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hudsonespie · 4 years

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DNA Monitoring Helps Catch Illegal Trade in Endangered Species

[By Pavel Toropov]

A researcher at Hong Kong University has developed a technique that makes it possible to identify many species from a single scoop of water draining out of wet markets. It could help authorities detect trade in endangered marine species.

Hong Kong is well known as a major hub for the global trade in illegal wildlife. As well as smuggling products on, a lot of what arrives is sold in the city itself.

In 2015, a group of scientists from Hong Kong University founded the Conservation Forensics Laboratory in order to provide Hong Kong’s authorities with scientific tools to better investigate and prosecute wildlife and environmental crime.

Headed by Professor Caroline Dingle, the laboratory now has 13 members who specialise in a wide range of disciplines, from law to coral reef ecology.

Working as a research assistant with the laboratory, molecular biologist Johnny Richards developed a forensic tool that could allow the authorities to discreetly monitor Hong Kong’s wet markets for the presence of endangered fish species.

Per head, Hong Kong is Asia’s second largest seafood consumer, behind only Mainland China, and most Hong Kongers regularly purchase their seafood at the city’s more than 200 wet markets.

In 2017, Bloom, a local NGO, together with Choose Right Today, a platform helping Hong Kongers purchase sustainable seafood, produced a report on trade in live reef fish in the wet markets. The report showed “prevalence of threatened species” and called for “urgent and collective conservation action.”

Monitoring what is being traded at the wet markets is clearly critical but it isn’t straightforward. “Traders know what they are selling, and are wary” says Richards. He mentions traders refusing to answer questions and not allowing photographs. The researchers were even chased away on several occasions, though some traders were friendly and willing to talk.

The tool he has been developing does not alarm them. Nobody even comes to inspect their fish. Investigators, staying out of sight, simply collect small samples of water from drains running from the wet market. Richards collected several samples from each market in order to cover its entire area. He reasoned that the concentration of fish DNA in the drains would be highest in late morning, and timed his sampling accordingly.

The smaller the amount of water needed for the tests, the faster and more discreetly it can be collected. By refining the method of extracting the DNA from the drain water, Richards reduced the amount required to “a single scoop, 50 milliliters” that can be collected in seconds.

The water sample will then be sent to the HKU laboratory, where the DNA is extracted and then used to identify the species that have been in contact with it, revealing what the traders have been selling.

This seemingly straightforward procedure relies on advanced technology. Wet market drain water contains thousands upon thousands of DNA fragments, including from all the species sold at a typical Hong Kong market – not only fish, but also molluscs, crustaceans, pigs, cows, chickens, turtles and frogs. There will also be DNA of people, dogs and cats mixed in. Collectively, this DNA is known as eDNA, as it is obtained from environments, such as water or soil, rather than directly from the organisms.

DNA testing technology used only to be capable of processing a single, well-preserved strand of a DNA molecule at one time, and so could not identify which species eDNA came from. The technology now available, however, can separate and identify multiple DNA fragments from different organisms, all at the same time – a process known as metabarcoding.

Richards explains that the main technical challenge in creating his forensic tool was how to extract the DNA material from the highly contaminated drain water that he calls “drain soup”. He says that filtering it was far more difficult than doing so with turbid water from rivers or lakes, probably because of the high quantity of organic solutes – lipids, oil and blood. The result was a very slow DNA filtration process, and the precipitate “full of fats, oils and other gunk.” Once the DNA has been extracted, sequenced and digitised, specialised software can check it against a DNA database of known fish species.

Last year, Richards did a pilot study of his tool, sampling drain water from several of Hong Kong’s wet markets. His results produced a list of 144 fish species. Three were listed in Appendix II of CITES (the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Flora and Fauna) – two species of thresher shark and a shark’s relative – blackchinned guitarfish.

Hong Kong SAR is a signatory to CITES, and all trade in CITES-II listed species in Hong Kong requires permits. Failure to have them is a criminal offense.

Source: Customs data organized by Joyce Wu, former East Asian Director of TRAFFIC

All three species of thresher sharks, harmless to humans and originally abundant world-wide, were listed by CITES in 2016, as the shark fin trade has decimated their numbers. Guitarfish have shark-like fins and are now also harvested for this commodity. Their populations world-wide have now crashed.

Richards thinks that the shark DNA came from meat rather than fins, adding that he was surprised to see evidence of shark meat sold at the markets. When he consulted existing records, however, he learned that shark meat had previously been traded at the same market.

Drain water also yielded DNA from 14 fish species classified from “vulnerable” to “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The “vulnerable” category included several species of groupers – including long tooth grouper and brown marbled grouper, delicacies sold live at wet markets in Hong Kong.

Whereas CITES is a legally binding agreement, the classification by IUCN is purely advisory. Even trading in species listed as “critically endangered” by IUCN has no legal consequences for the trader unless they are breaking local laws.

Trade in both long tooth grouper and brown marbled grouper is legal in Hong Kong, but HKU professor Yvonne Sadovy, an expert on reef fish conservation, warns: “Massive appetite for live wild-caught groupers, most of which are imported from Southeast Asia, is having devastating impacts on fish populations in some areas because of the large volumes of fish involved as well as the widespread absence of fishery management.”

Professor David Baker, a coral reef ecologist and supervisor of Richards’ project, defines the purpose of their eDNA tool as: “Collecting intelligence in a non-invasive way.”

Water samples are sent to a laboratory, where DNA is extracted and used to identify the species that have been in contact with it, revealing what the traders have been selling (Image: Johnny Richards)

The Lab plans to make the tool available to Hong Kong authorities after the publication, due this month, of the scientific paper based on Richard’s pilot study.

Amanda Whitfort, professor of law at Hong Kong University, who is also part of the Conservation Forensics Laboratory team, explains what needs to be done to put Richards’ work to practical use:

“The first step is to have the Food and Environmental Hygiene Department (FEHD) agree to make this test a monitoring tool. FEHD officers will then conduct the sampling as a routine task when they inspect the wet markets. Results would then need to be shared with the Agriculture Fisheries and Conservation Department’s (AFCD) Endangered Species Division, as the AFCD would be the ones to pursue prosecutions as required.”

