Jumbo Squid Flash, Flail in First Ever Squid-cam Video

The first ever video ofjumbo squidacting naturally—footage captured by squid themselves—shows the cannibalistic predators lighting up"like Christmas trees,"according to a new documentary of a 2009 expedition.

The same expedition established the jumbo squid—one of which shattered two Kevlar bite plates with its beak—as having among the world's strongest bites.

In partially sunlit depths of the Gulf of California, or Sea of Cortez (seemap), the camera recorded footage of the squid"strobing"red and white and flailing its arms—signals that could advertise anything from aggression to sexual prowess, according to scientists. (Seesquid pictures.)

Such behaviors have been seen before in the difficult-to-study species but never without the distractions of divers, lights, and submersibles—and never so close up, said herpetologist Brady Barr, part of the team that captured the footage in September 2009 for the National Geographic Channel showDangerous Encounters With Brady Barr: Cannibal Squid, airing Friday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. (The National Geographic Society part-owns the National Geographic Channel and wholly owns National Geographic News.)

(See"Alien-like Squid With 'Elbows' Filmed at Drilling Site.")

Barr said the film's objective—"to get an untethered camera on the squid and hope that the animal would return to the abyss and carry on with its way of life,"was met, and more.

Known to prey on their own kind, jumbo squid—also called Humboldt squid—can travel to depths of about 4,900 feet (1,500 meters), though most of the filming occurred at depths of less than 330 feet (100 meters).

"I've worked with animals for 20 years,"Barr added,"and this was as good as it gets."

Flashy Jumbo Squid Resembles"Christmas Tree"

To get the video, scientists first had to lure several seven-foot-long (two-meter-long) squid—to the surface with bait. (Learn about the relatedgiant squid.)

On three occasions Barr and colleagues got into the water and wrestled different rubbery squid into a synthetic sleeve outfitted with aCrittercam, a National Geographic Society-patented research tool for collecting video, audio, and environmental data.

The first released jumbo squid had red LED lights attached to its camera. When the squid dove deeper, other squid attacked it, perhaps because"squid appear to be able see red LED lights, and it may really piss them off,"according to jumbo squid expertWilliam Gilly, who participated in theCannibal Squidexpedition. Torn off by the attackers, the Crittercam surfaced prematurely.

For the second deployment, the team attached a camera without lights to another jumbo squid. When this Crittercam squid entered a jumbo squid swarm at around 140 feet (42 meters), the Crittercam squid began alternately flashing red and white and flaring its tentacles.

"Their entire body flashes—this thing lights up like a Christmas tree,"Barr said.

(Related:"Squid's Built-In Light to Inspire New Gadgets?")

It's known that squid and related species ofoctopuscan change their body colors quickly—often to camouflage themselves.

But"it was nice to see that for the first time without humans,"Gilly said.

That's because no one knows how artificial lighting can skew a squid's natural behavior, said Gilly, of Stanford University's Hopkins Marine Station in Pacific Grove, California.

Gilly noted that other squid didn't seem to treat the Crittercam squid unusually—other than the first, light-equipped squid—and that all the camera-equipped squid seemed to swim naturally.

Squid Signals: Aggression or Attraction?

The footage strengthens the idea that squid are communicating via flashing and flaring—though it's hard to say what those mean, Gilly said.

For instance, a squid that opens its arms and flashes red-to-white may be trying to look big and impressive.

(Related:"Colossal Squid a Soft, Sluggish Drifter.")

Then again, such a show could be attractive to a potential mate, Gilly said."If you're a big, strong squid, you're a good fighter and a good mater."

Flashing in jumbo squid is already well known to scientists, saidRoger Hanlon,senior scientist at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

It's certain that rapid changes in light patterns are part of antagonistic displays among squids—"all of which have some sort of unambiguous visual signal with which to carry out their displays,"said Hanlon, who was not part of the research. Hanlon specializes in the study of chromatophore displays in other species of cephalopods, the class of animals that includes squid, octopus, and cuttlefish.

There aren't many observations published about squid behavior in the wild, addedLou Zeidberg,a squid researcher who works in Gilly's lab but wasn't involved in the project.

But Zeidberg noted that in some studies of other squid species, white seems to be a"seductive"color used by male squid—and in the case of the reef squid, by females, according to the Marine Biological Laboratory's Hanlon—and red has been attributed to combative male-male displays.

For instance, Zeidberg has seen—via remotely operated vehicle—an interaction between a small and a big squid off Monterey,California.

While the small squid hovered in front of the ROV displaying white coloration, a larger squid came into view. The small squid immediately turned red and circled the larger squid while maintaining eye contact, he said.

Jumbo Squid Might Be Planet's Strongest Biter

Though seen as one of the oceans' top predators, the jumbo squid remains little understood, expedition leader Barr said.

But scientists do know"they're powerful, they're smart, they're fast, they've got an arsenal of weapons,"he said.

For instance, at the center of their array of eight sucker-lined arms, there's a parrotlike beak powered by a mass of muscles.

To measure the strength of a jumbo squid's bite, the team caught a squid at the surface and inserted a Kevlar pressure plate into its mouth—which the squid promptly bit in half. Kevlar is 20 times stronger than steel, according to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

The preliminary reading indicated the jumbo squid had a bite force of more than a thousand pounds (more than 455 kilograms)—stronger than the killer jaws of thehyena, though not quite as strong as acrocodile, according to Barr, who specializes in animal bite forces.

More readings are needed, but"for all we know,"the jumbo squid may be"the strongest biter on the planet,"he said.

MBL's Hanlon isn't surprised by this brute power:"I am pretty sure {a} large squid could bite well into a human arm—and perhaps even through the bone."

Gilly would know. A captive squid bit the Stanford scientist's arm in June while he was fitting it with a Crittercam—requiring 15 stitches.

"When I saw blood flowing into the cooler in large amounts, I realized it wasn't going as planned,"Gilly said.

That squid later disappeared with the Crittercam, providing no useful data on how squid hunt and live in oxygen-free depths—Gilly's next areas of study.

Come September, Gilly plans to outfit more jumbo squid with Crittercams—and maybe even find the one that got away.

"I'm feeling like Ahab to some extent,"he quipped."I gotta go get that sucker."

Video: Excerpt FromCannibal SquidDocumentary

National Geographic News

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"Extinct," Pop-Eyed Primate Photographed for First Time

Long thought to be extinct, one of the world's rarest primates has been caught on camera for the first time, scientists announced Monday.

(Related:"'Extinct' Bird Seen, Eaten.")

Discovered in 1937 but"missing"for 60 years,Sri Lanka's Horton Plains slender loris was presumed to have died out. In 2002 a fleeting nighttime sighting of something looking like the elusive tree-dweller, however, gave conservationists hope.

Follow-up surveys led by theZoological Society of Londonfinally confirmed the lorises are alive—if not exactly well—in 2009, when two individuals were photographed and examined.

Initial estimates after the rediscovery put the total world population at fewer than a hundred, said the society's conservation biologist Craig Turner. And in this case, the world is limited to high cloud forests in theHorton Plains area (map)of central Sri Lanka—the animal's only known habitat.

"Potentially this is the rarest primate we're aware of today,"Turner said.

(Relatedpictures:"25 most endangered primates named.")

Lonely Lorises

About 8 inches (20 centimeters) long and weighing just 11 ounces (310 grams), the slow-moving loris has been doomed as forests have been felled for firewood and to make way for tea plantations and other farms, Turner said.

