, named a cap, and allowed it to float on the surface of a tub of water; then, to avoid exciting a suspicion of her devilry, she went on with her usual domestic labours, and, as if to lighten the burden of them, sang an old Norse ditty. After a verse or two had been recited, she sent a child to the tub, and bade him tell her if the cap was whummilled, or turned upside down. Her orders were obeyed, and intelligence were soon brought to her, that the water was beginning to be agitated, but that the bowl was afloat. She then continued her incantation, and once more broke it off, by requesting the child to go again to the tub, and let her know if the cap was whummilled. The little messenger soon returned with the news that there was a strange swell in the water, which caused the bowl to be sadly tossed about. The witch then sang still more loudly, and, for the third time, sent the child to the tub to report the state of the bason, who immediately hastened back with the information that the water was frightfully troubled, and that the cap was whummilled. The enchantress, with an air of malignant satisfaction, then ceased her song, and said, “The Turn is done.” On the same day, news came that a fishing yaul had been lost in the Roust, and that the whole of the crew had been drowned.

Given the historic link between witchcraft and music, a song telling Marion’s story felt necessary, and the difficult process of selecting an angle began. In the trial papers I was struck by a recurring phrase amongst the witchcraft claims, namely ‘which you cannot deny.’ This statement appeared at the end of eight indictments against Marion. It seemed appropriate that my song’s lyrics be written from the perspective of community members, those who furnished this trial with accepted evidence of the day.

To return to the beginning, to that Radio Shetland interview, the reporter (Daniel Lawson) asked local historian, John Shaw, what was going on; was this a case of nasty neighbours? John replied that three things are needed for such a situation to arise. Firstly, neighbourhood disputes are required. Whether Marion was a difficult neighbour or whether others were picking on her is difficult to determine. Secondly, a state is needed which is willing to prosecute the case, and in this case the state executes. Thirdly, an ideology is needed to provide an intellectual and moral framework. In this case, there was a widespread and growing belief in the Devil as an agent in the world using witches as conspirators to destroy God’s order on earth.

I’ll leave you with your own thoughts on this story. You can listen to a rough recording of the song here. Below is a photo of a black cat which crossed my path as I drove to the site of Marion’s execution today.

Da Fateful Tale o Marion Pardone

Du felled neebour fock wi seekness

Wir baess dey lost der life 

A ston du lowsed aneath a man

Dan saved him for his wife

Du took awa da profit

Fae bear an milk an kye

Udders filled wi blöd an water

Göd malt wis marred forby

Da curses rain, da charges fly

Dat you, rank witch, cannot deny

Da curses rain, da charges fly

Dat you, rank witch, cannot deny

Du cast madness on dy servant

Becis shö widna bide

She drew blöd fae your twa fingers

An eence again cam richt

Du killed able working horses

Kept corbie company

Consortit wi anidder witch

Shunned God fir aa to see

CHORUS

Dy taste for wicked witchcraft

At last sealed dy demise

Fir a fishing boat du capsized

A neesick dy disguise

Du droondit four aboard her

Ee flat calm Hillsook day

Dy man an dee wis brocht ta see

Der wis a price ta pay

CHORUS

Dy haands wis placed on twa dry crangs

A craig-bane bled ageen

Fae anidder’s finger blöd gushed

Göd’s judgement it wis seen

Dy guilt wis worthy o dy death 

In 1644

Apo da Berrie wast hill

Du wis strangled dat voar

CHORUS

Dy burnin freed wis o dy curse

Dy evil tongue an eye

Göd’s justice done, da Deil slain

Nae mair sal du deny

[punsville]

Dolphin Puns

Where do women dolphins keep their money? In their octopurse.

How does a pod of dolphins make a decision? They Flipper coin.

What do dolphin use for money? Sand dollars!

Where do women dolphins keep their money? In their octopurse.

How does a pod of dolphins make a decision? They Flipper coin.

What do dolphin use for money? Sand dollars!

