WEIRD SEAS Some Parts of the Ocean Are Associated with Specific Problems

WEIRD SEAS Some parts of the ocean are associated with specific problems. Most famous is probably the Bermuda triangle followed by the Sargasso Sea in the Atlantic and the Devil’s triangle off the Asian coast. Folklore also contains a good number of stories about mystery ships and phantom ships or ghost ships, which are fun to talk about. Mystery ships are real ships that have some unusual situation about them. These are ships like the Mary Celeste. Ghost ships or phantom ships are those that are supernatural. MONSTERS There is a pseudoscience known as “cryptozoology”. Cryptozoologists try to prove that animals from folklore exist as well as things like non-avian dinosaurs. These people do not try to look at the folkloric animals in literary analysis or through “hermeneutics” is the method for arriving at the sub text, but rather try to find them in real life. Some people have attempted to indicate that some real animals might have been the source of stories about strange animals like a cyclops. The idea might have been the result of people finding elephant skulls and thinking the nasal opening where the trunk enters the skull as being a single eye socket. These are not cryptozoologists. Nor are the scientists who suspect that some of the “monsters” are misidentified real animals. Once again, there is a real known animal involved and the source of the misidentification and this makes such researchers something other than cryptozoologists. Since many new species are found regularly, although they are often members of the unicellular protists. The appearance of 1 animals thought to have become extinct, has led people to suspect that some of the larger “extinct” animals might be around. However, animals conform to certain basic things. The definition remember is (a) heterotrophic (b) motile at some stage (c) reproduce sexually or asexually (d) lack a cell wall (e) multicellular. This would mean that any animal suspected of being somewhere would have to eat. Sexual reproduction is typical of large animals so a breeding population is necessary. The problems of trying to bring a stock of animals back from the brink of extinction are complicated and many. These have been apparent in overfished stocks of fish and mammals. There are problems about the size of the breeding population, the length of the gestation times, availability of food and so on. In many cases, such factors make it highly unlikely if not impossible for some of these “cryptids” to exist. There are a number of animals that have a kind of mythical status, although not technically mythical. Some, like the “great fish” that swallowed Jonah are truly mythical in that they occur in texts that are believed to be true and sacred. (There is some variation as to whether Jonah is swallowed by a “great fish”. This phrase was translated into Greek as “huge fish” a term used for sea monsters or sometimes a whale. These are entirely different animals. Japanese uses the word sakana to apply to both, but the word means something to have with sake as opposed to iu which is strictly used for fish. Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer. Greek mythology places them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla, said to be a six-headed monster, seems to be a personification of a rock shoal on the Italian side of the strait. Charybdis was, similarly, a personification, in this case, a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. Positioned as they are they create genuine sea hazards located close enough to each other to posed an almost 2 inescapable threat to passing ships and their crews. Avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. Idioms about this are close "Between a rock and a hard place". Some cryptids like the Yeti, Sasquatch, Bigfoot and the like are seen as having more than one animal and live in areas in which there is a good deal of food available. Others like the Loch Ness monster tend to be seen as single animals and in an environment that has some problematical issues associated with it. INVASIVE or ALIEN SPECIES Organisms that come from another part of the world (not necessarily another country just another are where they have not evolved) and are transported into a new area Only about 15% of these alien species are able to exist in their new environment. Most don’t survive the change. Some alien species have been deliberately introduced and may be beneficial like European honeybees (in the 1600s) which replaced the American honey bee which died off. They are beneficial in that they pollenate plants and crops. Cats, which are not indigenous to the New World (especially those that are feral), have been responsible for the extinction of several species of birds in this country Some are released accidentally like the Africanized bees that escaped a research laboratory. Pythons also got loose in Florida making it the only state in the union with a bounty on pythons! Those organism that are problematical are called “nuisance species” and if they are in the water, “Aquatic Nuisance Species” To be classified as a nuisance species the organism needs to be dangerous to other life form not only humans; have a commercial 3 impact by wiping out (or dramatically reducing) a species or cause environmental damage. A common form of transportation is in ballast water of ocean going vessels, or by boats (often recreational) which are transported from one body of water to another. The United States Coast Guard recommends that, to prevent such transport: a. BOAT SHOULD BE LEFT OUT OF WATER FOR A FEW DAYS b. REMOVE ALL VISIBLE VEGITATION FROM BOAT, PROPELLER, ANCHOR, TRAILER AND ANY OTHER OBJECTS THAT WERE IN THE WATER c. DRAIN AND FLUSH MOTOR LIVE WELL BILGE AND TRANSOM WELLS WITH HOT WATER Trailering boats even rather short distances can be enough to cause problems. ANS need only to go into an area where they are not found - that is they are being introduced into the new area. Sometimes people get some fish or other animal that they finally decide they don’t want it and release it in some area. While with a single fish this is not a big problem since it is unlikely to be able to reproduce. Of course a pregnant female may be able to produce enough offspring where later matings may be possible 4 .

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