#ocean gyres

[todropscience]

NORTH PACIFIC GYRE NOW WORKS AS A ISLAND, WHERE COASTAL SPECIES CAN THRIVE

Researchers have recently prove that the high seas are colonized by a diverse array of coastal species, which survive and reproduce in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a collection of floating marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean, in the open ocean.

Researchers examined 105 items of floating plastic items collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and identified 484 marine invertebrate organisms on the debris, accounting for 46 different species, of which 37 coastal were invertebrate species from coastal habitats, largely of Western Pacific origin. Most of these coastal species possessed either direct development or asexual reproduction, possibly facilitating long-term persistence on rafts. 

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so huge that the findings suggest plastic pollution in the ocean might be enabling the creation of new floating ecosystems of species that are not normally able to survive in the open ocean. 

These emergent properties of plastic rafts may play an important role in sustaining diverse biofouling communities, but more research is needed to understand how such emergent properties may drive colonization, succession and trophic interactions of coastal and pelagic taxa associated with floating plastics.

Photo above: Floating plastic debris from the  the Eastern North Pacific Subtropical Gyre showing coastal organism living on. Photos courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup.

Photo below: Graphic  of the debris collection sites, illustrated as diamonds, in the Eastern North Pacific Ocean Subtropical Gyre. Model of the predicted concentration of debris, the more red, the most you could find marine debris.

Reference (Open Access): Haram et al. 2023 Extent and reproduction of coastal species on plastic debris in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. Nat Ecol Evol

[foggyfanfic]

There comes a point when you are doing too much research for fanfic, and that point is probably way before you’re looking up the interactions between the Cocos and Nazcas plates in order to decide where you would put a fictional island if you want it off the coast of Colombia.

[mamawasatesttube]

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

HMMM. well, depending on your definition of weird, there's probably several. i went down quite the rabbit hole looking up facts about albireo (a star in the constellation cygnus) while plotting out the core four space adventures fic i have yet to post, but i mean who doesn't love astronomy wikipedia pages???

the most fun big research deep dive i've gone on anytime recently though was the blue-banded goby one. i was thinking about ways to write kryptonian biology as different from human, and then started thinking abt how a lot of mammals have largely bimodal models of sexual dimorphism, but other parts of the animal kingdom do it differently. blue-banded gobies are really cool because they're bidirectional hermaphrodites, so they just change their sex to whatever's more convenient, and can undergo that change multiple times in their life cycles!!!

i skimmed a few papers, but this one ("Structural changes in the ovotestis of the bidirectional hermaphrodite, the blue-banded goby (Lythrypnus dalli), during transition from ova production to sperm production") was my favorite. there's a set of fish in there who both transitioned from producing ova to sperm and i think about them often. it's just so funny to me. this is so funny to me. oh we're both girls so neither of us can fertilize eggs? not to worry i'll grow some spermatogenic tissue-- wait. what are you doing.

overall i just love doing scientific research, especially in biological fields (im a bio student with preclinical laboratory experience so like. its my jam!!!). i also did a whole bunch of reading on various melliferous plants before writing a sex pollen fic. the research in question influenced all of one (1) line in said fic. BUT!! it was still fun fhjkds

Writers' Truth & Dare Ask Game!

[killjoygem]

Don't want to put this on my doctor who blog because I think its a bit mean but I have to admit when I see some people complain about certain messages in the show being "too heavy handed" I just think theyre weak. Just bc the show isn't holding your hand about pollution and global warming or capitalism doesn't make it bad. I get it can be scary but it's just true

[kp777]

by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

Phys-Org

May 8, 2023

From the article:

[....]

Because there could be many potential local and remote impacts of the changing gyre on the hydrographic structure, physical processes, and ecosystem of the Arctic, "it is of high interest to better understand the factors associated with such changes—including the underlying causes," the article notes.

"People should be aware that changes in the circulation of the Arctic Ocean could threaten the climate. It's not only the melting ice and animals losing their habitat that should be a concern," said Peigen Lin, lead author of the paper. Lin, who is an associate professor at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Oceanography in China, conducted his research as a postdoctoral investigator at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts.

