Marine Worm Found in Antarctica!?
Source: ScienceDaily
Date: December 8, 2013
Website: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/11/131127110349.htm
There was a brooding marine worm found in Antarctica! Brooding is when you show deep unhappiness of thought while protecting your young. Brooding is not that strange in animals, but to find it in a marine worm is very surprising. Observing it, people saw it guarding eggs from external threats. This finding was published in the journal Polar Biology, by researchers Conxita Àvila and Sergio Taboada, from the Department of Animal Biology of the University of Barcelona (UB) and members of the Institute of Research in Biodiversity (IRBio); Juan Junoy, from the University of Alcalá; Javier Cristobo, from the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, and Gonzalo Giribet and Sónia Andrade, from the Harvard University, among other experts. In Antarctica, they discovered a new species of nemerteans, which has a reproductive strategy unique in this group: it broods like hens. They found some 2-3 cm long cocoons brooded by female nemerteans. During reproduction, females secrete a very dense mucous through the body wall; it solidifies when getting in touch with marine water until creating then an elastic layer. Once the cocoon is created, females lay eggs on it. Unexpectedly, they act in a non-passive way: when cocoons are disturbed, females show a defensive behavior and go out through cocoons' openings. According to the research group, this exceptional behavior is due to extreme Antarctic weather conditions. It may result in an increase of reproductive success for many Antarctic species which can only reproduce themselves during the polar summer. Because of this, they made the Actiquim project. Their main objective is to analyze chemical ecology in marine invertebrates which inhabit Antarctic waters.
I chose to talk about this article because it seemed interesting to me. It seemed interesting to me because brooding is not considered strange, so to see people finding marine worms brooding strange is interesting to me. Why is it strange for marine worms to brood when it's natural for other animals to do that. They don't know what caused it, the main reason is that it's because of the weather conditions. It's like the marine worm up there in the picture. It has young and it must protect them, but the worm starts to become moody. That is not regular behavior for a worm. That is what is happening in this article.
Sometimes you wonder what would happen if we just let it be. What if we left the problem there and let the marine worm continue brooding? This is what would happen. It may result in an increase of reproductive success for many Antarctic species which can only reproduce themselves during the polar summer. Because of that, they made the Actiquim project to analyze chemical ecology in marine invertebrates which inhabit Antarctic waters. They want to see if there are any other conditions as to why this is happening. Well, it looks like I'm all done with my ScraMS. Now I can go back to some other things I need to get done. Thank you for always reading my articles and I hope to see you reading the ones I make in the future. I'll see you later. Peace!
I chose to talk about this article because it seemed interesting to me. It seemed interesting to me because brooding is not considered strange, so to see people finding marine worms brooding strange is interesting to me. Why is it strange for marine worms to brood when it's natural for other animals to do that. They don't know what caused it, the main reason is that it's because of the weather conditions. It's like the marine worm up there in the picture. It has young and it must protect them, but the worm starts to become moody. That is not regular behavior for a worm. That is what is happening in this article.
Sometimes you wonder what would happen if we just let it be. What if we left the problem there and let the marine worm continue brooding? This is what would happen. It may result in an increase of reproductive success for many Antarctic species which can only reproduce themselves during the polar summer. Because of that, they made the Actiquim project to analyze chemical ecology in marine invertebrates which inhabit Antarctic waters. They want to see if there are any other conditions as to why this is happening. Well, it looks like I'm all done with my ScraMS. Now I can go back to some other things I need to get done. Thank you for always reading my articles and I hope to see you reading the ones I make in the future. I'll see you later. Peace!