3,840 feet below Antarctica, scientists just discovered something that looks more like it belongs on another planet than Earth

 

In the freezing, pitch-black waters off the coast of Antarctica, scientists have uncovered a deep-sea marvel that's straight out of a sci-fi movie: a newly discovered feather star with 20 arms and a strawberry-shaped body. Its official name?

Promachocrinus fragarius.

This strange creature was found lurking at a depth of 3,840 feet, where sunlight never reaches and life moves to a rhythm we barely understand. With its delicate, feather-like arms and alien form, this echinoderm is not just a bizarre beauty it's a living clue to the mysteries of deep-ocean evolution.

Feather stars belong to the same family as starfish and sea urchins, but this new species takes things to another level. Some of its arms are short and stubby, while others twist and wave like tentacles, helping it swim, feed, and navigate the ocean's most unforgiving environment.

What's especially fascinating is that Promachocrinus fragarius was hiding in plain sight part of a group once thought to include just one species. Now, researchers believe there are at least eight distinct species in this family, dramatically changing how we understand Antarctic biodiversity.

This discovery reminds us that even in the most remote, unexplored corners of Earth, life finds a way sometimes in the most surreal forms.

It's not just a weird creature it's a symbol of how much we still don't know about our own planet. 

[Credit: Discover the Universe] 

Earth's most invasive species is a frog-killing fungus

An adult and several juvenile Helena's marsupial frog,Gastrotheca helenae.Aldemar Acevedo Rincon

The international pet trade has helped a fungal infection spread to 501 species of amphibians.

By Ula Chrobak

Lionfish hunting native fish off the East Coast, kudzu vines blanketing large areas of the South, cane toads poisoning Australian animals—these are some common examples of destructive invasive species. But the globe’s deadliest invasive is invisible to the naked eye—the chytrid fungus.

That's the conclusion of a new study, published Thursday in Science, which quantified the global death toll of the amphibian-killing fungus. "Everyone knew [chytridiomycosis] was terrible, but we didn't know the exact numbers," says lead author Ben Scheele, an applied ecologist with the Australian National University. "Our paper quantified the impact as well as pieced together the when and where."

The B. dendrobatidis pathogen species, the main cause of chytridiomycosis, originated in the Korean peninsula, according to a genome study from last year. Chytrid then appears to have spread through the international pet trade, starting in the early 20th century. The spores' spread also coincides with the growth of global trade—some sickly frogs clearly hitchhiked between continents aboard ships.

Amphibians’ thin, moist skin—through which they breathe and absorb water—contains the protein keratin, the same compound in our hair and fingernails. The aquatic chytrid fungus, which spreads through skin contact and infected water, eats up this protein. As the fungus spreads across the animal’s skin, it impedes electrolyte transport, which is key to regulating bodily functions. Eventually, the infected frog, toad, or salamander dies of a heart attack.

Large numbers of frogs have succumbed to the fungus since at least the 1970s, but scientists didn't identify chytrid until 1998. In 2007, scientists were able to attribute previous "enigmatic" frog deaths to chytrid and estimated that the infection had impacted some 200 frog species.

For the new study in Science, scientists surveyed literature and databases and consulted with experts worldwide, pooling together and mapping information on chytrid-related declines. "This is the most comprehensive update to our current understanding of ongoing global amphibian declines," says Louise Rollins-Smith, a professor of pathology, microbiology, and immunology at Vanderbilt University, who was not involved in the research.

In the past 50 years, chytridiomycosis has ravaged 501 amphibian species, the study reports. Of these, 90 are presumed extinct. Toads and frogs across Central and South America and Australia have been hit the hardest. "This represents the greatest documented loss of biodiversity attributable to a pathogen and places B. dendrobatidis among the most destructive invasive species," write the authors in the new study.

In comparison, cats threaten 430 species—mostly birds and small mammals—and invasive rodents threaten 420 species. Chytridiomycosis-caused species losses are much greater than other wildlife diseases, too, such as white-nose syndrome in bats or West Nile in birds.

While the fungus’ destruction peaked in the 1980s, 39 percent of amphibian species affected by the fungus are still declining. New outbreaks are becoming less frequent, but the disease still poses a global threat, especially when it jumps into new areas. “The documented declines have been occurring for approximately 40 to 50 years,” says Rollins-Smith. “But what is important is that we don’t become fatigued and lose sight of the fact that they are ongoing.”