With the gyre being the Arctic Ocean's largest freshwater reservoir, "if that freshwater gets released and ends up spreading into the North Atlantic, it could impact the overturning circulation, and, in an extreme case, disrupt it," said co-author Robert Pickart, a senior scientist in WHOI's Department of Physical Oceanography.

Read more.

[indizombie]

According to The Ocean Cleanup, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch covers an estimated surface area of about 620,000 square miles, an area twice the size of Texas or three times the size of France. Scientists conducted the most elaborate sampling method ever coordinated to get that number. They consisted of a fleet of 62 boats, 652 surface nets and two flights over the patch to gather aerial images of the debris. A gyre binds together the floating piles of plastic and debris. According to NOAA’s National Ocean Service (NOS), a gyre is an extensive system of rotating ocean currents driven by wind, tides, differences in temperature and the salinity of the ocean. Those currents pull the plastic and trash toward the center and trap it there.

Steve Yablonski, ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch now thriving with marine life, study says‘, Fox Weather

[mammalianmammals]

You never know what you'll see from the deck of an icebreaker in the Arctic!

This polar bear recently greeted #WHOI researchers and their colleagues aboard the Canadian Coast Guard vessel Louis St-Laurent! ⁠ According to Ashley Arroyo, who's writing daily dispatches from the ship: "The polar bear seemed very chill and unbothered by our presence. The coast guard crew slowed the ship for 15 minutes while he was just walking around and jumping around the different ice floes. It also had some blood on its face, so it may have recently been snacking on a seal. It was incredible to see!" ⁠ ⁠For the past two decades, the Beaufort Gyre Observing System has taken detailed measurements in this crucial part of the Arctic Ocean. Follow the current expedition, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF): go.whoi.edu/bgos-2024

via: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI)

[styllwaters]

SEA CRAWLERS

An updated introduction

____

Sea Crawlers are semi-aquatic sophonts of Qhuava - a planet with 93% of its surface covered entirely by oceans, the rest being a number of islands.

Sea Crawlers are categorised by two subspecies: Ocean and Shore-Dwellers.

Ocean-Dwellers make up 70% of the Crawler population. Most of them spend their entire lives underwater, in reef cities and underground tunnel systems. Their nations are separated by ocean gyres. They rarely travel outside their borders, preferring long-distance communication.

Shore-dwellers inhabit the five main islands on Qhuava, sticking close to the shoreline where they can access water. Their settlements are a mix of caves and burrows. There are some communities living on smaller, unnamed islands.

Pictured above is a size comparison chart, showing the relative heights of fully-grown individuals. Ocean-dwellers, while larger and stronger than their Shore-dwelling counterparts, are ungainly on land and lack maneuverability.

Some details and extra notes regarding their appearance.

OD = Ocean-dweller

SD = Shore-dweller

_______

Here are the updated designs for the Sea Crawlers as of February 2023. I've compiled everything into revised info sheets, so bits of information might already be familiar to some. You may have noticed I added some text from several asks I got. However, there are some new changes! I've adjusted the two subspecies to be more distinct from each other, reevaluated the secondary eye placement, replaced the stingers with fins, and switched up the gill location. Also changed some stats. Overall, not dramatic changes, but I think I'm finally satisfied with the designs. I will be focusing primarily on the Sea Crawlers from now on, as I want to spend some time developing them further before I tackle the rest.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck by so far - I really appreciate your support! 💞

[rjzimmerman]

A global study just revealed the world’s biggest known plastic polluters. (Washington Post)

Every year, companies produce more than 400 million metric tons of plastic. Some of that plastic spills onto waterways or beaches, clogging streams or floating in huge gyres in the ocean. Some of it breaks down into tiny microplastics or nanoplastics that float in the air and enter human lungs, blood and organs.

Sometimes it’s hard to know which companies are behind all this plastic — but now, scientists have identified some of the largest contributors.