The use of eDNA as an effective tool for biodiversity detection and monitoring is growing in conservation and research. Taking it into the courtroom, however, is a different matter – unlike the DNA obtained directly from plants, animals or their products, eDNA-based forensic evidence has not yet been admitted in court in wildlife crime cases.

Whitford thinks this is possible, provided that legal professionals come to understand the science behind it: “The court would need first to assess an expert’s report on its scientific reliability (of eDNA evidence) and if it were considered reliable enough, it could be taken into account in determining whether the prosecution had proved their case.”

Perhaps Hong Kong, which has recently started to pass harsher sentences for wildlife crime, could set a legal precedent.

Pavel Toropov has been based in China for the past ten years and works in the outdoor industry. He holds a PhD in ecology and has written for the South China Morning Post, National Geographic, Runners' World and various other publications.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its orignal form here.

from Storage Containers https://www.maritime-executive.com/article/edna-monitoring-could-spot-illegal-trade-in-endangered-species via http://www.rssmix.com/

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vquocloaivat · 4 years

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Cá Mú là cá gì? Sống ở đâu? Nấu món gì? Giá bao nhiêu tiền 1KG

Cá mú là một loại cá vô cùng phổ biến, khá quen thuộc đối với những người dân miền biển. Tuy phổ biến là vậy, nhưng không phải ai cũng biết hết những điều thú vị về loài cá này. Bài viết hôm nay của chúng tôi, sẽ giới thiệu đầy đủ thông tin cho quý vị.

1. Cá mú biển là cá gì?

Cá mú là một trong những loài cá biển thơm ngon, được rất nhiều người yêu thích. Cá mú biển được coi là đặc sản của Quảng Ninh, Hải Phòng, Thanh Hóa và Nghệ An.

Để biết thêm nhiều điều hấp dẫn, các bạn hãy cùng chúng tôi khám phá nhé.

2. Nguồn gốc của cá múchê

Cá mú là loài cá thuộc họ cá mú hay còn gọi là họ cá song (họ Serranidae). Cá có tên tiếng anh là Grouper, chúng thuộc bộ cá vược.

Hình ảnh cá Mú ( cá Song)

Trong họ của cá mú hiện nay có đến hơn 400 loài, đang được phân bổ ở rất nhiều nơi trên thế giới.

🔥🔥🔥 XEM TIẾP: Cá Kèo có vảy không

3. Đặc điểm của cá mú

Cá mú có đặc điểm vô cùng đặc biệt so với những loài cá khác, chính là thân hình mập mạp cùng cái miệng vô cùng lớn.

Cân nặng của cá phụ thuộc vào từng giống, cá mú có trọng lượng nhỏ nhất là cá mú chuột – khi trưởng thành chỉ nặng khoảng 1kg.

Cá mú lớn nhất là cá mú nghệ, khi trưởng thành có thể nặng đến 50 – 60kg.

Cá mú có tỷ lệ đầu và cơ thể khá cân đối. Phần đầu của cá khá dẹt, hộp sọ vô cùng cứng và có những vây gai sắc nhọn.

Cá mú có miệng vô cùng rộng, môi dày, hàm dưới dài hơn hàm trên và có xu hướng nhếch lên.

Phần hàm của cá mú vô cùng chắc, những chiếc răng cưa nhỏ, sắc nhọn của chúng tạo thành 1 một dải vô cùng sắc nhọn, đây là vũ khí sắc bén để tiêu diệt con mồi.

🌟🌟🌟 TÌM HIỂU: Cá Dìa Trơn

Mắt của cá mú khá tròn, hơi lồi và dược bố trí ở gần đỉnh đầu.

Thân hình của cá mú khá tròn, phần lưng của cá hơi cong.

Vây lưng của cá tạo thành một dải dài, kéo dài từ gần giữa lưng cho đến phần đuôi.

Vây lưng của cá vô cùng cứng, nếu để vây của chúng đâm vào tay sẽ có cảm giác tê buốt.

Vây ngực và vây bụng của cá mềm hơn so với vây lưng nhưng vẫn có khả năng gây ra sát thương.

Vây hậu môn của cá khá mềm và được bố trí ở gần phần đuôi của cá.

Phần đuôi của cá khá dài trông giống với hình chiếc chổi lau nhà.

Bao phủ toàn bộ cơ thể của cá mú là một lớp vảy rất nhỏ nhưng lại vô cùng cứng. Cơ thể của chúng thường là màu nâu sẫm hoặc màu nâu pha xanh rêu.

Trải dọc từ lưng xuống bụng thường có những vân hoa màu nâu đậm. Phần lưng của cá sẽ có màu nâu đậm hơn so với vùng bụng.

♻️♻️♻️ CÁCH CHẾ BIẾN: Cá cơm rim chua ngọt

4. Cá mú ăn gì?

Cá mú là loài cá ăn tạp, chúng là một trong những loài chuyên săn mồi đơn độc. Thức ăn của chúng chủ yếu là động vật và các sinh vật sống trong môi trường biển.

Thức ăn yêu thích của chúng là các loài cá nhỏ (cá phèn, cá sơn và cá thia), các động vật giáp xác (tôm và cua nhỏ) và các loại mực có kích thước nhỏ.

🔥🔥🔥 Tìm hiểu thêm: Cá bông lau

5. Sinh sản ở cá mú

Cá mú là một trong những dòng cá sinh sản theo hình thức lưỡng tính đơn tính. Nghĩa là khi còn nhỏ chúng là những con cái, khi trưởng thành chúng có thể thay đổi giới tính.

Chúng thường thay đổi giới tính khi chúng sống được khoảng 3 năm (thay đổi giới tính chỉ diễn ra ở một số cá thể).

Khi mùa đến mùa sinh sản, một cá thể đực có thể giao phối cùng hàng chục cá thể cái.

Mùa sinh sản của cá mú được quyết định bởi vị trí địa lý. Ở một số nước châu Á, chu kỳ sinh sản của cá mú bắt đầu từ tháng 3 cho đến hết tháng 10 hàng năm.