The scientists were also able to use the global data to map and compare the types of environments that seemed to promote or inhibit survival. Chytrid thrives in cool and moist areas, such as those inhabited by the genus Atelopus, a brightly-colored frog living at high elevations in Central and Southern America. Many of these species are endangered or extinct. "I think that's a striking result [of our study]," says Scheele. "You have this really amazing genus of of frogs and toads—really unique, really charismatic—and they've had extremely severe declines associated with chytrid fungus."

Of the 501 species harmed by the fungus, 12 percent are making some progress toward recovery. In Yosemite National Park, for example, Sierra Nevada yellow-legged frogs are recovering in lakes across the park. But scientists have yet to witness broader, species-level recoveries. And we haven't found a cure for sick amphibians or a way to eliminate the fungus. We don't even know how long the fungus can hang around in bodies of water when there are no frogs to infect, adds Rollins-Smith.

Now, our best option is to take steps to prevent the disease from spreading, such by imposing more strict regulations on wildlife trade. “Hopefully, we will raise awareness for the serious threat that wildlife disease poses to biodiversity,” Scheele says. “As humans moving biological material all around the world at ever-increasing rates without our highly-globalized and connected world, we need to really think about biosecurity and the potential pathogens that could be hitchhiking.”

The flowers that give us chocolate are ridiculously hard to pollinate

FLOWERS FOR CHOCOLATE  Pale petals curl over a cacao flower’s male parts. Here, two developing fruits, or seedpods (top left), will eventually ripen, housing the seeds that give the world chocolate.

A complicated reproductive system makes pollination a tough job

BY 

SUSAN MILIUS 

It’s a wonder we have chocolate at all. Talk about persnickety, difficult flowers.

Arguably some of the most important seeds on the planet — they give us candy bars and hot cocoa, after all — come from pods created by dime-sized flowers on cacao trees. Yet those flowers make pollination just barely possible.

Growers of commercial fruit crops expect 50 to 60 percent of flowers to make a fruit, or pod, says Emily Kearney of the University of California, Berkeley. In some places, cacao crops manage to be that prolific. But worldwide norms run closer to 15 to 30 percent. In the traditional Ecuadorian plantings that Kearney studies, cacao achieves a mere 3 to 5 percent pollination.

The first sight of a blooming cacao tree (Theobroma cacao) can be “disconcerting,” Kearney says. That’s because most flowers come directly out of the trunk, rather than sprouting from branches as in many other trees. For cacao, special trunk pads burst into little pale constellations of five-pointed starry blossoms. Some trunks, says Kearney, “are completely covered with flowers.”

Those flowers make nothing easy. Each petal curves into a tiny hood that fits down around the male, pollen-making structure. A honeybee trying to reach the pollen would be a useless, giant blimp. Instead, flies not much bigger than a poppy seed, in the biting midge subfamily Forcipomyiinae, crawl up into the hoods and do — something.

But what? The flower offers no nectar for the midges to collect. So far, researchers haven’t even demonstrated that there’s an odor luring in the midges. Some biologists have mused that red spikes on the flowers offer nutritious nibbling for midges, but Kearney knows of no tests of this notion.

Another hitch: 100 to 250 grains of pollen are required to fertilize the 40 to 60 seeds that will make up a cacao pod (resembling a wrinkled, swollen cucumber in shades of purple, yellow or orange). Yet midges typically emerge from a flower hood dappled with just a few to 30 grains of the sticky white stuff.

CACAO COLORS Plump pods from Theobroma cacao trees hold dozens of seeds and vary considerably in color.

What’s more, the midge, dusted with that little bit of pollen like “clumpy sugar,” Kearney says, can’t just hike over to the same bloom’s female part, like a white-bristled paintbrush encircled by red spikes. Pollen is useless for fertilizing any blooms on the tree it came from or on really close relatives.

“If we want to get answers about the cacao pollination system,” Kearney says, “I think it’s the wild individuals that are going to open up the field,” instead of cultivated cacao.

The trees evolved in the Amazon Basin and a northern bit of the South American Pacific coast. There, they often grow in clusters of siblings that a monkey unintentionally planted when sucking pulp from a pod and dropping the seeds.

To Kearney, those frail midges seem unlikely to fly the distance from too-close sibling clusters to unrelated trees that offer better cross-pollination chances. So she wonders: Could the cacao with its coy reproductive system have a clandestine, strong-flying native pollinator species that scientists just haven’t noticed?

Citations

National Park Service. Pollinators – Chocolate midge.