A new study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances has pinpointedsome of the major brands responsible for plastic pollution across six continents. The researchers, who used a team of over 100,000 volunteers to catalogue over 1.8 million pieces of plastic waste, found that 56 companies were responsible for more than 50 percent of branded plastic waste globally.

The largest contributor was Coca-Cola, which accounted for 11 percent of the branded plastic pollution worldwide.

Out of more than 1.8 million pieces of plastic surveyed, close to 910,000 had visible brands. (Plastics can lose their brand markers through exposure to sunlight and weather.) And of those hundreds of thousands of pieces of plastic, the top companies responsible were Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Nestlé and Danone.

The researchers also found that there was a direct relationship between a company’s production of plastic and the amount of branded plastic waste found in the environment. If a company such as PepsiCoproduced 1 percent of the world’s plastic mass, for example, that company was responsible for roughly 1 percent of the waste found in the audit. If a company produced 0.1 percent of the world’s plastic mass, it was responsible for 0.1 percent of the waste.

[wachinyeya]

Since 2019, The Ocean Cleanup has been collecting the floating plastics for later recycling. And with a new $15 million grant from the Helmsley Charitable Trust — tied to World Ocean Day on June 8 — the group will continue its efforts to remove the garbage, a $189 million project that aims to ultimately remove 15 million pounds of plastic.

—

The latest iteration of the organization's system, funded by the Helmsley grant, involves a ship, which takes about five days to even reach the site, the largest plastic accumulation zone in the world. The ship then drags a nearly mile-and-a-half-long barrier at about walking pace to collect the plastic. AI monitoring allows the ship to steer toward the areas with the greatest plastic density, and underwater cameras monitor for any marine animal life caught in the "retention zone." If an animal is spotted, a safety hatch opens to allow the animal to escape.

"It was mind blowing," says Egger, who has completed the trip to the patch twice. "You have this pristine environment. It's a beautiful open ocean and you see a toothbrush just floating by, you see a kid's toy floating by. You realize the extent of the pollution that we caused is so vast that we created this garbage patch in the middle of the open ocean far away from human beings."

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch got its name from oceanographer Charles J. Moore, who coined the term after returning from a sailing race in 1997. About 85% of marine litter is plastic, according to the United Nations. Once these plastics enter a gyre, or an ocean vortex, they stay there until they degrade to microplastics.

"That garbage isn't going anywhere, it's staying in that location for the most part, breaking down, and entering our food system," said the trust's Panzierer. "It is so important for us to work collectively as an entire society to remove this because it has not only health problems for America, but has health problems for the entire globe."

Ocean plastics harm marine life, too. Animals often confuse the plastics for food because of their size and color, which can lead to malnutrition. Sea turtles caught in fisheries operating around the patch can have up to 74% of their diets composed of ocean plastics, according to The Ocean Cleanup.

And ocean wildlife can get caught and die in discarded fishing nets, also known as ghost nets, which make up 46 percent of the mass of the garbage patch according to the Ocean Cleanup.

In addition to the health effects of ocean plastic pollution, there are economic costs too — plastics in the ocean cost roughly $13 billion per year, including the clean up costs and financial losses to fisheries and other industries, according to the United Nations. The new funding will help the organization, which relies on donations, transition to using the new, more efficient cleanup system and scale it up.

To clean up the entire patch, Egger said, would cost billions.

The United Nations is currently negotiating a global plastics treaty that aims to develop a legally binding agreement to address plastic pollution by the end 2024.

[apollos-boyfriend]

okay i lied THIS will be my last post about this but i need all the people who are ill about quackity to know that the southern pacific gyre (where point nemo and, consequently, quesadilla island are located) is so sparse in terms of oceanic life that it’s essentially considered a desert. that is all.