Cá mú là dòng cá đẻ trứng, chúng thường tập trung thành từng đàn để đẻ trứng và đẻ ở gần những rạn san hô nơi có dòng nước chảy mạnh.

Khi có dòng nước chảy mạnh, điều này sẽ giúp cuốn trứng ra ngoài khơi và giúp bảo vệ trứng tốt hơn.

🔔🔔🔔 TÌM HIỂU: Cá tra dầu

6. Cá mú sống ở đâu?

Cá mú có môi trường sống vô cùng đa dạng, những dòng cá mú nhỏ thường sống ở khu vực cửa sông nơi có nhiều cát bùn hoặc trong những khu rừng ngập mặn.

Những loài cá mú có kích thước lớn thường sống ở khu vực quanh các rạn san hô, các dãy đá ngầm nơi vùng nước ấm.

Tại Việt Nam, cá mú phân bố rộng rãi từ khu vực vịnh Bắc bộ cho tới khu vực vịnh Thái Lan. Chúng phân bổ trải dọc khắp các tỉnh thành ven biển của nước ta.

Tuy nhiên, nhiều nhất vẫn là những vùng biển thuộc Bắc bộ và Trung bộ.

💝💝💝 NÊN ĐỌC: Cách chế biến lẩu cá tầm

7. Phân loại cá mú biển

Ở nước ta có rất nhiều loại cá mú, chính vì điều này sẽ khiến nhiều người nhầm lẫn. Dưới đây, chúng tôi sẽ giúp các bạn dễ dàng phân biệt được những loại cá mú thường gặp.

Cá mú đỏ

Cá mú đỏ có tên gọi tiếng anh Hongkong grouper. Cá mú đỏ có thân hình chơi dẹt, phần đầu của chúng nhỏ và thuôn dài.

Mõm của cá mú đỏ khá nhọn, miệng rộng và hàm răng sắc nhọn

Hai vây lưng của cá vô cùng sắc nhọn được nối liền trải dọc toàn bộ lưng. Vây ngực và vây gần mang mềm, vây hậu môn cứng và gần đuôi, vây đuôi tròn và hơi lồi.

Cá mú đỏ khi trưởng thành thường có chiều dài khoảng 30cm. Cá mú đỏ có phần da màu hồng hơi xám, cùng với đó là rất nhiều chấm tròn đỏ - điểm đặc trưng của loài cá này.

Cá mú đen – cá mú bông

Cá mú đen hay còn gọi là cá mú bông, cá mú hoa nâu. Dòng cá mú này còn có tên gọi tiếng anh là Brown-marbled grouper.

Cá mú đen được tìm thấy và miêu tả bởi Forskal vào năm 1775.

Cá mú đen có thân hình hơi dẹt, trọng lượng cơ thể của chúng khá lớn – trung bình khoảng 5- 6 kg. Cá mú đen có chiều dài khoảng 50cm, có những trường hợp dài tới 1.2m.

Cá mú đen có mắt rất to, miệng rộng và phần răng vô cùng sắc nhọn.

Toàn bộ thân hình của chúng được phủ lên màu nâu đen, trên thân có nhiều vạch ngang màu nâu và có rất nhiều chấm đậm.

⚠️⚠️⚠️ PHẢI XEM: Cá chỉ vàng nướng

Cá mú chuột – cá mú dẹt

Cá mú chuột hay còn gọi là cá mú dẹt, loài này là dòng cá mú có kích thước nhỏ nhất trong dòng cá mú.

Cá mú chuột có thân hình thuôn dài và hơi dẹt về 2 bên. Trung bình cá chỉ dài khoảng 15 – 30cm. Cá mú chuột con nặng nhất chỉ khoảng 1kg.

Tại Việt Nam, cá mú chuột phân bố chủ yếu ở khu vực vịnh Bắc bộ.

Cá mú sao

Cá mú sao có rất nhiều dòng, bao gồm: sao xanh, sao đỏ và vàng. Dòng cá mú sao là dòng cá có có giá trị thương phẩm khá cao.

Cá mú sao có thân hình thuôn dài và có những đặc điểm giống với dòng cá mú nói chung. Cá mú sao thường nặng khoảng từ 1 – 3kg.

Cá mú sao xanh thường sống ở gần những rạn san hô và được phân bố rộng rãi khắp khu vực Ấn Độ Dương và Thái Bình Dương.

Tại Việt Nam, cá mú sao tập trung ở khu vực vịnh Bắc bộ.

🔱🔱🔱 XEM TIẾP: Cá Song

Cá Mú đá

Cá Mú Đá nhiều nơi còn gọi là cá song đá. Cũng thuộc họ cá Mú, giống cá này lần đâu được tìm thấy tại Nhật và Australia. Chiều dài cơ thể cá có thể dài tới 40cm

Cá mú mặt quỷ - cá mú đá gai

Cá mú mặt quỷ hay còn được gọi là cá mú đá gai. Loài cá mú này thường xuất hiện ở vùng biển Quảng Ninh và Hải Phòng, người dân địa phương thường gọi là cá mú Gầu (hoặc mú Gàu).

Cá mú mặt quỷ có tên tiếng anh Slender rockfish, chúng sinh sống chủ yếu ở cá hang đá dưới biển.

Dòng cá này có phần đầu gồ ghề, xù xì trông giống với cá mặt quỷ. Trên lưng của chúng có nhiều vây cứng có độc (chỉ gây tê).

Cá mú mặt quỷ có kích thước tương đối nhỏ, chỉ nặng khoảng 3 – 5 lạng. Tuy nhỏ, nhưng thịt của chúng vô cùng đậm đà và được rất nhiều người yêu thích.

❌❌❌ ĐỌC NGAY: Cá Mè Dinh

Cá mú mỡ

Cá mú mỡ được tìm thấy bởi Forskal vào năm 1775. Cá mú mỡ có thân hình thuôn dài, chiều dài trung bình của chúng đạt 50cm.

Cá mú mỡ có màu xám nhạt hoặc màu nâu. Trên cơ thể của cá có điểm xuyết thêm những chấm tròn màu đỏ gạch.