"There's no means for these lorises to move between the {remaining} forest patches,"Turner said."In terms of breeding and finding mates, it is very difficult for them."(See asatellite picture of Horton Plains' forests.)

"The real focus now has to be on the remaining forest areas and looking at how we can enhance and protect them, and also reconnect them to one another,"he added.

(Also see"'Extinct' Booby Exposed—Found 'Masked,' Using Alias.")

"New"Loris Also New Species?

The Horton Plains slender loris is generally classified as a subspecies of Sri Lanka's red slender loris. But, thanks in part to the first ever pictures, researchers now believe the"extinct"loris could be a whole new species.

"It's clearly very different physically,"Turner said. Compared to lowland lorises, the Horton Plains loris is"stockier, shorter limbed—and it's got a much longer fur coat."

Ongoing tests on DNA samples taken from the few individuals recorded to date, he added, should help to settle the issue.

forNational Geographic News

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30 Amphibian Species Wiped Out in Panama Forest

A"catastrophic"epidemic has made 30amphibianspecies locally extinct in a region ofPanama—including 5 species that were lost before they were even formally identified, a new study says.

The species are the latest victims of the deadly chytrid fungus, which has caused major amphibian declines in Central and South America as well as in Australia since the late 1980s. The fungus infects an amphibian's skin, sloughing off the skin's layers and causing lethargy, weight loss, and eventual death.

Suspecting the imminent arrival of chytrid, researchers had visited the forests of El Copé (seemap) between 1998 and 2004 to record genetic information from the region's frog and salamander species.

Chytrid swept through El Copé in 2004, wiping out amphibians so quickly that dead frogs littered the forest floor, according to study leaderAndrew Crawford, an evolutionary biologist at the University of the Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

The mysterious fungus acts so rapidly that scientists are rarely able to track its destruction. (Related:"Deadly Frog Fungus Spreads in Virus-Like Waves.")

But armed with the genetic database, the El Copé team was able to make the first before-and-after comparisons to pinpoint the exact species lost to the fast-moving fungus—including a handful of species that proved to be new to science.

"We're discovering species and losing species at the same time—these two conflicting trends have to clash at some point,"Crawford said.

Species Not Gone Globally, But Hope Dim

Before chytrid hit El Copé, Crawford and colleagues had collected DNA samples from 63 frog and salamander species in a 1.5-square-mile (4-square-kilometer) tract of forest. The information was added to a larger genetic database of known amphibians.

By matching unknown specimens with existing genetic lineages, the team discovered 11 unnamed species among those collected in the forest before the outbreak.

A post-epidemic survey conducted between 2006 and 2008 showed that 25 of the 63 species had been lost. Five of the missing species were among the 11 that were new to science.

Another nine species had seen population declines between 85 and 99 percent since the earlier survey, according to the study.

Though the species aren't globally extinct, there's"not much optimism"that amphibians from unaffected areas will recolonize El Copé, Crawford said.

Past experiments—such as inCosta Rica—show that frogs don't bounce back after a chytrid wave comes through. (Read aboutvanishing amphibiansinNational Geographicmagazine.)

A frogless forest could have reverberations throughout the ecosystem, Crawford added. For one thing, tadpoles are crucial to stream environments, because they munch on moss and algae along stream beds, taking in protein and other nutrients needed by animals higher up the food chain.

Frog Fungus a Hint of What's to Come?

No one knows what sparked the spread of chytrid, but it's possible that globalization—with people and goods becoming more interconnected—is a key factor, Crawford said. (See"Bait Shops Found to Be Spreading Chytrid.")

In general, the outbreak is an"alarming"reminder of how such emerging pathogens can devastate whole ecosystems.

For instance, chytrid is so potent that it's killing off distantly related species of frogs that are as genetically different from each other as rats are from whales, he said.

"Hopefully we don't get pathogens like that that hit mammals,"he said."This could be just one example of what's coming."

The amphibian die-off findings appearthis week in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

National Geographic News

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Pictures: Baby Gulf Turtles Released Into Atlantic

Federal workers remove sea turtle eggs from a nest inAlabama'sBon Secour National Wildlife Refugeon June 27.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently began arranging the relocation of some 70,000 rare sea turtle eggs from 700 Gulf Coast nests in the path of theBP oil spill. All seven of the world's sea turtle species—four of which nest in the Gulf—are considered threatened or endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

(Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Birds, Fish, Crabs Coated.)

If left alone, Gulf sea turtle hatchlings—which crawl through sand layers to leave their underground nests—could get injured or killed through contact with buried oil on their way out to sea, said Riley Hoggard, a resource-management specialist forGulf Islands National Seashore.

Many turtles annually nest on the protected seashore, which includes sites in bothFloridaandMississippi. (Seesea turtle pictures.)

In part to address such threats, the babies were hatched in a special facility in a warehouse at eastern Florida's Kennedy Space Center and are being released on several Atlantic Ocean beaches throughout summer 2010—on the other side of the state from the Gulf.

—Christine Dell'Amore

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Photos:"Glass" Crustacean Among Hundreds of New Species

CalledThalassiosira trifulta, the diatom was discovered as part of an ongoing project to catalog animal diversity on theKorean Peninsula (map). Split into three three-year phases the Korean biodiversity initiative started in 2006 and is slated to run until 2014.

So far, 694 species have been found during the second phase of the project, running from 2009 to 2011. Of these, 420 species were known to science but are new to South Korea, while 274 species are entirely new to science.

The diatom, which forms chainlike colonies, was discovered in Pohang, a coastal city in South Korea's Gyeongbuk Province, according to Kim Min-Ha, manager of the Korean indigenous species project at the National Institute of Biological Resources (NIBR).

Most of the newly unveiled species are microscopic—no new mammals or large animals have been found so far.

(Seepictures of new species found during a recent survey of undersea mountains in the Atlantic.)

—Ker Than

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New Leviathan Whale Was Prehistoric"Jaws"? (Pictures)

Evoking theposter for the original summer blockbuster,a new species of killersperm whaleattacks a baleen whale in an illustration.

Dubbed Leviathan melvillei—an homage toMoby-Dickauthor Herman Melville—the recently unearthed fossil sea monster lived about 13 million years ago in waters atop what's now aPeruviandesert, according to a study published by the journalNatureon Wednesday.

Living alongside the largest sharks ever known, the raptorial—meaning actively hunting—whale measured about 60 feet (18 meters) in length, about as big as a modern male sperm whale.

But whereas modern sperm whales feed primarily on squid, Leviathan's large teeth—some of which measured more than a foot (36 centimeters) long—suggest the whale hunted more challenging prey, including perhaps its close whale relatives.

"It was probably a very powerful and frightening animal, so it fits well with the description Melville made of Moby-Dick,"said lead study author Olivier Lambert, a paleontologist at the National Museum of Natural Historyin Paris.

(Related picture:"Whale Found in Egypt Desert.")

—Ker Than

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Two New"Walking" Batfish Species Found

Two new species of bottom-dwelling"walking"fishhave been found in the Gulf of Mexico—right in the path of theGulf oil spill,experts say.

Small enough to fit in a person's palm, members of the two species of pancake batfish might already be threatened by the ongoingDeepwater Horizonspill and the oil-dispersing chemicals being used in its cleanup, experts say.

(Related:"Oil Spill to Wipe Out Gulf's Sperm Whales?")