[sadoeuphemist]

A Glossary of Incorrect Definitions:

abject - objectively, via absence. A blank canvas upon which is drawn the Truth.

arbitrage - the financial art of arbitrarily creating value.

assiduous - like bones bleached bare in the desert.

attenuated - drawn out, moderated, tension distributed over the entire length of a thread.

belie - to have your true self displaced beside you, marking you out as the imposter.

bemused - amused, but one step downgraded.

bolus - a lump of clay too large to swallow, metaphorically.

cascade - to collapse in sequence, or all at once.

cloying - like honey, clinging to the inside of the throat.

crepuscular - the color of veins as seen through skin. Night bleeding through the bruised membrane of sky.

desultory - seductive, but with a self-pitying demeanor. Leading you on with eyes downcast.

effulgent - gushingly magnanimous; practically reeking of goodwill.

enormity - a largeness so immense as to be unbearable.

febrile - packed with tightly-coiled fibers, ready to burst.

fraught - in a tense state of inaction. A hopeless tangle of threads all pulled taut.

frisson - friction, but with a French accent. Rubbing amber against silk to make sparks.

gyre - the gear that turns the world.

hie - to come; to come bearing; to perk up at attention; to be summoned; to get thee to a nunnery; an interjection indicating urgency that has no particular meaning in itself.

hob - a large rounded protrusion that notably sticks out, as in goblins and in nails.

imago - the cocooned image of the self, awaiting metamorphosis.

interpolate - to bridge the gap between two incompatible pieces of information.

intersticed - skewered through, as in the magic trick of a box angled full of swords.

labile - smooth and pliable, like flesh.

limn - to while away time with the patterns of productivity; e.g., clacking knitting needles together without yarn. 

lush - creamy, completely saturated. Containing an abundance of itself the deeper one digs in.

oblique - jutting off in a perpendicular direction, impudently.

peremptory - spoken first, interrupting before anyone else has a chance to start.

perspicacious - sweaty, as a personality trait. Having the expansive view of the world that only comes from trying way too hard.

quiescence - the quiet that only comes with total subjugation.

roil - to boil, but more angrily. To make soil churn like water.

rugose - coarse, full of cellulose and roughage.

sere - black, like burnt leaves.

subsume - to swallow whole, as does the ocean

terse - cut short.

verdure - a bounty of compost, rich and rotting green things.

widdershins - the direction which, when walked, you cannot see your shadow. The path that goes against the sun.

[prima-materia-ttrpg]

It Begins / How do I introduce over six months of development in a single post?

Salutations, I'm a gay nerd and I wanted to make a fantasy ttrpg with a setting that panders to myself and anyone else who might have my taste so here we are :)

The ttrpg in question is Prima Materia, and I've been working on it for a while and making ok progress so I figure I should probably start a devblog (that's what this is) so I can finally start sharing it rather than keeping the entire project within my own circle of friends, never seeing the light of day beyond that. Particularly because I'm finally playtesting some aspects and want to actually release it into the wild someday so people can share and play it as they please.

Ah, so you've clicked the keep reading link? OHOHO you fool I shall unleash an infodump of epic proportions onto ye!

*checks notes*

Right I should probably introduce this project in more depth and explain how I got to this point, and why I'm working on it in the first place. A chronological account should suffice.

Back in the days of yore (2020) when I was getting into ttrpgs for what would become the third time I had first gotten into them (previous times don't count), I was trying to create a setting for DND so I could become a DM for the first time, fueled by the disappointment that every other game I'd been a player in ended after about 2 sessions max. Making an entire setting is of course not recommended for first time DMs, particularly ones that ever want to play the game, but of course this did not dissuade me for I am built different [incorrectly].

I built a tidally locked planet for that campaign, filled it with lore and towns and cities and an apocalypse that happened some time in the past. All was well, and the campaign lasted about a year before the holiday season came and caused it to dissipate. Reduced to atoms. By that point I had been homebrewing creatures and items for my homebrewed setting, including new playable species and subclasses. Homebrew is like a glue trap, and brother, I'm a dead rat.

After that campaign ended the OGL scandal hit (among many other things I won't go into depth about) and I saw the need to create for myself a place where I can always and forever write fun stuff to share with others, in a system that I have control over. After all, integrating the system and the setting, building them explicitly to serve each other, would allow for much more creativity.