🔥🔥🔥 Có thể bạn muốn đọc: Cá đối kho nghệ

8. Cá mú biển làm món gì ngon

Cá mú biển là một trong những loài cá có hương vị thịt đậm đà. Không chỉ có vậy, thành phần dinh dưỡng có trong thịt cá vô cùng cao.

Cá mú biển có thể chế biến thành rất nhiều món ăn hấp d��n. Dưới đây sẽ là một số gợi ý chế biến cá mú biển.

Cá mú hấp

Cá mú biển hấp có thể hấp cùng với dưa, xì dầu hoặc với hành. Ngay đây chúng tôi sẽ hướng dẫn các bạn cách chế biến.

✅ Cá mú hấp hành

Cá mú hấp dành là một trong những món ăn được nhiều người yêu thích nhất nhất. Nguyên liệu cần chuẩn bị: cá mú, hành tây, hành lá, nước mắm, bột canh, ớt và nấm hương.

Cá mú làm sạch, sau đó ướp cùng với những nguyên liệu kể trên.

Ướp khoảng 20 phút thì đem cá đi hấp cách thủy khoảng 30 – 35 phút, lửa vừa phải để cá chín đều.

✅ Cá mú hấp dưa – cá mú om dưa

Cá mú hấp dưa chua cũng là món ăn khá hấp dẫn. Nguyên liệu cần chuẩn bị: cá mú, dưa muối chua, cà chua, nước mắm, bột canh, dầu ăn và hành lá.

Cá mú làm sạch ướp cùng với các loại gia vị và nguyên liệu.

Lưu ý, dưa muối chua nên xào với dầu ăn và nước mắm để thêm đậm vị.

Các bạn chỉ cần cho cá lên hấp chín là có thể thưởng thức.

👉👉👉 TÌM HIỂU: Cá Sấu Hỏa Tiễn

✅Cá mú hấp xì dầu kiểu hồng kông

Phương pháp hấp này cần rất nhiều bước nhưng không phải quá khó. Nguyên liệu cần chuẩn bị: cá mú, hắc xì dầu, nước tương, đường, hành lá, ớt và hành tây.

Cá rửa sạch và để ráo. Bước tiếp theo là chế biến xì dầu, các nguyên liệu gia vị đi kèm các bạn đem trộn lại và đem đi chưng rồi lọc lấy nước cốt.

Sau đó sử dụng nước cốt đó ướp vào cá rồi mới đem đi hấp. Khi hấp chín, các sẽ không còn mùi tanh thay vào đó là mùi hương của nước tương rất hấp dẫn.

Cá mú kho tộ

Cá mú kho tộ, đây là món ăn được rất nhiều bà nội trợ chế biến. Nguyên liệu cần chuẩn bị: cá mú, quả sấu hoặc me chua, riềng, ớt tươi, nước hàng, dầu ăn và nước mắm.

Cá mú làm sạch và đem ướp cùng với các loại gia vị trong khoảng 30 phút, để gia vị ngấm đều vào từng thớ thịt cá.

Cá mú khi đã ngấm thì thêm nước và kho trong khoảng 4 tiếng

Nấu lửa nhỏ thì cá chín sẽ chín và ngấm gia vị đều hơn.

Cá mú kho tộ ăn kèm cùng với cơm trắng nóng hổi vô cùng tuyệt vời.

Cá mú nướng

Cá mú nướng sả ớt là món ăn khá thú vị và hấp dẫn. Chế biến món ăn này cũng rất dễ, nguyên liệu cần chuẩn bị gồm có có mú loại hơn 1kg, sả và ớt xay nhuyên, bột canh và dầu ăn.

Cá mú làm sạch và ướp cùng cá loại gia vị trong khoảng 20 – 30 phút rồi mới đem đi nướng.

Các bạn có thể lựa chọn phương pháp nướng than hoa hoặc nướng giấy bạc.

Cá mú nướng than hoa sẽ ngon và thơm hơn.

Cá mú khi nướng xong sẽ có mùi hương ngào ngạt của sả ớt, khi thưởng thức có thể cảm nhận được độ chắc và ngọt của thịt cá.

Cá mú nướng sẽ ngon hơn khi chấm kèm cùng nước mắm me pha chua ngọt.

🔥🔥🔥 XEM THÊM: Cá Hoàng Để

9. Mua, Bán Cá mú ở đâu tại Hà Nội, Tp Hcm?

Cá mú là loài cá vô cùng phổ biến ở các vùng biển của Việt Nam. Chính vì vậy, các mú được bày bán rộng khắp các tỉnh thành nhất là khu vực miền Bắc và miền Trung.

Để có thể đặt mua cá mú biển, các bạn có thể đến các chợ cá, các siêu thị hoặc đặt hàng trực tuyến trên những trang mạng chuyên bán hải sản.

10. Cá mú giá bao nhiêu tiền 1kg?

Cá mú có rất nhiều loại, chính vì vậy mức giá của chúng cũng rất khác nhau. Dưới đây là bảng giá một số loại cá mú để các bạn tham khảo:

Cá mú đen (cá mú bông, mú nghệ): 330.000 đồng/kg.

Cá mú sao (xanh, đỏ và vàng): 600.000 đồng/kg.

Cá mú đỏ: 900.000 đồng/kg.

Cá mú mặt quỷ - cá mú gàu: 200.000 đồng/kg.

Cá mú chuột: 1.450.000 đồng/kg.

Trên đây là toàn bộ thông tin về dòng cá mú. Mong rằng, sau khi tham khảo bài viết của chúng tôi, các bạn sẽ có thêm nhiều những thông tin hữu ích về loài cá mú – đặc sản miền biển Việt Nam.

