Recently a 2003 video went viral on the internet.  The video is a story of a 3 meter Great White Shark that was tagged.  That electronic tag eventually washed up on a beach.  The data from the tag seem to suggest, at least to the narrator and some others on the internet, that a massive ocean monster ate the shark.  The main line of evidence for this is that the tag recorded a temperature of 78˚F.

a temperature that can only be achieved inside the belly of another living animal

• At an undescribed location on the Australian Coast a female 3 meter shark was tagged.
• The female, called Shark Alpha, was observed to be healthy and the tag was perfectly placed.
• Four months later the tag was found by a beach comber 2.5 miles from where Shark Alpha was originally tagged.
• Data from the tag indicated that at 4:00 am on Christmas Eve, the tag went quickly to a depth 580 meters (1903 feet) on the continental shelf.
• The tag detected at 580 meters a temperature shift from 46˚F to 78˚F
• The recorded temperature of 78˚F lasted for eight days while the tag moved from a depth of 330 feet to the surface.

The narrator of the video, the “researcher” in the video, and others on the internet suggest these facts are consistent with Shark Alpha being eaten by a much larger mysterious predator.

Australian researchers are hunting for what they call a “mystery sea monster” that devoured a 9-foot-long great white shark.-CNN

Multiple news agencies are thankfully pointing out that there really is no mystery here.  Well of course there is the mystery of why Scienotainment TV Channels keep spreading the story of a magical ocean full of mermaids, sea monsters, and the long extinct megalodon, but I digress.

As reported at NBC

“I don’t know this story,” R. Dean Grubbs, a shark researcher at the Florida State University Coastal and Marine Laboratory, told NBC News in an email, “but it doesn’t take some mysterious giant shark to eat a 9-foot white shark.” Grubbs said he’s had more than one 10- to 12-foot-long tagged shark eaten by other sharks. “Two 10- to 12-foot sixgill sharks were eaten by what we believe, based on the vertical tracks, were larger tiger sharks,” he wrote. “And one 10-foot tiger shark was eaten by what we are pretty certain was a larger sixgill shark. I have also caught multiple sharks that would have been over 10 feet, but only the head remained.”

One possibility raised is a cannibalistic and larger Great White ate Shark Alpha.  Well that is certainly reasonable although not nearly as entertaining.  Work by my student as part of thier work for Sizing Ocean Giants is presented below.  In terms of all Great Whites ever measured, and where we could access the size measurements, Shark Alpha is not very big. Indeed, 75% of the approximately 800 Great White Sharks we have measurements for are larger than 3 meters.

When I was undergraduate I learned a great principle that I continuously apply in my career as a scientist.  KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid.  In other words, the simplest explanation is likely the correct one.  No need to make up a super predator when 75% of measured Great Whites are larger than the focal shark.

But of course I suppose that doesn’t make for good ratings.  So in an attempt to get massive hittage on DSN, I propose a wereshark ate Shark Alpha.

The post What ate a 3 meter long Great White? Probably a Wereshark first appeared on Deep Sea News.

 The short answer is not as many as you think.

I spent Saturday watching Pacific Rim.  The movie has everything I want in a flick—big-ass sea monsters, big-ass robots, and big-ass robots fighting big-ass sea monsters.  Pacific Rim is undoubtedly the no-holds-bar-over-the-top-action-flick-who-gives-damn-about-plot-or-character-development-o-yeah-it-has-Ron-Motherf’n-Perlman kind of movie we all need.  My wife disagrees but I still love her.

The stars of Pacific Rim are the Kaiju (怪獣) a Japanese word that literally translates to “strange creature”.  Kaiju films are a staple of Japanese cinematography with Kaijuu, like Godzilla, Mothra, or Rodan, attacking each other or better yet a whole city.

Being the complete nerd I am, I waited patiently until I heard the magical words I needed to hear during the move. “That Kaiju weighed 2500 tons.” At 2500 tons and a puny category 3, this monster didn’t even top the scales as the largest.

Kaiju are creatures of a highly toxic nature and have been categorized on the “Serizawa Scale”. Each Kaiju is classified under five different categories. Categories 1 through 2 represent the weakest of the Kaiju, while Categories 3 through 5 are the strongest. The Serizawa Scale measures water displacement, toxicity and ambient radiation levels given off by their bodies when they pass through the breach.