That setting still exists on my hard drive, and while I do import some of my original work for it into Prima Materia's setting from time to time, it is dead and shall remain dead until such a time I can completely re-write it to make sense in Prima Materia. But it's so ingrained with DNDs lore that it honestly would be more like an homage to the original campaign I had with my friends.

So, I got to work. I started, of course, with watching a million videos on the subject of making a ttrpg and not actually writing anything down. But eventually, an eternity later, I was ready. I started doing some science-adjacent worldbuilding to build the initial planet for the setting, in which the initial setting would be. I created continents that looked mildly plausible, charted out ocean gyres, wind patterns, and finally climates. This continued for a while, and I made the playable species and started figuring out where on the continents they would have evolved so I could figure out what their cultures would eventually be in the modern day after 10,000 years of history.

In short, I had worldbuilder's disease; and while I did make some decent progress on mechanics like dice rolling, some combat, skills, attributes and stats, it started coming to a head when I convinced myself that I needed to make a minimum of five conlangs in order to name seven continents (and various cities).

Enter stage left, one of my friends who thinks my project is cool but recognizes that I am not getting much done. This friend, Spinz (who I hear has their own project coming down the pipeline by the way >w>), has become my Screamer of Tasks and is reminding me of the important things to focus on to actually make the ttrpg a reality some time in this millennium. Thanks to their help, I've been able to get to the stage where I am able to inflict my project onto my friends so that I may playtest mechanics and generally have an otherwise fun time with them.

So what actually is the setting? That seems like a lot of buildup and waffling.

True! I felt it was important to explain where the project is coming from. As for the setting itself, I don't think I can do better than the introduction I already wrote for it in the PDF. So here's that.

After several hundreds of trillions of years the last known natural stars in the universe began to die, heralding the end of the stelleriferous period and the start of a new age full of the neutron cores and black holes they left behind. But the gods this universe spawned would not let their mother die so soon. They created new stars fueled by their own Prima Materia, the building block from which all other substance comes; a pure marriage between matter, energy, time, and thought through which the manipulation and creation of physics itself is possible.

The gods created massive bodies for themselves in orbit around their stars. Some fell into a deep sleep, some are content to watch as the eons of time give way to the fruits of their labor. Others still engage in grandiose projects of a more personal nature. But they all continue the work which allows for life to once again evolve in the small pockets of the universe which now continue to defy entropy, a constant stream of Prima Materia flowing from their bodies into the stars that they orbit. Some day, they too will reach the stars.

But that's old news, and there are none left alive to remember it but the gods themselves. In the world of Prima Materia, you play as a relatively normal sapient creature in a smaller corner of reality that has much smaller problems to contend with. Brigands, societal clashes, ancient ruins, dragons, and the wayward extra-universal threat to the planet. Many societies have also been able to harness certain powers of now free-floating Prima Materia through a process often known as "Alchemy." Alchemy, an involved study which requires just as much craftsmanship as it does ingenuity, has opened up an entirely new science for societies to develop in this age of the universe.

Who will you be? What legends will be written in your name?

There are several playable species in the setting, all of which have various distinct cultures. Koura, which are basically giant lobsters; Sepia, which are basically giant Cuttlefish; Humans, which are basically giant chimpanzees; Entari, which are strange bird pterodactyl things with feathers (they're hard to explain but I will get art I promise); Xente, which are basically giant amoeba (ones that can change their shape to be humanoid of course, what even would be the point if they couldn't); Possum, which are basically... bipedal possums and Ternaki which are basically short technicolor space elves (They believe in God). All of these species will get their very own blog post of course, but this post is hugely long and I'm getting worried about people getting bored so that's all for now.

In the future blog posts won't be this long I promise (hopefully) and they'll be a lot more focused on one thing. This blog is meant to record the development process, write down a lot of worldbuilding that has lived only in my head for too long, and link to playtests.

If you made it this far, holy crap you read a lot of my shenanigans thank you for your time I am indebted to you, truly. The next post will be about Dice Mechanics. Bye.