How does a group of dolphin’s make a decision? Flipper coin!

Why did the dolphin feel crabby?  Because he ate too many crabs!

Does a dolphin ever do something by accident? No, they do everything on porpoise!

What is a dolphin’s favorite TV show ? Whale of fortune !

How could the dolphin afford to buy a house ? He prawned everything !

How could the dolphin afford to buy a house ? He prawned everything !

Why are dolphins cleverer than humans ?  Within 3 hours they can train a man to stand at the side of a pool and feed them fish!

What did Cinderella Dolphin where to the ball? Glass flippers!

Where do dolphin races end? The dolphinish line!

What country do dolphins like most? Dolph-Finland

How did the dolphin feel after winning the race? Dolphintastic!

What did people say when the dolphin walked on water? It was just a fluke. (Note: a dolphin’s tale is called a fluke)

What did the baby dolphin do when he was upset? He whale-d

How did they know the dolphin attack was no accident? Because they do everything on porpoise.

How could the dolphin afford to buy a house? He prawned everything.

Why are dolphins smarter than humans? Within 3 hours they can train a man to stand by the side of a pool and feed them fish.

How does a group of dolphins decide on something?  They flipper coin!

How did they know the dolphin attack was no accident?  Because dolphins do everything on Porpoise.

What did the baby dolphin do when he didn’t get his way?  She whale-d

What is a dolphin’s favorite TV show?  Whale of fortune!

What birthday party game do dolphin like to play?  Salmon says!

Why don’t dolphin do well on school tests?  Because they work below C-Level.

What is the most important vitamin in a dolphin’s diet?  Vitamin Sea!

Where do dolphin races end?  At dolphinish line!

How do dolphin’s say the word “finish”?  Fin. (The french word for “finish”)

What’s a dolphin’s favourite sport?  Golphin

What did the mommy dolphin do when her son was an hour late for dinner?  She flipped!

Why is the dolphin’s favorite constellation? The Big Dipper!

Come back with me and I will show you how dolphin talks.

Do your dolphins do any tricks?

Hey, ever ridden a dolphin?

I can talk in a high pitched dolphin voice… EE ee eeee E.. E.. Eee E E Ee

If I were a dolphin, I’d rape you first.

What was the dolphin’s favorite animal at the zoo? D’olphint

What was the dolphin’s favorite movie? A Dolphin Tale.

What did the mommy dolphin do when her son was an hour late for dinner? She flipped!

  The post Dolphin Puns appeared first on Puns Ville.

Source: via Puns Ville http://ift.tt/2r8BuPb Animals

[sciencenewsforstudents]

Sensors suction-cupped onto whales’ backs are helping biologists answer two big questions. Why are whales so large? And why aren’t they bigger?

Being big can boost the ability of whales to reach more food and with less effort. That can help them access deep-sea prey that would be beyond the reach of many other creatures. In a new study, scientists estimated how much energy 13 species of whales and porpoises use — and gain — when foraging. They conclude that how big the creatures get depends on how and what they eat and how much food they can find.

Jeremy Goldbogen works at Stanford University in California. As a comparative physiologist (Phiz-ee-OL-oh-gist), he studies how the bodies of animals work. He specializes in whales. For the new study, he worked with a large team of researchers to learn how whale size relates to what whales eat and how they get it.

Toothed whales, such as orcas, echolocate (Ek-oh-LOW-kayt) to hunt for individual prey. The whales’ size appears to be limited by how much food they can grab during one dive, the researchers report. That’s not the case, though, for blue whales and other filter feeders. They open their mouths wide and bring in a large gulp of water — along with whatever is in it. Then they shove the water back out between big baleen plates. Afterward, they swallow the food caught behind those plates.

These animals tend to be much larger than their toothed cousins. Filter feeders alive today aren’t constrained by food availability. So they might be limited by other factors, such as how large a body they can physically support. These animals might even be on their way to evolving to become bigger still, the team suggests in the December 13 Science.