Knowing a Kaiju’s weight I can tell you a lot about Kaiju biology, like how many humans they need to eat per day to survive.

First we need to calculate what is the field energy expenditure, i.e. the number of joules per day to survive, for a Kaiju.  During the film the “scientist” states the Kaiju are related to the dinosaurs.  A previous paper suggests the equation for dinosaurs should be based on those for Komodo Dragons, i.e. active carnivorous lizards.  So

2500 tons = 2,267,961,850 grams

The equation is

FFE=1.07(mass)^0.735

FFE=8.05*10^6 kJ/day

Given the 2500 ton size of the Kaiju, you might be surprised this doesn’t come close the energy demand, 10.14*10^6 kJ/day, for a blue whale at a mere 160 tons.  The Kaiju estimate is just a single order of magnitude higher than that of elephants and rhinos, 5.36*10^5 and 7.10*10^6 kJ/day.

So what’s going on? The FFE is higher for carnivores than herbivore. More energy is required to chase and subdue prey.  That constant search for prey may also require muscle structure for endurance [pdf], increasing muscle mitochondria density, and requiring more energy.  But we accounted for that by using the total bad us flesh munching, bone crushing Komodo Dragon equation.

The real reason? Lizards don’t run as hot as mammals, i.e. they don’t regulate their internal temperature. Komodo Dragons, an active carnivorous lizard, actually do heat up bit, but still don’t suck energy like a mammal.  Keeping the body warm is energetically expensive to maintain, as exampled by heating bills in Boston to keep my Southern butt warm.

So real question is how many humans would a Kaiju need to eat daily to survive?  The human body contains, depending on athleticism, anywhere from 600,000 to 750,000 kilojoules of energy.  Per day the Kaiju would need to eat anywhere between 10.7 to 13.4 humans.  This would mean that it would take a Kaiju, at the quick side, 1,472 years to to eat through the population of Hong Kong, home of the Shatterdome base.

If we assume a Category 5 Kaiju weighs 5,000 tons, then it would only need 17.9 humans per day, taking it 1,102 years to eat its way through Hong Kong.  Perhaps we shouldn’t be so worried about them.

The post How may people does a Kaiju need to eat every day? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

It leads to a most-intriguing second question though…If not cream filling, what IS inside the creatures of the deep?!?

Luckily, we need look no further than the new “Sea Monsters Revealed” exhibit located at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry.

Sea Monsters Revealed uses the revolutionary polymer preservation technique commonly known as plastination to bring real sea animals onto dry land for an up-close and personal look at the most mysterious creatures the deep sea has to offer. Visitors will not only see the outside, but also the inside of the most elusive aquatic life ever discovered, including a 6-foot-wide manta ray, a 15-foot-long mako shark, a giant squid, and an 18-foot-long, 3,000 pound whale shark. All specimens in the exhibition are authentic, stunning examples of the mysteries that lie beyond our shores and have been carefully recovered in accordance with the highest animal protection standards. -MOSI

They had me at manta ray insides…but if that’s not enough to do it for you, the exhibit contains 18 full specimens, over 150 smaller critters and other important beastie bits and pieces. Essentially it’s the aquatic equivalent to the world-renowned “Bodies” exhibit, but in my opinion…way cooler.

The traveling display, created by John Zaller and his crew, takes visitors not just through a salty anatomy lesson, but on an entire oceanic experience where they can “walk” on the seafloor, travel the depths of the sea in a specialized submersible, “meet” explorers and renowned ocean advocates Fabian Cousteau and Sylvia Earle, and explore “Earth’s last great frontier.”

Besides the obvious, why else is this exhibit amazing? It’s all in the subliminal messaging…

Sea Monsters Revealed explorers will re-emerge from the depths of the exhibit with a greater understanding of the world’s oceans and our relationship to them as humans. Additionally, they will learn that the health of the oceans and preservation of these beautiful species is within our control through conservation initiatives around the globe. Guests will be given the opportunity to participate in these initiatives through follow-up conversations with programs such as the NOAA Marine Sanctuaries Program. -MOSI

As a budding scientist and ocean enthusiast myself, I only hope that this exhibit will serve to educate and spark public curiosity like nothing other than a 3,000 pound whale shark can.