P.S. If you want to ask questions about Prima Materia (or me) you can send me an ask on my main blog @girlcodedcreature

[article-science]

Are you curious about the most remote place on Earth? Look no further than Point Nemo, located in the South Pacific Ocean about 1,450 nautical miles from the nearest landmass. This fascinating location is named after Jules Verne's Captain Nemo and is also known as the "Oceanic Pole of Inaccessibility."

Point Nemo is not only remote, but also a popular location for the disposal of decommissioned satellites and spacecraft. Due to its location in the middle of the ocean, it's an ideal spot to dispose of these objects safely. Additionally, scientists study Point Nemo to understand the impact of plastic pollution on the ocean and marine life. The area is located in the South Pacific Gyre, which is an ocean current that accumulates large amounts of plastic debris.

If you're a fan of adventure and exploration, Point Nemo is a must-visit destination (although it's not easily accessible for most people!). Its remote location represents the true isolation and beauty of the world's oceans, and also highlights the impact of human activities on the natural environment.

Curious to learn more about this topic? Click here for further exploration!

[indizombie]

The National Ocean Service (NOS) says the term Great Pacific Garbage Patch has led many people to believe that the plastic and other debris areas act like an island that should be visible to the naked eye. But that’s not the case. "While higher concentrations of litter items can be found in this area, much of the debris is small pieces of floating plastic that are not immediately evident to the naked eye," the NOS said. Since the gyre is driven by things such as tide, it’s possible to sail through a pile of plastic and garbage in the Pacific Ocean and see very little or no debris on the water.

Steve Yablonski, ‘Great Pacific Garbage Patch now thriving with marine life, study says‘, Fox Weather

[ms-scarletwings]

Dave the Diver: On Aberrations

Between a scattering of recently discovered islands rests a jewel of paradise, mystery, and a hint of exotic danger. The famous Blue Hole has found a name for itself among the most envied tourist destinations among the world, with a gorgeous view, thrills to experience, and rich natural resources… but on a day like this, the scene has become anything but recognizable as the bustling hub described. That is because a ponderous fog has decided to linger over the lagoon by the time my vessel reaches port.

Despite the warm weather, I could feel my hairs standing on end from the very moment the clouds had enveloped our ship. Aside from the occasional day like this, fog horns would usually be a rare sound to hear across the bay. Since the discovery of the area, vacationers have enjoyed a tropical climate punctuated by mild storms. It all paints a picture so drastically unlike the eerie one I have pursued to this end. By sunset, I know that the white mist outside will give way to a crimson haze. With it, begins the investigation into the unusual animals only spotted on previous fogged nights: What familiar aberrants have made their way to the region, what are they capable of, and to where they fit within the additional puzzle of Blue Hole’s astounding ecosystem.

The Fog Coast, Part One

The hour is roughly 10pm, and “Blue” Hole has turned to a sight otherworldly. Thick, red vapors and an eerie silence hang in place of what was a starlight sky over the whistles of dolphins a mere night ago. The locals claim that the lagoon is an inscrutable locale, whose underwater geography both hosts an impossible collection of species and undergoes rapid, unexplained changes every few hours. On a night of crimson fog, it has been made enigmatic even from the surface view. Rocks easily seen by daylight make sailing close to the shorelines a hazardous endeavor along a coast with no lighthouse or other navigational indicators. It is a coastal venture treacherous, but also rewarding, for much more hides under these waves than the rocks. A watery gyre is barely seen at the edge of shiplight, and at its core, I have heard there can be found treasures far more interesting than mere gold.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 83, 84

[Testimony of a local fisherman]

“Now it’s not unusual for cod to happen up close to the shores at night. Obviously, I was hoping for it or I wouldn’t have been fishing in that stuff, but there was something else going on with these fish. Something not right. They weren’t taking to the bait, but they just kept coming up closer. Like they were trying best they could to get up on my ankles without getting stranded. Almost like they see someone standing on the beach and that’s all they’re interested in. Not that I let them, but they got close enough to tell something ugly about them. The only thing I managed to get hooked snapped my line before I could figure out what I was even looking at, other than big teeth and nasty looking eyes.“