The new fish are so named because they are flat and can use their stout, arm-like fins to shamble along the seafloor with a stilted gait, reminiscent of a walking bat. (Seepictures of other newfound fish that walk on their"hands.")

Once thought to be part of a known, widespread species, the batfish are actually three separate species, according to a recent physical reexamination of museum specimens. The species discoveries—to be described in an upcoming issue of theJournal of Fish Biology—were made before the Gulf oil spill began on April 20.

One of the new species,H. intermedius, is found only in the Gulf of Mexico (seemap), including parts—such as coastal Louisiana—that are already heavily affected by the oil spill.

The other new batfish,H. bispinosus, lives along the northeastern Gulf coast, as well as along the eastern coasts of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Oil has begun to dirty the western coast of Florida in recent weeks. (Seepictures of oiled Florida beaches.)

"If we are still finding new species of fishes in the Gulf, imagine how much diversity ... is out there that we do not know about,"study co-authorJohn Sparks, a fish biologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said in a statement.

Toxic Oil Poses Many Threats to Batfish

There are several ways the oil could harm the newfound fish.

For one, floating slicks of oil may be killing the pancake batfishes' plankton food supply.

Adult pancake batfish on the seafloor could be immediately harmed by oil gushing from the broken wellhead.

And the toxic crude may also kill off the fishes' eggs and larvae, which travel on the ocean's surface, said study co-authorProsanta Chakrabarty, a fish biologist at Louisiana State University.

What's more, chemical dispersants used to break up the oil into smaller droplets for easier digestion by microbes may be toxic to the fish, he said.

As a drastic measure to contain the disaster,cleanup crews have been applying dispersants underwater directly at the source of spill. However, it's unknown how—or even if—dispersants applied at depths biodegrade in the same way that they do at the surface.

Dispersed Oil's Impact on Fish Unknown

It's also unclear whether the right kinds of microbes exist in deep ocean to digest the oil once it's broken up by dispersants, Chakrabarty pointed out.

"How the oil breaks down and how it's affecting the fish is totally unknown. This shouldn't have been done without a study beforehand,"he added.

(See"Gulf Oil Spill a 'Dead Zone in the Making'?")

"I'm afraid that next year when there's no oil on the surface, people will forget about it.

"People are going to say everything's fine in the Gulf,"he said,"when in fact terrible things are still going on below the surface."

forNational Geographic News

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Human Brains"Evolve," Become Less Monkey-Like With Age

Brainregions that grow the most outside the womb are the same areas that expanded the most during evolution from monkeys to humans, a new study says.

As the human brain matures, it expands in a"strikingly nonuniform"fashion, according to researchers who compared MRI scans of 12 infant brains with scans of 12 young adult brains. (Seebrain pictures.)

The research revealed that brain regions involved in higher cognitive and executive processes—such as language and reasoning—grow about twice as much as regions associated with basic senses such vision and hearing, said study leader Jason Hill, a neurobiologist atWashington Universityin St. Louis, Missouri.

"The parts of the {brain} that have grown the most to make us uniquely humans are the same regions that tend to grow the most postnatally,"Hill said.

Hill and colleagues also compared the new human-brain scans with brain scans of macaque monkeys.

The results suggest that the expansion patterns in infant brains are"remarkably similar"to how human brains have changed since humans and macaques diverged from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago.

(See"Eating Crocodile Helped Boost Early Human Brains?")

Early Human Brain Primed for Survival?

Hill and colleagues suspect that development of the human brains' higher cognitive and executive regions may be delayed to allow them to be shaped by early life experiences. (Read"Beyond the Brain"inNational Geographicmagazine.)

The delay could help keep a fetus's brain from growing too big to fit through his or her mother's pelvis.

"It is evolutionarily advantageous to put those resources more into the maturation of regions that are better suited to early survival, such as being able to see and recognize your mother,"Hill said.

Brain Research May Help Preemies

The researchers hope that the new brain discovery can help uncover where and how the development of some premature babies goes awry.

"We know that 30 to 50 percent of preterm infants have some kind of lasting neurodevelopmental problem,"Hill said,"and in a lot of cases we don't necessarily know why."

Findings appear online this week in the journalProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

forNational Geographic News

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Jungle Cat Mimics Monkey to Lure Prey—A First

For a plucky little forest cat, the key to survival might just be"monkey see, monkey do."

Themargay (picture), or tree ocelot, mimics monkey calls to draw in prey, the nonprofitWildlife Conservation Society(WCS) announced Thursday.

Scientists in the Amazon rain forest's Reserva Florestal Adolpho Ducke, near Manaus,Brazil, heard a margay imitating the call of a baby pied tamarin monkey in 2005.

It was the first—and so far, only—scientifically documented case of a cat imitating a prey species in the Americas, team member Fabio Rohe, a researcher for the New York-based nonprofit WCS, said in an email. Rohe added that he's unaware of any other predators in the world using vocal mimicry as a hunting tool.

(See"Atlantic Octopus Mimics Flounders—A First.")

Though the high-pitched squeal was a"poor imitation"of a baby, it was similar enough to attract curious adult tamarins feeding nearby, Rohe said.

But when the monkeys crept closer, they spotted the margay and escaped before the cat could attack.

(Download a margay kitten picture as wallpaper.)

Listed as near threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)—meaning it's likely to face a high risk of extinction in the near future—the margay is a spotted cat that grows to about 7 pounds (3.3 kilograms) and typically feeds on small mammals, birds, and reptiles.

The cat's chief threats are habitat destruction, the market for exotic pets and pelts, and angry farmers, known to shoot margays who raid poultry stocks, according to IUCN.

Monkey Mimicry Passed From Cat to Cat?

Despite the margay's lack of success that day, the observation suggests the cats use surprising"psychological cunning"to nab their dinner, Rohe said.

And the margay probably isn't the only sneaky cat in the jungle. Rohe and colleagues interviewed people living in the central Amazon who reported hearing other cat species—such ascougarsandjaguars—tricking their prey through mimicry. (Seebig-cat pictures.)

Many of the South America's prey species, such as macuco birds and agouti rodents make very sharp sounds that may be in the"potential repertoires"of cats, the researchers say.

What's more, those repertoires may run in the family. Margay moms, Rohe said, likely pass the imitation strategy on to their young. In"wild cats, this learning with {the} mother seems to be essential for its survival."

Findings published in the July 2009 issue of the journalNeotropical Primates.

National Geographic News

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Parasitic Wasp Swarm Unleashed to Fight Pests

A huge swarm of parasitic wasps has been unleashed inThailandas a last-ditch effort to control a devastating pest outbreak, scientists say.

More than a quarter million wasps filled the skies of the northeastern province of Khon Kaen (seemap) on Saturday. The hope is that the wasps will attack mealybugs, which have been infesting the country's valuable cassava crop.

The pill-shaped mealybugs suck sap from the crops—a main ingredient of tapioca—causing them to shrivel and die.

But that's nothing compared with the killing technique of femaleAnagyrus lopeziwasps, which inject their eggs directly into the mealybugs' bodies. When the eggs hatch, the larvae eat their way out of their hosts, killing them.

(See"'Zombie' Roaches Lose Free Will Due to Wasp Venom.")

