Galathea discovers new genus

Newsletter 22: From an ocean depth of 1,000 metres, the trawl net brought mud and living creatures.

Dato 31.1.2007

The trawl emerged slightly the worse for wear after its travels on the sea floor.  But that is where new finds can be made – and this was the case early on Sunday morning. Fish curator Peter Rask Møller from the Zoological Museum immediately realised that some of the eelpouts in the net belonged to a new genus. More about this, with pictures of the eelpout at Politiken’s Galathea page.

Spyhopping  

The Danish expedition ship is now in the channel between the Antarctic peninsular and Tierra del Fuego.  More cetaceans live here than anywhere else in the world. Hump backed whales have been observed in abundance in the last few days, and since the expedition left New Zealand, we have seen minke whales, long finned pilot whales, killer whales, Hector's dolphin, right whale dolphins – and a baleen whale, whose type we could not ascertain. More about these mammals, including some great pictures (link to ‘Billedserie’) at the Jyllands-Posten page.

Foto: Hans Ramløv, RUC

At last, a pleurogramma!

Fish that live in polar seas or temperate zones in which the temperature is under -1.9ºC often have ice crystals in their blood. Without some kind of defence the fish's body fluids would freeze on coming into contact with an ice crystal. The most important part of a defence is thus the antifreeze protein.

Pleurogamma are the most widespread of Antarctic fish, but they are not well researched - for example it is not known why large shoals are sometimes found floating on surface sea ice. Some researchers believe this could be because their anti freeze proteins are not particularly effective. Hans Ramløv from Roskilde Universitetscenter (RUC) does not agree, and this is one of the things he will be investigating during the trip.

For some reason, however, this rather common fish did not appear in VÆDDEREN’s net. Until Friday, when a few of the diminutive silver fish began to turn up…

Photo: Jens Tang Christensen, Aarhus Universitet

Preparation of bottom trawl

In the land of the Tasmanian Devil, the possum and the platypus

Researchers examining biological interactions and biodiversity in lakes have for some time been working on the Central Plateau in Tasmania.  Link to (Danish) project diary and pictures.