I know I am curious.

Sea Monsters Revealed will be on display till September 2, 2013, when I hope it makes its way over to my neck of the woods. For all the juicy, cream-filled details on tickets and such, visit mosi.org.

The post Where’s the cream filling? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

We’ve known each other for several years now and you know that I love and respect you and your terrific blog, Laelaps on Wired Science. But I am concerned about your scathing review of “dubious” research that hasn’t even been published yet. You see, Brian, our readers (and our writers) are fascinated with the ocean and obsessed with giant sea creatures. Especially if they menaced mega sharks. When you go out there and debunk research before its even hit the presses, what are we left with?

There is no direct evidence for the existence of the animal the McMenamins call “the kraken.” No exceptionally preserved body, no fossilized tentacle hooks, no beak — nothing. The McMenamins’ entire case is based on peculiar inferences about the site. It is a case of reading the scattered bones as if they were tea leaves able to tell someone’s fortune. Rather than being distributed through the bonebed by natural processes related to decay and preservation, the McMenamins argue that the Shonisaurus bones were intentionally arrayed in a “midden” by a huge cephalopod nearly 100 feet long. (How the length of the imaginary animal was estimated is anyone’s guess.) But that’s not all — the McMenamins speculate that his “kraken” played with its food:

The proposed Triassic kraken, which could have been the most intelligent invertebrate ever, arranged the vertebral discs in biserial patterns, with individual pieces nesting in a fitted fashion as if they were part of a puzzle. The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each amphicoelous vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker. Thus the tessellated vertebral disc pavement may represent the earliest known self‑portrait.

Broken dreams and empty hearts, man. In your ambition to be a leading paleontological blogger and science writer have you forgotten where you came from? Where is the inner child that was awed by ferocious, nonevidence-based drawn Triassic horrors of the deep? Where is the little Switek that didn’t demand rationality when reading comics of giant, tentacled Kraken with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth descending upon mankind?

You’ve changed, man. But don’t go out there on the internet and ruin it for the rest of us with your *facts* and *arguments* and accumulated knowledge through years of researching stuff. Deep Sea News readers still have their imaginations and we intend to keep them.

But what really kills me about this story is the fact that no reporter went to get a second opinion. Each and every story appears to be based directly off the press release and uses quotes directly from that document. No outside expert was contacted for another opinion in any of the stories — standard practice in science journalism — and, frankly, all the stories reek of churnalism. […] You don’t have to be a paleontologist to realize that there’s something fishy about claims that there was a giant, ichthyosaur-crunching squid when there is no body to be seen.

Sure, blame the journos. I mean come on, Brian, you didn’t even let the paper get out first?! You didn’t even give it a chance!

Warmest tentacles, Kevin and the staff and readers of Deep Sea News

p.s.-GIANT KRAKEN MYSTERIOUSLY MAKES SUSHI ART OUT OF PLEIOSAURS!?!?! OMG THIS IS FULL OF WIN!!
p.p.s.-this needs to be a youtube short film btw

The post An Open Letter To Brian Switek first appeared on Deep Sea News.

“[…] The 5-member selection panel recognized Duffy for his pioneering work in marine ecology and biodiversity, with special mention of his discovery of “eusociality” among shrimps. Eusociality—most familiar among ants, bees, and other social insects—refers to life in large, cooperative colonies. It is marked by living with extended families in which only one or a few “queens” reproduce, and by cooperative care and defense of young. Duffy was the first to discover a case of eusociality in a marine animal, the sponge-dwelling Caribbean shrimp Synalpheus regalis. His subsequent work has identified several other eusocial shrimp species in this group.

Duffy’s recent work has focused on the importance of biodiversity in marine ecosystems. He is the lead scientist on a 3-year grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to establish a global experimental network for studying how nutrient pollution and changes in biodiversity impact ecologically and economically important seagrass beds. […]”

The post Emmett Duffy Wins Inaugural Kobe Prize in Marine Biology first appeared on Deep Sea News.