Analysis: Our first descriptive cases of mutated cod corroborated with archived specimens from off the coast of Greater Marrow. Though there are instances where residents have managed to capture these codfish whole and live, no success has been found in attempting to keep them or any other mutated fish in captivity, due to their propensity to die shortly after they are harvested from the ocean. The two ‘flavors’ of tainted cod found here include the Fanged and Three-Headed variants, with no cases of hypertrophy. Their behavior has observed to feature heightened predatory behavior, to the point of stalking and testing large animals as oppurtunistic targets. They approach sluggishly at first, and lunge to close distances. They pose some hazard to swimmers, notably the unarmed, but can be reeled or netted as readily as any scrod. The three-headed cods are generally larger than the fanged variant, and both can be found close to the surface during a fog night.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 79, 80

[We join the crew of a commercial trawler, company left unnamed to permit this revord of the onboard operations. As the ship coasts upon the outskirts of one of the smaller outcrops, fishermen gather at the fresh haul to do their work. Mackerel from all global ranges and climates incredulously line the deck of the vessel, meticulously sorted into an array of containers. One worker calls out as an unusual sight is plucked from the pile- a brown shiner with half a dozen too many eyes for an average fish. The bosun indicates for me a specific container the individual is packed into. What I find there is a collection of similar wretches, scales still twitching and mouths gasping wet with a shimmering fluid.]

“We don’t actually come across that many of them in the nets. One for about every hundred of the healthy ones. Their meat is considered tainted and has to be separated from the catch, but we aren’t allowed to return them to the environment either. They’ll stay on ice for now, later today they’ll be dropped off with a merchant who’s agreed to handle the… disposal.”

Analysis: In spite of the sheer diversity of mackerel to be seen at Blue Hole, these turned pacific mackerel are the only shared species between Greater Marrow and this living collection in such regard. Specifically, the Many-Eyed and Grotesque mackerels found in shallower coastal water. Like most aberrants, they are prone to agitation and exhibit territorial, if not predatory aggression at first contact. Like all aberrations, their blood runs a purple hue, and their sightings dry up once the fog has dissipated.

• Encyclopedia Entry No. 91, 92

[Shared anecdote from a lionfish diver]

“You have to really love a place like Blue Hole to do what I do. A lot of people don’t think of lionfish as an invasive species here, but they can do real damage to reefs where they’re not native, and ours are no exception. Worse still is that they’re far more aggressive here than anywhere else in the world, and not any less venomous. I thought if anyone was prepared to do a part in protecting local animals from these new pests, why not me? And yeah, I bagged a few. I speared things with a few too many eyes, a few too many heads, a few too many teeth. I found these great big ugly fish with no eyes at all that still would come right at you. And then I saw a… thing. The thing, Reason I don’t go night diving anymore. Came out of the dark like a ghost, black bones and green light. It didn’t look like something that should have even been real. I was lining a shot up and I felt like my arm had taken a lion’s barb. I didn’t even know what happened, that thing sparked, and I felt pure pain pulse through half of my body. Everything was panic after that. Panic to get back up and the hell out of the water. Fingers were still tingling almost until morning. All I know that I know is, I’m sticking to day hunting.”

Analysis: What’s to be expected was found in observation of the Tusked grouper. Despite their blindness, they show no hesitance to begin tracking and pursuing any nearby disturbance of water they sense. While their sole offensive boast is a strong mouth full of elongated teeth, the Voltaic variant wields a far less conventional weapon. When approached to a range of a couple of meters, it is capable of discharging a potent shock. Likely, this is utilized both as a defensive and hunting technique, similar to the currents produced by an electric eel. Similar accounts have attested to this stunning capability, reporting temporary paralytic effects from direct contact with the fish. Mechanism of this ability remains unknown. Especial caution recommended in presence of Voltaic grouper, not only for the risk of attack, but also from the drowning hazard posed by their stray arcs.