Coi thêm tại: Cá Mú là cá gì? Sống ở đâu? Nấu món gì? Giá bao nhiêu tiền 1KG

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thataquariumplace-blog · 5 years

Text

Sales and specials

SALTWATER LIST 7/24/19

%25 OFF ON ALL REG PRICED ITEMS

FISH AND CORALS (already marked down items not included)

9.99-14.99 frag speical all frags (except named pcs )

BUY 3 GET 1 FREE

EQUAL OR LESSER VALUE

MAXIMA CLAMS 6INCH 139.99

CLEAN UP CREW SPECI@L

BLUE LEG HERMITS 10/5.OO

ASTREA SNAILS 10/5.OO

EMERALD CRABS 4.OO

LETTUCE NUDI 9.99

PIN CUSHION URCHIN 9.99

TREE SPONGE 19.99

GORGONIAN LARGE 19.99

TUXEDO URCHIN 19.99

SPS MINI COLONIES 39.99

BRAIN CORALS ANY SIZE ANY COLOR 129.99

MAZE COLONY , FAVIA COLONY 49,99

MEAT CORALS 79.99

***********************************************************************

CLOWNS

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Wyoming white 25

Flurry 25

Orange storms 79.99

Mocha storms 79.99

DaVinci 25

MochaVinchi 25

Black ice 25

Snowflake 25

Ocellaris 2/20

Snow Onyx 25

***********************************************************************

TANGS

*******************************************************************

Desjardin tang ml

Lopez tang

Pacific sailfin tang

Mustard tang

Powder blue tang

White tail bristle tooth tang

purple tang

Blue tang sm, md

Naso tang sm

Powder brown tang

Yellow tang

Blue tang sm

Pacific sailfin tang

Powder brown tang

Yellow mustard tang

Yellow tang sm

palani tang

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ANGELS & BUTTERFLY ***********************************************************************

LyreTail angel pair

Blue koran angel

Coral beauty angel

Keyhole angel

rusty angel

Flame angel

Pygmy Cherub angel

Copperband butterfly sm

Copperband butterfly md

Blue koran angel L

Eibli angel

Lamark angel

Emperor angel L

Singapore angel

Diamond butterfly

Flame angel

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WRASSE

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carpenters flasher wrasse

lubbock fairy wrasse

yellow coris wrasse

blue pencil wrasse

lunar wrasse

Lunar wrasse

red coris wrasse

six line

McCoskers fflasher

Rosy scale wrasse

wardley wrasse

melanarus wrasse

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MISC. FISH

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Banggai cardinals

Fire fish red

Magnificent fox face

One spot fox face

Red cherry grouper

niger trigger

bi color parrot

Banded catshark 10inch

Marble cat shark 10 inch

Flame hawk fish

Royal gramma

Aptasia file fish

Panther grouper

Purple tile goby

Banggai cardinal

Royal dotty back

strawberry dotty back

Purple queen anthias

Malcolor Snapper

Oriental sweet lips

Eclipse hog fish

Blue spotted puffer

Valentini puffer

Black peacock lion

dwarf lion

Fumanchu lion

Blue throat trigger pairs or seperate

Green chromis

Snowflake eel

Hawkfish Flame

Purple fire fish

porcupinne puffer

saddle puffer

**********************************************************************

GOBIES & BLENNIES ***********************************************************************

Red Fire goby

Golden head goby

Watchman orange spot

pink spotted watchman

Lawnmower blenny

Starry Blenny

Tail spot blenny

Green mandarine dragonet

Barnacle blenny

Purple tile goby

Rainford's Goby

Yellow clown goby

green clown goby

purple tile goby

watchman orange spot

tiger shrimp goby

pink spot goby

Red lip blenny

Gold head goby

Diamond goby

Purple fire fish goby

orange spot watchman

pink spot watchman

blue dot goby

starry blenny

***********************************************************************

INVERTS

***********************************************************************

Cleaner shrimp

anemone shrimp

Blue linkia

Sea hare

Anemone crab

Decorator crab

Bumblebee snails

Sexy shrimp

Harlequin shrimp pairs

fighting conch

bubble bee snails

sexy shrimp

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CLEANUP CREW ***********************************************************************

Astrea snail

Black margarita snails

Turbo snails

tiger tail Trochus

Nassarius snails

Emerald crab

Sea hare

Blue leg hermits

Red leg hermit

Bumblebee snails

Fighting conch

Cleaner shrimp

Fire shrimp

0 notes

ngler-blog · 6 years

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My first Brown Marbled Grouper!

#grouper #grouper fishing #fishing #luring #Singapore shore luring #shore fishing #fishing in singapore

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palawan-divers-blog · 6 years

Photo

The brown-marbled grouper is one the largest fish predators on coral reefs, and is mainly active at dusk when it feeds on fishes, crabs and cephalopods. Unfortunately they are endangered due to overfishing. Luckily we can still spot them on our divesite South-Miniloc. #elnido #palawan #fun #diving #philippines #explore #discover #experience #underwater #world #amazing #fish #identification #endangered #species #brown #marbled #grouper #lapulapu #photography #photooftheday #itsmorefuninthephilippines (at Palawan Divers)