Wasp Swarm Has Worked Before

Like the wasp and cassava, thePhenacoccus manihotimealybug is native to theSouth Americancountry ofParaguay. But the mealybugs"got into Thailand without their natural enemies, and the population has increased very rapidly over the past couple of years,"said Tony Bellotti, an entomologist at theInternational Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), a Colombia-based nonprofit research institute that is helping organize the effort. The Thai Department of Agriculture and theThai Tapioca Development Instituteare also involved in the project.

Mealybugs were probably accidentally imported to Thailand from stem cuttings from Africa sometime during the past few years, Bellotti said.

(ReadGreen Guide's travels tips on avoiding invasive-species souvenirs.)

In 2009 mealybugs had spread to more than 700 square miles (200,000 hectares) of eastern and northeastern Thailand, where the pests are known to kill up to half of the plants in a given field, experts say.

Past experience shows the Thai wasp army should work, Bellotti said: The parasites were used to great effect throughoutAfricain the 1980s to help control mealybug infestations of cassava.

Scientists consider the parasitic wasps a classic example of"biological control,"in which the natural enemies of a pest are imported from its native country to curb the pest's spread.

(Related:"It's Invaders vs. Invaders as Scientists Target Alien Species.")

In Africa"yield losses were estimated at the time to be as high as 80 percent ... I doubt it's even 10 percent now,"Bellotti said.

Parasitic Wasp Attack Highly Targeted

Anthony Shelton, an entomologist at Cornell University in New York State, said the Thai wasp attack is"very logical."

Not all biological-control experiments work out as scientists intend, but those that do—such as the 1980s African intervention—tend to be"spectacular successes,"said Shelton, who was not involved in the project.

If the wasps work well in Thailand, they should not negatively impact other species, he said.

Unlike most predators—which often feed on many types of prey—some parasites, such as theAnagyrus lopeziwasp, attack only one or a few species, Shelton added.

"As the pests spread around, it's also important to spread around their natural enemies"—the wasps, Shelton said.

In time, the wasp and the mealybug should reach an equilibrium in Thailand, CIAT's Bellotti said.

"The parasite can't eliminate the pest {completely} because it would eliminate itself,"he said."But you hope that the equilibrium will be at a low enough level that it's no longer damaging to the crops."

Wasp Swarm to Spread?

CIAT's Bellotti said it shouldn't take long for scientists to know whether unleashing the wasp swarm was a good idea.

"The big test will come during December, January, and February, which is Thailand's dry season,"Bellotti said."The mealybug is a dry-season pest."

If the Thai experiment works, CIAT may deploy the wasps inCambodia,Laos, and other Southeast Asian countries where the cassava mealybug has been reported.

"We don't see this as just a Thai problem,"Bellotti said."We see it as a regional problem in Southeast Asia."

forNational Geographic News

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Pictures: Giant Undersea Volcano Revealed

Captured by high-resolution cameras aboard a robotic submersible, mineral-rich water spews from hydrothermal vents in this June 30 picture of Kawio Barat, a massive underseavolcanooffIndonesia.

During the past few weeks, the submerged volcano—one of the world's largest—was mapped and explored in detail for the first time by a joint Indonesian-U.S. expedition north of the island ofSulawesi (map).

Mining companies first spotted the Kawio Barat volcano in the 1990s with satellite altimetry. But"we were the first to go there with a {remotely operated vehicle} and actually discover hydrothermal fluids coming out of the volcano,"microbiologistJim Holden, chief U.S. scientist for the Kawio Barat expedition, said in an email.

(Watchvideo of the giant Kawio Barat underwater volcano.)

—John Roach

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Pictures: Surprising Creatures Found Deep off Australia

Taking the scientists' bait, a sixgill shark's attack 4,600 feet (1,400 meters) below the surface of the Coral Sea offAustralia(seemap) is captured in a new video image.

Reaching roughly 13 feet (4 meters) long, the sixgill shark is among deep-sea species never before filmed at such depths, according to the the Queensland Brain Institute, which released the first images from new high-tech remote-control cameras this week.

Often referred to as prehistoric or a"living fossil"because of its resemblance to sharks that lived hundreds of millions of years ago, sixgills are being studied as part of the Deep Australia Project, an ongoing effort to discover the the evolutionary origins of human sight—making the sixgill's night vision of particular interest to researchers.

(Related:"Hundreds of New Reef Creatures Found in Australia.")

"This technology will help the discovery of deep-sea creatures' adaptations to the challenges of living at crushing depths and in freezing and dark water,"project manager Kylie Greig said in a statement.

"Here they must find food and mates in the dark and avoid being eaten themselves. We are interested in the sensory systems used for this lifestyle."

—With reporting by Dave Hansford in Wellington, New Zealand

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Human Sperm Gene Traced to Dawn of Animal Evolution

The gene responsible for sperm in all sexual creaturesdates to the beginning ofanimalevolution—and may be a key to the elusive male birth control pill, a new study says.

The Boule gene, first discovered in humans in 2001, is linked to sperm production in humans and, the study says, is likely responsible for making sperm in every other sexual animal too (quick human genetics overview).

The sperm-production gene is apparently so critical to life that it hasn't changed since every animal's common evolutionary ancestor—likely just a blob of cells—arose some 600 million years ago, the researchers conclude.

The study team discovered that the gene is found in a wide range of sexually reproducing creatures, including flies and humans.

This means that Boule is found in all the evolutionary lineages that have branched off from that common ancestor, according to study leaderEugene Xu, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. (Read howsex can speed up evolution.)

(Related:"How a Man Produces 1,500 Sperm a Second.")

That the sperm-production gene remains the same"is surprising,"Xu said, since most sex genes rapidly mutate under the pressures of evolution."It really suggests a new perspective of how we look at humans and how sperm production evolved."

Sperm researcherRhonda Snookagreed. The study"represents significant effort in understanding the evolution of sperm production,"she said via email.

Sperm Doctor Hunts for Trout Testicles

To find out Boule's age, Xu and colleagues had to show that the sperm gene arose only once, in a common ancestor. rather than forming independently in different evolutionary lineages.

To do so, the team collected sperm from a wide sample of different animals, including humans, roosters, flies, trout, and sea anemones—especially important because of their ancient lineage.

Securing most of the sperm was a cinch, but the trout presented a sticky situation.

When Xu bought a trout from a Chicago fish seller, the man told him,"This is the best fish you could ever get—only a few hours old."Not so for Xu, who quickly realized the fish had been gutted."I want their testicles,"he told the seller.

No luck. Instead, Xu had no choice but to catch his own fully endowedrainbow trouton a family trip to a fishpond.

Back at the lab, Xu and colleagues discovered that each animal species mainly express the Boule gene in its testicles, he said.

The result is startling and, to Snook, of the U.K.'s University of Sheffield, enviable."I couldn't help but think that the authors got 'lucky' in choosing Boule—although their rationale of choosing it was sound—and finding that it was so highly unchanged."

Until now, scientists hadn't known whether different species have different genes for making sperm. For instance, of hundreds of known sex genes, only a very small number can be found in more than one evolutionary lineage.

But since study leader Xu found Boule in different branches of the animal tree, from sea anemones to humans, he's confident that the sperm gene is widespread in every major lineage of the animal kingdom.

Sperm Gene"Ideal Target"for Male Birth Control

To finally prove Boule is a sexual animal's sole sperm-making powerhouse, the team had to disrupt the gene, according to the study, published July 15 in the journalPLoS Genetics.

When the scientists"disabled"the gene in lab mice,"boom ... everything was normal, {but} the male can't produce sperm,"Xu said.