“This is a fascinating study,” says Samantha Price. She is a biologist at Clemson University in South Carolina who studies how animals’ bodies have evolved. She was not part of the new research. Biologists have been thinking about the evolution of bigness for a long time, Price says. These researchers, “through incredible effort, actually got some data about these hard-to-study behaviors,” she notes.

In the last 5 million years, whales have become larger than ever, Goldbogen says. The blue whale grew into the largest creature ever throughout the history of life. He says that could be due to changes in glacial cycles, winds — even ocean currents. Those changes have focused upwellings of nutrients in pockets of the sea. The nutrients attract dense patches of tiny crustaceans, fish and other animals. And that creates whale buffets.

Being large has helped whales exploit such food bonanzas in a few ways. Bigger creatures can travel farther using less energy per unit of mass. So big whales can cross wide swaths of barren ocean to reach food-rich upwellings. Larger bodies also support larger lungs. And more air means more time for feeding during dives.

Simply put, bigger whales were thought to be more efficient at finding food, Goldbogen says. But that was mostly just an educated guess, he adds. Researchers didn’t have good data about how much energy whales gained from food or used while diving and hunting. “We just didn’t know much about what these animals were actually doing underwater,” he explains.

Whale trackers

Goldbogen and an international team of researchers worked to change that. They employed technology-packed sensors. The researchers used suction cups to stick the sensors to the backs of whales. In all, the team attached sensors to 300 whales. These belonged to 13 species. They ranged from 50-kilogram (110-pound) harbor porpoises to 150,000-kilogram (330,000-pound) blue whales. Over a decade, the team tracked more than 10,000 feeding events. “It was no small task,” Goldbogen says.

The tags relayed data that became a daily diary of the whales’ activity. Pressure sensors and accelerometers tracked the whales’ movements and depth. Hydrophones recorded sounds. These included the clicks and buzzes used to hunt and socialize. And cameras captured video of the animals’ surroundings. All together, these data helped the researchers tell when filter-feeding giants opened their mouths to lunge at swarms of krill. They could show when sperm whales echolocated an octopus. And they allowed the researchers to gauge how much energy different species use on each dive.

Researchers approach a blue whale off California to attach a tracking device in the summer of 2019. The tag sticks to the whale via a suction cup and lets scientists record its foraging behavior.

CREDIT: ELLIOTT HAZEN/NOAA. PHOTO TAKEN UNDER PERMIT ACA/NMFS #16111

The team also captured sonar readings of prey density. They even dissected the stomach contents of stranded whales. That info, plus data from the tags, painted a detailed picture of what different whales ate. Then the researchers calculated an energy budget for each species. That refers to how much energy an animal has to spend to get food and how much it gains from eating that food. Such budgets help show how foraging efficiency relates to body size.

Toothed whales usually hunt squid or octopus. Being big helps these whales dive deep to access more food, the researchers found. But after a point, their foraging efficiency falls with increased size. True, a giant squid offers a lot of fuel. But such prey are few and far between. What’s more, finding them takes a lot of energy. There just aren’t enough in the ocean for the whales to get any bigger, Goldbogen says.

In contrast, bulk filter feeders get more efficient with size. These eaters target dense swarms of tiny krill and other crustaceans. In a single gulp, the whales can get a huge number of calories. (Goldbogen says calculations suggest more than 10 million of them!) And it takes less effort than chasing down a squid. So blue whales and other filter feeders may not be limited by a lack of prey. Instead, their top body size may be due to other factors. Maybe it’s how far a whale heart can pump blood, or how large a jaw can grow. The study didn’t look at such factors or try to figure out what the physical limits on their growth might be. But it may not be possible physically to engulf more krill than big whales already do.

Or it’s possible the size of these ocean giants might not be limited at all. The creatures might still be evolving to get even bigger. That could be true as long as populations of krill stay abundant. Speculates Goldbogen, “Perhaps, millions of years from now, we’ll see even bigger ocean giants.”