Further Reading

B. Bower. If you think the Amazon jungle is completely wild, think again. Science News. Vol. 191, April 1, 2017, p. 13.
H. Thompson. Diverse yeasts make their home on coffee and cacao beans. Science News Online, March 25, 2016.
B. Bower. Pueblo traded for chocolate big-time. Science News Online, March 17, 2011.

Bats, Jellyfish, and Other Animals With Daily Commutes

We humans aren't the only ones in the rat race.

Dragonfish (pictured, Malacosteus niger) have organs that allow them to produce their own light and camouflage themselves from predators.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SOLVIN ZANKL, ALAMY

Your commute may be bad, but at least you don’t have to worry about blood-sucking parasites.

French grunts, a tropical Atlantic fish, “are major movers and shakers on the [coral] reef,” says Paul Sikkel, a marine biologist at Arkansas State University.

This species undertakes daily migrations from coral reefs to food-rich seagrass beds, returning home to the reefs in the morning. (Unlike most fish, which have vertical migrations, grunts move horizontally through the ocean.)

During the grunts' trek—up to a kilometer long—they're highly susceptible to infestation by tiny, parasitic crustaceans called gnathiids. ("Meet 5 'Zombie' Parasites That Mind-Control Their Hosts.")

French grunt are a schooling fish that travel up to a kilometer each day in search of food.

PHOTOGRAPH BY GEORGE GRALL, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

In part because gnathiids aren’t very active on the reef during the day, Sikkel wondered if the fish's nightly journeys help them avoid the parasite, which can be fatal.

In experiments published in March, Sikkel and colleagues found support for this hypothesis: Grunts forced to stay on the reef at night acquired five times more parasites than those that traveled on their usual commute. So, at least for grunts, commuting not only provides dinner, but also protection.

Here are some other animals that risk leaving home each day to bring home the bacon.

BIOLUMINESCENT CREATURES

Even the smallest marine animals—plankton—can make a big splash. The daily vertical migration of plankton from the ocean depths to the surface to feed may be the largest of its kind—at least in terms of biomass.

Bigger marine animals, such as fish, have nowhere to hide in the open ocean, so they have to make themselves as hard to see as possible, says marine biologist Edie Widder, founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association in Florida.

That's why bioluminescent creatures, including krill, squid, lanternfish, and dragonfish, create their own light chemically through organs called photophores. This allows them to become "invisible": Lighting themselves against the bright background of the sunlit ocean makes their silhouettes disappear when predators lurking below look up.

“Bioluminescence is absolutely critical” for this camouflage, Widder says. (See "Glowing Sea Beasts: Photos Shed Light on Bioluminescence.")

Their light organs match the sunlight filtering into the ocean so perfectly that “if a cloud goes over the sun and dims the sunlight, they can dim their bioluminescence,” Widder says. “It’s a phenomenal adaptation.”

There's just one catch.

The amount of sunlight making its way into the water column dictates how high some bioluminescent species will migrate on any given day. They "can’t go beyond whatever their light levels allow them to"—which means most don't get too close to the surface, where it's sunnier, Widder says.

Krill, however, produce bright light, allowing them to travel to the surface and "get to the dinner buffet."

GREAT BLUE HERON

The average American commute ranges quite a bit, from under five miles in Stockton-Lod, California, to 12.8 miles in Atlanta, Georgia. Great blue herons can relate.

With a wing span of up to seven feet, great blue herons don't have many natural predators.

 
PHOTOGRAPH BY TIM LAMAN, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC CREATIVE

These birds may fly just a few yards or up to 20 miles away from their nests in search of food, says Charles Eldermire, bird cams project leader at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca, New York.

These birds work alone, flying out solo in search of prey including snakes, fish, frogs, gophers or even small birds. They return periodically throughout the day if they have young to feed, but even when not breeding will roost in flocks of up to hundred—a strategy to keep safe from predators, he says.

With an impressive wingspan of nearly seven feet, great blues have few predators besides bald eagles. But this video shows a great horned owl taking its chances, attacking a nest at Cornell’s Sapsucker Woods.

GOLDEN JELLYFISH

The golden jellyfish of Palau's Jellyfish Lake are, in a sense, solar-powered animals.

The millions of golden jellyfish that pack Palau’s Jellyfish Lake spend much of their lives on the move during a daily migration that follows the sun’s arc across the sky.

 
PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL MELFORD

These jellies have zooxanthellae, algae-like organisms, living in their tissues. The zooxanthellae need sunlight to produce energy, so jellies follow the sun's progression across the sky around the lake each day.