(See"Sperm Recognize 'Brothers,' Team Up for Speed.")

Turning off this sperm switch could someday help control disease-spreading pests such as mosquitoes, Xu pointed out. For instance scientists could genetically tweak males into becoming spermless.

Likewise, since Boule has only one function, using it to turn off sperm production would likely cause no adverse health effects in humans, he said.

This makes the Boule gene"an ideal target,"Xu added, forthe long-sought male birth control pill.

National Geographic News

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"Miraculous" Fish Thrive Amid Jellyfish Swarm, Toxic Mud

Swarms of stinging jellyfishwould make most fish turn tail—but not the bearded goby.

The hardy little African fish is the first known to thrive in an ocean region dominated by jellyfish, a new study says.

(See"'Immortal' Jellyfish Swarm World's Oceans.")

In the 1960s and '70s, overfishing off the southwestern coast ofNamibia(see map) wiped out sardines, allowing two opportunistic jelly species, the many-ribbed jellyfish and the sea nettle, to move in.

The jellies would"hoover up"just about"anything they could get their tentacles on,"said study co-authorVictoria A. Braithwaite, a fisheries biologist at Penn State University.

And, thanks to their painful stings, the voracious jellyfish are generally not on other animals' menus.

"We tend to think of jellyfish as being a dead end, because very few organisms eat them,"Braithwaite said. (Seerelated pictures of corals eating jellyfish.)

Yet when Braithwaite and colleagues recently examined the stomach contents of some gobies found off Namibia, they discovered that the supposedly noxious jellyfish make up a third of the fish's diets.

"Clever"Fish Adapted to Toxic Habitat

Bearded gobies flourish in this harsh habitat because they have built-in—and still mysterious—coping mechanisms, according to the study.

For instance, the gobies are"miraculously"immune to a jellyfish's nasty sting. They've even been seen resting on the organisms's bells, or main body parts, as well as swimming among jellyfish tentacles, Braithwaite said. (Seea picture of the deadly box jellyfish.)

Bearded gobies also spend hours in oxygen-deprived"mud mats"on the seafloor, which form when nutrient-rich upwellings from the deepoceanspur a naturally induced plankton bloom.

When the plankton die, their bodies settle to the seafloor along relatively shallow coastal shelves. Bacteria and worms then get to work breaking down the dead plankton, using up most of the oxygen in the mud and releasing poisonous hydrogen sulfide gas.

This"extremely hostile environment"is deadly to most fish—but not to the gobies, the study found. In fact, the fish were almost totally unaffected by breathing hydrogen sulfide.

What's more, the"clever"fish have learned to avoid most predators by dividing their time between the mud mats and the jellyfish-infested waters, she said.

Jellyfish Explosion Not Always Doom and Gloom

It's unknown how goby brains can handle such long periods without oxygen, or why the fish aren't bothered by the toxic mud or stinging jellyfish, Braithwaite said.

But she can say the species is"one of the most uniquely adapted organisms that I've ever come across."

(Related blog:"Round Goby Fish Have Two Kinds of Males, Scientists Discover.")

The goby's resilience, she added, is"an important lesson that dramatic changes to environments are not always a doom-and-gloom story."

Findings to be published tomorrow in the journalScience.

National Geographic News

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Sharks Carrying Drug-Resistant"Bacterial Monsters"

Our leftover medicines are spawning drug-resistant"bacterial monsters"that thrive insidesharks, scientists say.

The finding suggests antibiotics such as penicillin may be leaching into the environment and spurring drug-resistant bacteria to evolve and multiply in the oceans.

(See:"Drug-Resistant Bacteria Found in Wild Arctic Birds.")

"Bacteria have sex, basically. They can transfer genetic material,"said study leaderMark Mitchell,professor of veterinary clinical medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Mitchell and colleagues found antibiotic-resistant bacteria in seven species of shark—such as bull sharks, lemon sharks, and nurse sharks—as well as the redfishSciaenops ocellata.The fish live in coastal waters offBelize,Florida,Louisiana, andMassachusetts.(Seeshark pictures.)

Though random mutations can account for the drug-resistant bacteria, there's ample evidence for human origin, he noted.

"What do people do with antibiotics when they don't finish them? They flush them down the toilet {or} put them in the garbage,"Mitchell said.

Trashed Medicines Making Monsters

Bacteria exposed to the drugs develop resistance, Mitchell said, so"we have the risk of creating these bacterial monsters."

These monsters may cause particularly virulent illnesses in sharks and fish. But the researchers are also concerned the resistant bacteria will find their way back into the human food chain.

(Related:"Cocaine, Spices, Hormones Found in Drinking Water.")

Though sharks aren't a staple in the human diet, we eat what they eat—crab, shrimp, and other fish. So people should be aware of these risks and handle food appropriately to avoid infection, Mitchell cautioned. (Check outGreen Guide's tips for buying healthy fish.)

"I will eat things like sushi,"he said."But knowing there are those types of risks, I'm going to try and get it from healthy, wild-caught fish, where there might be more of a minimal exposure {to drugs}."

Findings appear this month in theJournal of Zoo and Wildlife Medicine.

forNational Geographic News

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Oil-Coated Gulf Birds Better Off Dead?

Since late last week a flood ofpictures of oil-coated Gulf of Mexico birds—and conservationists painstakingly cleaning them—has added new emotional impact to theBP oil spill.

Some experts—citing traditionally low survival rates for rescued birds—are controversially arguing it would be better to immediately and humanely kill the suffering birds.

Ina Spiegel Online article last month, German biologist Silvia Gaus argued that workers helping birds caught in theDeepwater Horizonoil spill, should"kill, not clean."Gaus said studies show that more than 99 percent of rehabilitated birds will die anyway as a result of oil exposure, mainly due to kidney and liver damage caused by oil ingestion.

Each oil spill is different, however, and survival rates often depend on factors such as climate and species, according toNils Warnock, a wildlife specialist with theOiled Wildlife Care Networkat the University of California, Davis.

No one knows what the survival rate will be for the Gulf species affected by the oil spill. But, Warnock said,"I don't believe that all these birds that are being rehabilitated for theDeepwater Horizonspill will end up dying."

He added that Gaus's statistics are related to past North Sea oil spills, where birds are more prone to freezing after oil has compromised their natural waterproofing.

Conducted in the 1980s and 1990s, the studies also represent an"old paradigm"of bird rehabilitation, Warnock said. More recent work contradicts their conclusions of poor survival rates, he added.

For instance,a January 2009 study published in theAfrican Journal of Marine Sciencesaid that only 27 percent of oil-rescued penguins had been unable to breed following their release—a relatively low rate.

And other recent studies found that, in theUnited States, 40 to 60 percent of some species of rehabilitated birds had survived after release, thanks to improved treatment, according to Roger Helm, chief of environmental quality for theU.S. Fish and Wildlife Service(USFWS).

Over the years, rehabilitators have learned—mostly from trial and error—how better to care for injured birds, which is particularly important for rare species, Helm added.

But biologistJ.V. Remsenis skeptical of the higher survival rates, at least in the context of the Gulf oil spill. That's because the birds may have ingested toxic oil before they ever reach a rescue center.

"If the rehabbers can convince me that 25-50 percent are going to be successfully cleaned and released back into the environment and not die subsequently and painfully from the oil they have ingested, then OK, let's give it a try,"said Remsen, ornithologist and professor at the LouisianaState Department of Biological Sciences in Baton Rouge.