0 notes

readbookywooks · 7 years

Text

The Mediterranean in Forty-Eight Hours

THE MEDITERRANEAN, your ideal blue sea: to Greeks simply "the sea," to Hebrews "the great sea," to Romans mare nostrum.* Bordered by orange trees, aloes, cactus, and maritime pine trees, perfumed with the scent of myrtle, framed by rugged mountains, saturated with clean, transparent air but continuously under construction by fires in the earth, this sea is a genuine battlefield where Neptune and Pluto still struggle for world domination. Here on these beaches and waters, says the French historian Michelet, a man is revived by one of the most invigorating climates in the world. *Latin: "our sea." Ed. But as beautiful as it was, I could get only a quick look at this basin whose surface area comprises 2,000,000 square kilometers. Even Captain Nemo's personal insights were denied me, because that mystifying individual didn't appear one single time during our high-speed crossing. I estimate that the Nautilus covered a track of some 600 leagues under the waves of this sea, and this voyage was accomplished in just twenty-four hours times two. Departing from the waterways of Greece on the morning of February 16, we cleared the Strait of Gibraltar by sunrise on the 18th. It was obvious to me that this Mediterranean, pinned in the middle of those shores he wanted to avoid, gave Captain Nemo no pleasure. Its waves and breezes brought back too many memories, if not too many regrets. Here he no longer had the ease of movement and freedom of maneuver that the oceans allowed him, and his Nautilus felt cramped so close to the coasts of both Africa and Europe. Accordingly, our speed was twenty-five miles (that is, twelve four-kilometer leagues) per hour. Needless to say, Ned Land had to give up his escape plans, much to his distress. Swept along at the rate of twelve to thirteen meters per second, he could hardly make use of the skiff. Leaving the Nautilus under these conditions would have been like jumping off a train racing at this speed, a rash move if there ever was one. Moreover, to renew our air supply, the submersible rose to the surface of the waves only at night, and relying solely on compass and log, it steered by dead reckoning. Inside the Mediterranean, then, I could catch no more of its fast-passing scenery than a traveler might see from an express train; in other words, I could view only the distant horizons because the foregrounds flashed by like lightning. But Conseil and I were able to observe those Mediterranean fish whose powerful fins kept pace for a while in the Nautilus's waters. We stayed on watch before the lounge windows, and our notes enable me to reconstruct, in a few words, the ichthyology of this sea. Among the various fish inhabiting it, some I viewed, others I glimpsed, and the rest I missed completely because of the Nautilus's speed. Kindly allow me to sort them out using this whimsical system of classification. It will at least convey the quickness of my observations. In the midst of the watery mass, brightly lit by our electric beams, there snaked past those one-meter lampreys that are common to nearly every clime. A type of ray from the genus Oxyrhynchus, five feet wide, had a white belly with a spotted, ash-gray back and was carried along by the currents like a huge, wide-open shawl. Other rays passed by so quickly I couldn't tell if they deserved that name "eagle ray" coined by the ancient Greeks, or those designations of "rat ray," "bat ray," and "toad ray" that modern fishermen have inflicted on them. Dogfish known as topes, twelve feet long and especially feared by divers, were racing with each other. Looking like big bluish shadows, thresher sharks went by, eight feet long and gifted with an extremely acute sense of smell. Dorados from the genus Sparus, some measuring up to thirteen decimeters, appeared in silver and azure costumes encircled with ribbons, which contrasted with the dark color of their fins; fish sacred to the goddess Venus, their eyes set in brows of gold; a valuable species that patronizes all waters fresh or salt, equally at home in rivers, lakes, and oceans, living in every clime, tolerating any temperature, their line dating back to prehistoric times on this earth yet preserving all its beauty from those far-off days. Magnificent sturgeons, nine to ten meters long and extremely fast, banged their powerful tails against the glass of our panels, showing bluish backs with small brown spots; they resemble sharks, without equaling their strength, and are encountered in every sea; in the spring they delight in swimming up the great rivers, fighting the currents of the Volga, Danube, Po, Rhine, Loire, and Oder, while feeding on herring, mackerel, salmon, and codfish; although they belong to the class of cartilaginous fish, they rate as a delicacy; they're eaten fresh, dried, marinated, or salt-preserved, and in olden times they were borne in triumph to the table of the Roman epicure Lucullus. But whenever the Nautilus drew near the surface, those denizens of the Mediterranean I could observe most productively belonged to the sixty-third genus of bony fish. These were tuna from the genus Scomber, blue-black on top, silver on the belly armor, their dorsal stripes giving off a golden gleam. They are said to follow ships in search of refreshing shade from the hot tropical sun, and they did just that with the Nautilus, as they had once done with the vessels of the Count de La Perouse. For long hours they competed in speed with our submersible. I couldn't stop marveling at these animals so perfectly cut out for racing, their heads small, their bodies sleek, spindle-shaped, and in some cases over three meters long, their pectoral fins gifted with remarkable strength, their caudal fins forked. Like certain flocks of birds, whose speed they equal, these tuna swim in triangle formation, which prompted the ancients to say they'd boned up on geometry and military strategy. And yet they can't escape the Provencal fishermen, who prize them as highly as did the ancient inhabitants of Turkey and Italy; and these valuable animals, as oblivious as if they were deaf and blind, leap right into the Marseilles tuna nets and perish by the thousands. Just for the record, I'll mention those Mediterranean fish that Conseil and I barely glimpsed. There were whitish eels of the species Gymnotus fasciatus that passed like elusive wisps of steam, conger eels three to four meters long that were tricked out in green, blue, and yellow, three-foot hake with a liver that makes a dainty morsel, wormfish drifting like thin seaweed, sea robins that poets call lyrefish and seamen pipers and whose snouts have two jagged triangular plates shaped like old Homer's lyre, swallowfish swimming as fast as the bird they're named after, redheaded groupers whose dorsal fins are trimmed with filaments, some shad (spotted with black, gray, brown, blue, yellow, and green) that actually respond to tinkling handbells, splendid diamond-shaped turbot that were like aquatic pheasants with yellowish fins stippled in brown and the left topside mostly marbled in brown and yellow, finally schools of wonderful red mullet, real oceanic birds of paradise that ancient Romans bought for as much as 10,000 sesterces apiece, and which they killed at the table, so they could heartlessly watch it change color from cinnabar red when alive to pallid white when dead. And as for other fish common to the Atlantic and Mediterranean, I was unable to observe miralets, triggerfish, puffers, seahorses, jewelfish, trumpetfish, blennies, gray mullet, wrasse, smelt, flying fish, anchovies, sea bream, porgies, garfish, or any of the chief representatives of the order Pleuronecta, such as sole, flounder, plaice, dab, and brill, simply because of the dizzying speed with which the Nautilus hustled through these opulent waters. As for marine mammals, on passing by the mouth of the Adriatic Sea, I thought I recognized two or three sperm whales equipped with the single dorsal fin denoting the genus Physeter, some pilot whales from the genus Globicephalus exclusive to the Mediterranean, the forepart of the head striped with small distinct lines, and also a dozen seals with white bellies and black coats, known by the name monk seals and just as solemn as if they were three-meter Dominicans. For his part, Conseil thought he spotted a turtle six feet wide and adorned with three protruding ridges that ran lengthwise. I was sorry to miss this reptile, because from Conseil's description, I believe I recognized the leatherback turtle, a pretty rare species. For my part, I noted only some loggerhead turtles with long carapaces. As for zoophytes, for a few moments I was able to marvel at a wonderful, orange-hued hydra from the genus Galeolaria that clung to the glass of our port panel; it consisted of a long, lean filament that spread out into countless branches and ended in the most delicate lace ever spun by the followers of Arachne. Unfortunately I couldn't fish up this wonderful specimen, and surely no other Mediterranean zoophytes would have been offered to my gaze, if, on the evening of the 16th, the Nautilus hadn't slowed down in an odd fashion. This was the situation. By then we were passing between Sicily and the coast of Tunisia. In the cramped space between Cape Bon and the Strait of Messina, the sea bottom rises almost all at once. It forms an actual ridge with only seventeen meters of water remaining above it, while the depth on either side is 170 meters. Consequently, the Nautilus had to maneuver with caution so as not to bump into this underwater barrier. I showed Conseil the position of this long reef on our chart of the Mediterranean. "But with all due respect to master," Conseil ventured to observe, "it's like an actual isthmus connecting Europe to Africa." "Yes, my boy," I replied, "it cuts across the whole Strait of Sicily, and Smith's soundings prove that in the past, these two continents were genuinely connected between Cape Boeo and Cape Farina." "I can easily believe it," Conseil said. "I might add," I went on, "that there's a similar barrier between Gibraltar and Ceuta, and in prehistoric times it closed off the Mediterranean completely." "Gracious!" Conseil put in. "Suppose one day some volcanic upheaval raises these two barriers back above the waves!" "That's most unlikely, Conseil." "If master will allow me to finish, I mean that if this phenomenon occurs, it might prove distressing to Mr. de Lesseps, who has gone to