When they reach the far side of the lake, the jellies turn back and follow the sun west again as it sets. In return, the zooxanthellae supply some of their energy and nutrients to the jellies.

Traffic on their commute has plummeted, though: Drought has significantly decreased the golden jelly population in recent years.

By Liz Langley

Enjoy a glorious rainbow of incredible bug photographs

Sam Droge USGSBIML

Velvet ants aren't the only bugs to come in a rainbow of colors.

Nature comes in all colors

By Mary Beth Griggs

Flowers are fantastic, rainbows are ravishing, but bugs are often neglected as being creepy and crawly, when in reality they're remarkably colorful. Enjoy scrolling through a rainbow of bugs.

Sam Droge USGSBIML

This Chlamisine chrysomelid looks like it crawled out of red hot lava and just kept going. This leaf beetle was collected in Cuba near Guantanamo bay in 2011.

Kelly Graninger and Anders Croft, USGSBIML

The neon-bright orange color here comes from the pollen of Arizona poppies. The bright color attracts bees like this Protoxaea gloriosa. Bees gravitate towards vibrantly colored flowers, where they gather nectar and pollen.

Sam Droge USGSBIML

This male digger bee (Anthophora californica ) from California has a bright yellow face. It looks like a wasp, but is actually a bee. Digger bees get their names because the females dig their nests in the desert soil.

Sam Droge USGSBIML

This lime green bee is from the genus Osmia and was found in San Francisco. Bees from this genus are known as mason bees and often use clay or mud to construct the interior of their nests.

blue bee

Exaerete smaragdina is a parasitic orchid bee that was collected in Costa Rica. These bees collect oils from orchids to attract mates, but they have a dark side too. They steal the nests of other bees, killing off rival eggs in the process.

Sam Droge USGSBIML

It might be a stinkbug, but this beetle is stunningly beautiful. This species–Stiretrus decemguttatus–comes in an unbelievable array of colors, including this beautiful indigo. Beetles like this one eat leaf beetles like the red one seen above.

Sam Droge USGSBIML

This vibrantly violet orchid bee of the genus Euglossa came from Guyana. As the name implies, it helps pollinate orchids. Unlike the blue example above, this bee is not parasitic.

Wayne Boo USGSBIML

The black onion fly (Tritoxa flexa) lives in North America. Its distinctive stripes make this species easy to spot. It can feed on nectar, but is also often found near garlic.

Elizabeth Garcia USGSBIML

The Thistledown Velvet Ant—Dasymutilla gloriosa—isn’t an ant at all. It’s a wasp. These strangly hairy insects have a sting that’s only mildly toxic, but immensely painful, causing predators to steer clear.

FAVORITE IMAGES OF THE WEEK - 6

NASA

Beauty In The World

NASA's GOES-16 satellite, which launched in November of last year, sent back its first images to Earth this week—and they are gorgeous. The satellite captures images in 16 different wavelengths of light, allowing scientists to better study atmospheric conditions. In the process, it makes some really nice looking images of our lovely planet. Don't believe me? Take a closer look here.

Smithsonian/National Zoo

Cuteness Needed

Zoos and aquariums across the country decided we needed an infusion of cuteness after this long week of political news. So they started a #cuteanimaltweetoff on Twitter, with each facility posting the cutest animal photo they have. If you need a bright spot in your day, this is sure to cheer you up. Here's a newborn female gray seal pup, born on Saturday at the National Zoo and posted on the Smithsonian's twitter account.

H/T The New York Times

NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute

Death Star Moon

This is not a screenshot from Star Wars. It's a moon in our solar system that looks eerily similar to the Death Star. Orbiting Saturn, Tethys boasts a huge, suspiciously cinematic crater.

Jose C. E. Mendoza

Harry The Crab

Meet the newest Harry Potter character—except this one doesn't do magic. Instead, you can find him crawling around near the coast of Guam. A group of researchers announced this week that the newest species of crab discovered would be named Harryplax severus, a combination of the main character in the popular children's book series and the misunderstood Severus Snape.

YouTube

Firefighting Jetpack

Yes, that's a man in a jetpack, and yes, he's putting out a fire. First responders in Dubai tested out the new Dolphin jetpack this week. The system seems to lift the rider into the air via a tube, allowing him a better angle for putting out the fire. Read our take on how it works here.

Boeing

Sky High Fashion

The first astronauts traveling to space with private companies are going to fly in style. Boeing just released its new spacesuit, which is meant to be more comfortable and less bulky than NASA's current offerings. Hopefully it will be just as functional, too.