But, he said,"emotionally painful as it is, I would be for euthanizing those birds if it can be shown that the probability of them being successfully rehabbed is low."

As of Monday, 594 dead oiled birds and 413 live ones have been collected along the Gulf Coast since theDeepwater Horizonoil rig exploded on April 20, according to thejoint federal-industry response team.

Thirty-nine birds have been released back into the wild, some of them to Florida'sPelican Island National Wildlife Refuge, which is currently outside of the oil's trajectory, according to the National Audubon Society.

Emotional Case for Rehabbing Oiled Birds

Of course, the decision to kill or clean is tough to make on mathematics alone.

"The public demands that something be done,"the Oiled Wildlife Care Network's Warnock said."It's heart-wrenching—you see this totally oil-covered animal. The only way you can see that they're alive is that their little eye blinks. That kills me every time."

Added USFWS' Helm,"We have responsibility for the birds, so we make the choice to do rehabilitation."

Saving even a few birds of rare species can make a real difference, saidDavid Mizejewski, a naturalist at the Virginia-based National Wildlife Federation, a conservation nonprofit.

For instance, in the case of thebrown pelican—a Gulf native only recently taken off the U.S. endangered species list—"every individual counts,"Mizejewski said.

Gulf Oil Toxic to Birds

Oil harms birds in two ways: internally and externally.

Oil-soaked birds vigorously preen their feathers to remove the toxic crude, accidentally ingesting it, which can cause internal ailments.

"Try removing crude oil from your arm with your mouth and not getting any of it into your body,"Louisiana State's Remsen said.

"How much damage has already been done {by the time the bird is rescued}? That's the big unknown in all of this rehabilitation."

Externally, oil degrades the birds' waterproofing oils, allowing cold water to touch skin and making the animals vulnerable to hypothermia, especially in cold regions, the Oiled Wildlife Care Network's Warnock said."It's like surfing in the Northern Pacific—if your wet suit gets a hole, you're going to be cold fast."

Fortunately many of the hard-hit Gulf species, such as brown pelicans and laughing gulls, don't spend much time at sea, making their waterproofing less critical, Warnock pointed out. (Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Ten Animals at Risk.)

But addressing the external effects is still an especially tricky task right now in the Gulf.

For instance, theDeepwater Horizoncrude is especially sticky, which requires workers to clean the birds with more"intense"detergent, which in turn strips more of the birds' waterproofing oils, according to USFWS' Helm.

Conservationists have to wait weeks or even months for the birds' waterproofing to be naturally replenished, further stressing the animals and reducing space for incoming patients, Helm said.

Rescued Birds' Homing Instincts May Backfire

When a bird is rehabilitated, finding locations to release the animal so it won't get re-oiled is"problematic,"Helm added.

That's why rehabilitators tend to choose oil-free habitats far away, Louisiana State's Remsen said. Yet many seabirds are"notorious for exceptional homing abilities, even over completely unfamiliar territory and vast distances.

"Many bird biologists would wager that the released birds would head right back where they came from, back into harm's way, especially during breeding season,"Remsen said.

There's also the possibility that the birds won't adjust to their new homes, noted the National Wildlife Federation's Mizejewski."If you're moved 500 miles {about 800 kilometers} away, even if you're following your instincts, you don't know the topography or where to look for food."

There's"no easy solution to clean up this mess,"Mizejewski added."We can't just take a few birds and put them in dish detergent and say we fixed the problem.

"It's a tragic, real example, in our face, {of the fact} thatthis problem is going to be with us for decades."

National Geographic News

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Oil Spill to Wipe Out Gulf's Sperm Whales?

If theGulf of Mexico oil spillkills just threesperm whales, it could seriously endanger the long-term survival of the Gulf's native whale population, scientists say.

Right now between 1,400 and 1,660 sperm whales live year-round in the Gulf of Mexico, making up a distinct population from other Atlantic Ocean groups, in which males make yearly migrations.

All sperm whales are considered endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. But the Gulf of Mexico population is thought to be especially vulnerable due to its relatively small size.

The whales are now at risk from the ongoingDeepwater Horizonoil spill, because they are likely to ingest or inhale toxic crude and noxious oil fumes. (Seepictures of the oil seeping into Louisiana marshes.)

"We know there's going to be some {oil} exposure, and we know there's an endangered species. If you put those two thing together, there is reason for concern,"saidCeline Godard-Codding, an environmental toxicologist at Texas Tech University.

A 2009 stock assessment report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimated that the potential biological removal, or PBR, level for the Gulf of Mexico sperm whale population is three.

That means the whales' long-term survival is at risk if, in addition to natural deaths, three sperm whales a year are killed or removed by human causes.

The loss of a handful of whales each year can impact a population of hundreds, because sperm whales—especially females—require a very long time to reach sexual maturity. Females then give birth to just three or four calves during their entire lifetimes.

"They're like humans. Most of the human population is not going to have six kids at once and do that every year,"Godard-Codding said.

"As soon as we get to the level of three deaths caused by human interaction—and this would include the oil spill—that would jeopardize that particular sperm whale population."

Whales May Be Choked, Drowned, and Poisoned

Oil spills can affect sperm whales and other cetaceans, including dolphins, in a number of ways.

For starters, the marine mammals have to surface to breathe, and if they come up through an oil slick, they can suck the toxic substance into their lungs.

Also, the fumes on the surface of the water after a recent spill can be powerful enough to knock out full-grown whales, causing them to drown. (Read aneyewitness account of smelling the Gulf oil spill.)

Finally, the oil can taint the toothed whales' prey—fish and squid—affecting the whales' diets and hurting their chances of raising healthy calves. (Seepictures of a sperm whale eating a giant squid.)

"The chemicals in the oil product that move up through the food web are a great concern for us,"said Teri Rowles, coordinator ofNOAA's marine-mammal health and stranding response program.

Previous studies have shown that at least some of the Gulf of Mexico sperm whales are known to hang around where theDeepwater Horizonoil rig was located before it exploded on April 20, triggering the spill.

"Between 2000 and 2005, about 300 {sperm} whales were seen on a consistent basis right in that area,"Texas Tech's Godard-Codding said.

Dead Gulf Sperm Whales Hard to Tally

Some experts worry that the Gulf oil spill could be as damaging to sperm whales as the 1989Exxon Valdezoil spill was to killer whales in Alaska's Prince William Sound. (Seepictures of oil lingering in Alaska 20 years afterExxon Valdez.)

After theExxon Valdezdisaster, some populations of killer whales were reduced by as much as 40 percent, according to a 2008 study led by marine biologist Craig Matkin of theNorth Gulf Oceanic Societyin Alaska.

Even now, that killer whale population has yet to recover and will likely go extinct in a few decades, Matkin said.

"We lost so many females out of that group that they couldn't catch up again. They still haven't caught up,"he said.

If the current oil spill causes more than three Gulf sperm whale deaths this year, it could push that group into the"red zone,"Matkin said.

Whether marine mammals are being affected by the Gulf oil spill is unclear. Oil is a suspected factor in thestranding of several coastal bottlenose dolphins (picture), but a firm link has yet to be established, NOAA's Rowles said.

"Deep-diving whales, like sperm whales living away from the shore"—and thus closer to the main body of the oil slick—"certainly have been exposed,"she added.

Finding dead or affected whales will be difficult, however, because the animals spend most of their time underwater, and their bodies do not often wash ashore.