such pains to cut through his isthmus!" "Agreed, but I repeat, Conseil: such a phenomenon won't occur. The intensity of these underground forces continues to diminish. Volcanoes were quite numerous in the world's early days, but they're going extinct one by one; the heat inside the earth is growing weaker, the temperature in the globe's lower strata is cooling appreciably every century, and to our globe's detriment, because its heat is its life." "But the sun - " "The sun isn't enough, Conseil. Can it restore heat to a corpse?" "Not that I've heard." "Well, my friend, someday the earth will be just such a cold corpse. Like the moon, which long ago lost its vital heat, our globe will become lifeless and unlivable." "In how many centuries?" Conseil asked. "In hundreds of thousands of years, my boy." "Then we have ample time to finish our voyage," Conseil replied, "if Ned Land doesn't mess things up!" Thus reassured, Conseil went back to studying the shallows that the Nautilus was skimming at moderate speed. On the rocky, volcanic seafloor, there bloomed quite a collection of moving flora: sponges, sea cucumbers, jellyfish called sea gooseberries that were adorned with reddish tendrils and gave off a subtle phosphorescence, members of the genus Beroe that are commonly known by the name melon jellyfish and are bathed in the shimmer of the whole solar spectrum, free-swimming crinoids one meter wide that reddened the waters with their crimson hue, treelike basket stars of the greatest beauty, sea fans from the genus Pavonacea with long stems, numerous edible sea urchins of various species, plus green sea anemones with a grayish trunk and a brown disk lost beneath the olive-colored tresses of their tentacles. Conseil kept especially busy observing mollusks and articulates, and although his catalog is a little dry, I wouldn't want to wrong the gallant lad by leaving out his personal observations. From the branch Mollusca, he mentions numerous comb-shaped scallops, hooflike spiny oysters piled on top of each other, triangular coquina, three-pronged glass snails with yellow fins and transparent shells, orange snails from the genus Pleurobranchus that looked like eggs spotted or speckled with greenish dots, members of the genus Aplysia also known by the name sea hares, other sea hares from the genus Dolabella, plump paper-bubble shells, umbrella shells exclusive to the Mediterranean, abalone whose shell produces a mother-of-pearl much in demand, pilgrim scallops, saddle shells that diners in the French province of Languedoc are said to like better than oysters, some of those cockleshells so dear to the citizens of Marseilles, fat white venus shells that are among the clams so abundant off the coasts of North America and eaten in such quantities by New Yorkers, variously colored comb shells with gill covers, burrowing date mussels with a peppery flavor I relish, furrowed heart cockles whose shells have riblike ridges on their arching summits, triton shells pocked with scarlet bumps, carniaira snails with backward-curving tips that make them resemble flimsy gondolas, crowned ferola snails, atlanta snails with spiral shells, gray nudibranchs from the genus Tethys that were spotted with white and covered by fringed mantles, nudibranchs from the suborder Eolidea that looked like small slugs, sea butterflies crawling on their backs, seashells from the genus Auricula including the oval-shaped Auricula myosotis, tan wentletrap snails, common periwinkles, violet snails, cineraira snails, rock borers, ear shells, cabochon snails, pandora shells, etc. As for the articulates, in his notes Conseil has very appropriately divided them into six classes, three of which belong to the marine world. These classes are the Crustacea, Cirripedia, and Annelida. Crustaceans are subdivided into nine orders, and the first of these consists of the decapods, in other words, animals whose head and thorax are usually fused, whose cheek-and-mouth mechanism is made up of several pairs of appendages, and whose thorax has four, five, or six pairs of walking legs. Conseil used the methods of our mentor Professor Milne-Edwards, who puts the decapods in three divisions: Brachyura, Macrura, and Anomura. These names may look a tad fierce, but they're accurate and appropriate. Among the Brachyura, Conseil mentions some amanthia crabs whose fronts were armed with two big diverging tips, those inachus scorpions that-lord knows why - symbolized wisdom to the ancient Greeks, spider crabs of the massena and spinimane varieties that had probably gone astray in these shallows because they usually live in the lower depths, xanthid crabs, pilumna crabs, rhomboid crabs, granular box crabs (easy on the digestion, as Conseil ventured to observe), toothless masked crabs, ebalia crabs, cymopolia crabs, woolly-handed crabs, etc. Among the Macrura (which are subdivided into five families: hardshells, burrowers, crayfish, prawns, and ghost crabs) Conseil mentions some common spiny lobsters whose females supply a meat highly prized, slipper lobsters or common shrimp, waterside gebia shrimp, and all sorts of edible species, but he says nothing of the crayfish subdivision that includes the true lobster, because spiny lobsters are the only type in the Mediterranean. Finally, among the Anomura, he saw common drocina crabs dwelling inside whatever abandoned seashells they could take over, homola crabs with spiny fronts, hermit crabs, hairy porcelain crabs, etc. There Conseil's work came to a halt. He didn't have time to finish off the class Crustacea through an examination of its stomatopods, amphipods, homopods, isopods, trilobites, branchiopods, ostracods, and entomostraceans. And in order to complete his study of marine articulates, he needed to mention the class Cirripedia, which contains water fleas and carp lice, plus the class Annelida, which he would have divided without fail into tubifex worms and dorsibranchian worms. But having gone past the shallows of the Strait of Sicily, the Nautilus resumed its usual deep-water speed. From then on, no more mollusks, no more zoophytes, no more articulates. Just a few large fish sweeping by like shadows. During the night of February 16-17, we entered the second Mediterranean basin, whose maximum depth we found at 3,000 meters. The Nautilus, driven downward by its propeller and slanting fins, descended to the lowest strata of this sea. There, in place of natural wonders, the watery mass offered some thrilling and dreadful scenes to my eyes. In essence, we were then crossing that part of the whole Mediterranean so fertile in casualties. From the coast of Algiers to the beaches of Provence, how many ships have wrecked, how many vessels have vanished! Compared to the vast liquid plains of the Pacific, the Mediterranean is a mere lake, but it's an unpredictable lake with fickle waves, today kindly and affectionate to those frail single-masters drifting between a double ultramarine of sky and water, tomorrow bad-tempered and turbulent, agitated by the winds, demolishing the strongest ships beneath sudden waves that smash down with a headlong wallop. So, in our swift cruise through these deep strata, how many vessels I saw lying on the seafloor, some already caked with coral, others clad only in a layer of rust, plus anchors, cannons, shells, iron fittings, propeller blades, parts of engines, cracked cylinders, staved-in boilers, then hulls floating in midwater, here upright, there overturned. Some of these wrecked ships had perished in collisions, others from hitting granite reefs. I saw a few that had sunk straight down, their masting still upright, their rigging stiffened by the water. They looked like they were at anchor by some immense, open, offshore mooring where they were waiting for their departure time. When the Nautilus passed between them, covering them with sheets of electricity, they seemed ready to salute us with their colors and send us their serial numbers! But no, nothing but silence and death filled this field of catastrophes! I observed that these Mediterranean depths became more and more cluttered with such gruesome wreckage as the Nautilus drew nearer to the Strait of Gibraltar. By then the shores of Africa and Europe were converging, and in this narrow space collisions were commonplace. There I saw numerous iron undersides, the phantasmagoric ruins of steamers, some lying down, others rearing up like fearsome animals. One of these boats made a dreadful first impression: sides torn open, funnel bent, paddle wheels stripped to the mountings, rudder separated from the sternpost and still hanging from an iron chain, the board on its stern eaten away by marine salts! How many lives were dashed in this shipwreck! How many victims were swept under the waves! Had some sailor on board lived to tell the story of this dreadful disaster, or do the waves still keep this casualty a secret? It occurred to me, lord knows why, that this boat buried under the sea might have been the Atlas, lost with all hands some twenty years ago and never heard from again! Oh, what a gruesome tale these Mediterranean depths could tell, this huge boneyard where so much wealth has been lost, where so many victims have met their deaths! Meanwhile, briskly unconcerned, the Nautilus ran at full propeller through the midst of these ruins. On February 18, near three o'clock in the morning, it hove before the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. There are two currents here: an upper current, long known to exist, that carries the ocean's waters into the Mediterranean basin; then a lower countercurrent, the only present-day proof of its existence being logic. In essence, the Mediterranean receives a continual influx of water not only from the Atlantic but from rivers emptying into it; since local evaporation isn't enough to restore the balance, the total amount of added water should make this sea's level higher every year. Yet this isn't the case, and we're naturally forced to believe in the existence of some lower current that carries the Mediterranean's surplus through the Strait of Gibraltar and into the Atlantic basin. And so it turned out. The Nautilus took full advantage of this countercurrent. It advanced swiftly through this narrow passageway. For an instant I could glimpse the wonderful ruins of the Temple of Hercules, buried undersea, as Pliny and Avianus have mentioned, together with the flat island they stand on; and a few minutes later, we were floating on the waves of the Atlantic.

