To discover
AOn a Portuguese navy ship, we have achieved our target in the middle of the ocean for 30 hours in a stormy sea. Here, up to 124 miles from the Lisbon coast, lies on the highest mountain of Western Europe, just underwater: Gorringe Seamount. For weeks, I traveled with a team of international scientists who made deep blue pigeons from a four -pole sailing boat. They went to Seamount to examine a developing ecosystem and catalize the creatures that made their homes there.
The Gorringe Seamount summit is only 100 meters below the ocean surface, but the base is 16,000 feet depth. It was first mapped in 1875 by captain Henry Honeychurch Gorringe. From lush moss forests to cold water coral ecosystems and deep sea sponge deposits, gorringe seamount is a biological diversity that hosts both Atlantic and Mediterranean species. Sea turtles and dolphins wander around the surface waters and shine like a living confetti.
One afternoon, divers made a striking discovery: hundreds of marble electric beams stuck in the corners and cracks of Seamount Rock. Even more surprising, all of the rays were women, and most of them were pregnant, their bellies were swollen with the offspring, extending their normal flattened shapes. Unlike most fish, a beam does not lay eggs; Instead, it carries your youth until it is completely formed. The marine scientist and expert diver Joaquim Parrinha was the greatest electric rays concentration of scientists.
ADVERTISING
Nautilus members enjoy an advertising experience. Login or join now.
Typically, the rays are creatures alone. They are mostly listened to the sea bed alone or stored in the sandy or muddy areas of the ocean base. They tend to be ambush hunters by relying on electric shocks to stun the prey like fish or crustaceans. They can occasionally be found in small groups in abundant foods, but usually groups do not form outside the feeding areas. If the rays tend to create certain birth reasons, It is not known that pregnant mothers gather there.
The greatest electric rays that scientists have ever faced were concentration.
Since they are published for explanations for the relative abundance of pregnant rays in fuck, scientists recorded a disturbing absence of sharks, high -level hunters for rays. They say that excessive hunting is probably guilty. According to the records of deep sea fisheries from the 1970s and 1980s, the area was stayed with sharks, but today estimated 70 percent of the tone fish is caught on the coast of Portugal, in fact, sharks.
“The lack of sharks from the surveys, the lack of sharks from the surveys, shows an ecosystem that the upper predators are systematically removed by industrial fishing, Eman However, the abundance of the rays is also a hopeful sign, he says, claiming that the fishing methods affecting the underlying sea life do not work near Seamount.
ADVERTISING
Nautilus members enjoy an advertising experience. Login or join now.
The collection of pregnant rays in Gorringe is still a mystery. Gonçalves says that they and other scientists have examined their movements and behaviors, and that they have gathered observations in the hope that they can break the code. Understanding the presence of rays in Gorringe can help protect both creatures and stitches.
“Gorringe is a place worth protection for existing and future generations, Gon Gonçalves says. “It includes one of the most special underwater environments in all North Atlantic and begins to reveal their secrets.”
Lead Image: Jesus Cobalada / Shutterstock
Get the Nautilus Bulletin
The last science that was solved by the brightest living thinkers.