"In the aerial surveys that are being performed as part of the cleanup and marine-mammal observations, we are requesting that people report dead floating whales,"Rowles said.

"That would be the most likely way we would detect dead sperm whales."

forNational Geographic News

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Whale Hunting to Continue in Antarctic Sanctuary

An international effort to broker new whaling regulations has collapsed, leaving in place loopholes for whalers to harvest some 1,500 whales a year—including whales in an Antarctic sanctuary.

Contentious discussions at theInternational Whaling Commissionannual meeting this week in Agadir, Morocco, focused on proposals that would have allowed limited commercial whaling to resume at low levels—but under tight IWC regulation and quotas that may have reduced current kill levels.

"Ultimately after a three-year process and intense negotiations of very polarized positions, things broke down,"said Howard Rosenbaum, director of theOcean Giants Programat the Wildlife Conservation Society, a New York-based nonprofit.

"And now the way forward isn't entirely clear. In the meantime, it seems like the situation will remain as the status quo,"said Rosenbaum, who is also a member of the IWC scientific committee.

That means the three whaling countries—Japan,Iceland, andNorway—will continue to pursue scientific and other unregulated whaling.

Those countries have killed more than 30,000 whales since a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling. (Seewhale pictures.)

Sanctuary No More?

The Southern Ocean Sanctuary was apparently a major sticking point that helped to sink compromise efforts during this week's meeting.

In 1994 the IWC designated the Southern Ocean Sanctuary—19 million square miles (50 million square kilometers) of waters surroundingAntarctica—as a critical space safe from commercial whaling. Most of the world's whales feed in these waters.

(Related:"France-Size Shark Sanctuary Created -- A First.")

But the Japanese dispute the legality of the sanctuary and regularly kill many whales in these waters, a practice that prompted pending action brought by Australia to the International Court of Justice.

Whalers had hoped to retain some access to the sanctuary, but for some conservationists the idea was a deal-breaker.

"We know that when we've allowed whales to recover in places where they haven't been hunted, the sanctuaries have been effective in helping to ensure the recovery of whale populations,"Rosenbaum said.

"That's why there's a desire to really make the sanctuary effective, so that whales can be free from whaling on their key feeding grounds, {such as the Southern Ocean Sancturary}, as well as in other important habitats such as important breeding grounds."

Japan Faces Anti-Whaling Sentiment

Japan takes the lion's share of whales for scientific research, though in reality many of those whales may end up on dinner tables, rather than in laboratories.

For instance, in 2009, Oregon State University researchers found that meat in a Los Angeles sushi restaurant came from a whale that most likely was killed for Japanese"scientific"whaling.

Japanese whalers have argued that populations can sustain catches of current levels and that science does not support the need for an outright whaling ban.

Many Japanese also feel anti-whaling sentiment is rooted incultural bias against Japan, according to the Associated Press.

Shigeko Misaki, a former spokesperson for the Japan Whaling Association,said in 2008 that the anti-whaling campaign has gone too far.

"It has almost become a religion, that whales are the only symbol of the marine ecosystem,"she said."People who believe this religion think all Japanese people are evil, because we kill whales."

forNational Geographic News

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Mouse Tears Are Aphrodisiacs

A guy who can shed a tear really can drive females wild—among mice, at least.

According to a new study, male mouse tears contain a sex pheromone called ESP1, which makes female mice more receptive to mounting.

While sex pheromones are known to have similar effects in other animals, the new study shows for the first time how the interaction works"at the molecular level and also thebrainlevel,"said study co-authorKazushige Touharaof the University of Tokyo.

(Related:"Pheromone in Urine Spurs Mating in Elephants.")

Male mice shed tears to keep their eyes from drying out. As they groom themselves, the tears—and the pheromone—get spread around their bodies and nests.

When female mice come in contact with a male or his nest, they pick up the pheromone via a nose organ called the vomeronasal, where the pheromone binds to a specific protein receptor.

"She has to touch it, because this is not a volatile compound like a fragrance,"Touhara said, referring to the ease with which some chemicals turn into vapor.

Upon contact, the pheromone is sent to sex-specific regions in the female's brain. The female mouse is then three times more likely to engage in what's called lordosis behavior, a posture shown by many animals in heat in which they thrust their rumps and tails upward.

Tears as a Captive Breeding Tool?

Humans lack the gene that codes for ESP1 and its receptor, so men are unlikely to gain a sexual edge—chemically speaking—if they decide to show their more sensitive sides, Touhara noted. (Get ahuman genetics overview.)

"But the thing is, in human society we don't use chemical communication anymore, because we have good eyesight"—for visually sizing up attractive mates—"and we use language,"he said. (Related:"True Love"inNational Geographicmagazine.)

The findings, however, may have real-world applications for mouse population control.

"Most of the wild mice express this pheromone robustly, but surprisingly, most of the laboratory mice don't,"he said. This has led to a decrease in lab-mouse breeding efficiency, which means that researchers may be spending more time and money than necessary to get animals genetically suited for lab experiments.

(Related:"Watching 'Sexy' Males Leads to Better Chicks, Study Says.")

Touhara's team has applied to patent the pheromone as a tool to"increase the mating chances for laboratory mice."

Findings appear in this week's issue of the journalNature.

forNational Geographic News

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Gulf Oil Cleanup Crews Trample Nesting Birds

Standing on a white-sand beach at Florida'sGulf Islands National SeashoreThursday, blotchy stains from theGulf oil spillcould be seen creeping past the red-lettered"keep out"signs meant to protect nesting shorebirds.

And, according to conservationists, some oil-cleanup crews are having trouble heeding the warnings, too.

From April to August each year, rareshorebirdssuch as the piping plover and least tern lay nests of two to three eggs directly on the softly undulating, open dunes about 40 feet (13 meters) from the water's edge.

Piping plovers are listed as threatened on the U.S. endangered species list, and least terns are considered threatened in Florida. When nesting, both species' survival depends on limited contact with people.

But with oil encroaching on Florida's coasts, an army of cleanup crews has descended on the seashore. About 44,300 people are now de-oiling roughly 450 miles (720 kilometers) of Gulf coastline, according to the website for theDeepwater HorizonUnified Command, the joint federal-industry task force responding to the Gulf oil spill.

With so many people working so close to breeding grounds, frightened adult birds are abandoning their nests, and adults and chicks are being inadvertently trampled. (See"Gulf Oil Spill Pictures: Ten Animals at Risk.")

"Most of us know that the cleanup can do more damage than the oil can ever do,"said Riley Hoggard, a resource-management specialist forGulf Islands National Seashore (picture).

"Our bigger responsibility is to the {wildlife}, whether it's to a turtle nest or nesting shorebirds. If we have to get cleanup teams off the beach, we'll do that—and deal with the oil cleanup later."

Birds Flushed, Cooked, Squashed During Cleanup

Oil on beaches is clearly a threat, since the toxic substance can affect shorebirds at all stages of their life cycles, Hoggard said. (Read"Oil-Coated Gulf Birds Better Off Dead?")

An oil-contaminated egg would have a higher likelihood of not hatching. And even if an egg does hatch, a curious chick could get mired in the sticky oil, which may kill the bird or hinder feather development, Hoggard said.

Deepwater HorizonUnified Command has sent assessment teams to monitor beaches and marshes and determine whether oil should be removed by hand—preferred in delicate regions such as the national seashore—or by heavy machines.