#20000Leagues

0 notes

hudsonespie · 4 years

Text

DNA Monitoring Helps Catch Illegal Trade in Endangered Species

[By Pavel Toropov]

Hong Kong is well known as a major hub for the global trade in illegal wildlife. As well as smuggling products on, a lot of what arrives is sold in the city itself.

Headed by Professor Caroline Dingle, the laboratory now has 13 members who specialise in a wide range of disciplines, from law to coral reef ecology.

Per head, Hong Kong is Asia’s second largest seafood consumer, behind only Mainland China, and most Hong Kongers regularly purchase their seafood at the city’s more than 200 wet markets.

Hong Kong SAR is a signatory to CITES, and all trade in CITES-II listed species in Hong Kong requires permits. Failure to have them is a criminal offense.

Source: Customs data organized by Joyce Wu, former East Asian Director of TRAFFIC

Professor David Baker, a coral reef ecologist and supervisor of Richards’ project, defines the purpose of their eDNA tool as: “Collecting intelligence in a non-invasive way.”

The Lab plans to make the tool available to Hong Kong authorities after the publication, due this month, of the scientific paper based on Richard’s pilot study.

Amanda Whitfort, professor of law at Hong Kong University, who is also part of the Conservation Forensics Laboratory team, explains what needs to be done to put Richards’ work to practical use:

Perhaps Hong Kong, which has recently started to pass harsher sentences for wildlife crime, could set a legal precedent.

This article appears courtesy of China Dialogue Ocean and may be found in its orignal form here.

from Storage Containers https://maritime-executive.com/article/edna-monitoring-could-spot-illegal-trade-in-endangered-species via http://www.rssmix.com/

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