Each morning local conservation groups share information with BP's cleanup supervisors about where nesting colonies exist, as well as cautions about not trampling, driving through, or otherwise encroaching on these areas.

But even with precautions in place, there have been instances of cleanup crews disturbing nesting colonies, notedMelanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society's Louisiana Coastal Initiative.

Eric Draper, executive director ofAudubon of Florida, said many volunteers have inadvertently wandered into piping plover nesting areas throughout the state.

"The responders' activities have been more threatening to shorebirds than the oil itself,"Draper said.

Cleanup operations are most damaging when people"flush"nesting birds—frightening them enough to abandon their nests, the Gulf Islands' Hoggard said.

Crews first dispatched to the Fort Pickens area of the national seashore flushed many shorebirds, and some colonies have abandoned their nests, he noted.

Even a temporary flush—when the parents are frightened off but return soon after—can be disastrous.

Without a parent's belly to cool an egg, the embryo will literally get cooked in the Gulf Coast heat. Likewise, predators such as seagulls may swoop in to snag an unprotected egg or chick.

Increased foot and vehicle traffic have also harmed bird parents and chicks.

Losing even one parent will doom a nest, Hoggard said, since it takes two to raise a chick: one to keep the egg cool and safe and another to search for food.

New, handmade signs on the national seashore's main road implore drivers to watch out for skittering baby birds. Even so, at least one chick was run over on Thursday, according to Adrianna Hirtler, a public information officer for the park.

Gulf Sand Dwellers Also at Risk From Cleanups

Florida Audubon's Draper has begun recruiting volunteers in the state to act as"nesting-bird stewards,"keeping nests safe from nearby cleaning crews.

But even cleanup operations farther from nesting sites can pose threats to Gulf shorebirds, saidJoel Kostka, a microbial ecologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee.

Standing on a sun-bakedPensacola (map)beach Friday, Kostka surveyed a wide, compacted crater made by heavy machines used to scrape away about a foot (0.3 meter) of sand close to the water.

(See"Gulf Spill Pictures: Toxic Oil Found Just Under Beaches.")

Such techniques clear away oiled sand, but they may also permanently harm sand-dwelling animals, which shorebirds prey on, Kostka said.

"People generally think about beach environments as being dead to biology, and that's not at all the case,"Kostka said.

Sun-shy ghost crabs swarm Gulf beaches at night. Smallinvertebratessuch as mollusks and worms burrow in the sand, while thousands of microbe species feast on organic matter that the ocean washes ashore.

Members of these species may be killed outright by cleanup operations, and survivors are left with habitat that may never recover. For instance, certain species adapted to one type of sand—say, coarser particles—may die off if another type of sand replaces the lost layers.

Rather than digging deep, Kostka said, beach cleaners should simply pick up and remove oiled sand from the surface, wherever possible. There's also a chance that in some cases doing nothing will be the best approach.

Natural forces—such as oil-munching microbes—will degrade some oil buried in beach sand, and scientists are now working to figure out how fast and how completely Mother Nature will clean up what's there.

Gulf ecosystems were already in dire straits before theDeepwater Horizonoil spill, Kostka said. Years of coastal development have wiped out large chunks of beach habitat, and sea-level rise due to global warming threatens to inundate even more of the coastline, he said.

"If you superimpose all of the {oil's} impacts on top of all those other threats to the ecosystems,"Kostka said,"the oil may tip them over the edge."

in Gulf Islands National Seashore and Pensacola Beach, Florida

National Geographic News

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Photos: New Species,"Living Fossils" Found in Atlantic

A rare basket star, seen riding on its intricate network of arms, is among a haul of strange and previously unknown deep-sea creatures recently found in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, scientists announced Tuesday.

Ten potentially new species—including"mountaineering"sea cucumbers and possible"missing links"betweeninvertebratesand backboned animals—were discovered during the six-week expedition.

The voyage, which ended July 3, was the last of theMAR-ECOproject, a series of biological surveys of unexplored waters along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the underwater mountain range that bisects the Atlantic Ocean from north to south.

Basket stars are types of brittle stars—starfish cousins that use their intricate arms to walk and snare passing prey such as plankton and shrimp, according to MAR-ECO memberImants"Monty"Priede, director of theUniversity of Aberdeen's Oceanlabin the northernUnited Kingdom.

—James Owen

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Chimp Gangs Kill to Expand Territory

Some gangs ofchimpanzeesbeat their neighbors to death in bids to expand their turf, according to a new study.

While scientists have long known that chimps will kill each other on occasion, the finding shores up a long-held hypothesis that humans' closest living relatives sometimes turn to violence to annex valuable parcels of land.

Researchers observed predominantly male patrol groups sent out by a 150-strong chimp group at Ngogo in Kibale National Park inUganda. The chimp gangs killed 21 of their neighbors between 1999 and 2008.

"Just fists and feet"were used in the attacks, study leaderJohn Mitani, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said in an email from Uganda."Multiple chimps pummel the victims with both {appendages}. I think the victims die from internal injuries.

"Victims are usually totally immobilized and don't really stand a chance of getting away,"he added.

(Read"Chimps Use 'Spears' to Hunt Mammals, Study Says.")

Chimpanzee Territory Expansion

The Ngogo chimps have added bits and pieces to their 11-square-mile (29-square-kilometer) territory over the years, Mitani said.

"The surprising thing about last summer, though, was how much new land they took over,"he said."It was a sizable chunk of territory."

The 2.5-square-mile (6.4-square-kilometer) summer land grab suggests the ongoing violence amounts to a turf war for access to food.

The Ngogo chimps have already begun feasting onMorusmesozygia, a valuable fruit tree found in the newly acquired territory, Mitani noted.

In addition, researchers suspect that there may be a second benefit for the encroaching chimp group.

"Females from the neighboring group whose territory has been annexed might move into the Ngogo community,"added Mitani, explaining that female chimps generally leave the groups they were born into when they reach puberty.

With their newly acquired land, the Ngogo chimp group might be seen as a more tempting destination for emigrating females, because the group controls more resources.

"This hasn't happened yet, {but} it still could. And in the future, more female chimpanzees might immigrate into the Ngogo community because of this land grab,"he said.

(Also see"'Loving' Bonobos Seen Killing, Eating Other Primates.")

Chimp Gangs Offer Insight Into Ourselves?

The documented land grab is"exciting,"saidJill Pruetz, an anthropologist at Iowa State University who studies chimps and other primates.

But she cautioned against applying the findings to all chimps, since"virtually no"killing of neighbors has been observed outside of the eastern chimpanzee subspecies(Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii).

"Generalizing to all chimps, including the other three subspecies, in terms of behavior is inappropriate and, given the tendency to expand such findings to speculating about human aggression, can be quite dangerous,"she said in an email from Senegal, where she's observing savanna woodland chimps.

(Related:"Uncaring Chimps May Shed Light on Humans, Study Says.")

Study leader Mitani agreed that the findings probably reveal little about the much more varied and complex reasons that humans go to war. In fact, he said, the study might offer insight into the origins of human cooperation.

"The lethal intergroup aggression that we witnessed is cooperative in nature, insofar as it involves coalitions of males attacking others,"he noted.

"In the process, our chimpanzees have acquired more land and resources that are then redistributed to others in the group."

Findings are published in the June 22 issue of the journalCurrent Biology.

forNational Geographic News

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