Thursday, May 31, 2007

like a virgin.

weather: quite hot

It has been forever and a day since i have posted.
I am a terrible blogger!
Life was overly hectic for awhile
with graduation, moving, and all that stuff.

In sea news, I jesschambers will be volunteering
at the ny aquarium starting july 3.
glamorous? hardly.
I'll be cutting fish and cleaning seal poo for awhile
but it will be worth it to see the seals, walrus and otters
every tuesday. maybe i'll even end up
with a job there someday haha.

I was on nationalgeographic as usual
and there is currently a story up about
a female bonnethead shark who knocked herself up.
ok so that sounds a little ridiculous.
but this lady managed to fertilize her own eggs
and give birth without intercourse.

This is not the first time something like this has occured
but most species this happens to -insects, certain lizards-
is common for them.
For a female shark to have to fertilize her own eggs
means that she is not finding a male to do it.
could this be due to overfishing? (i think so.)

Maybe it is time to give seafood a rest.
Let the ocean get back to its previous state,
and not starve the creatures that live there
just so we can have shrimp cocktail and calamari.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

4 ft. clams and new beginnings.

Weather: cool summer evening


it is offical sailors.
I've reached the end of my college voyage!!
i really never thought i'd see this day,
where i'd have a degree, and an awesome apartment.


But enough about me
Lets talk about giant clams.
Perhaps it is because i am so small,
but i have a fascination of large sea creatures.
and the giant clam is a beauty.

















These babies can grow to be 4ft in length.
thats roughly the size of an 8 year old.
and though myths of man eating clams exist.
Scientists claim that this cannot be true,
due to the clams inability to snap its shell shut.
Therefore giving the human enough time to
get the hell out of the clams mouth.

These giants can live 100+years
which is no surprise with those shells.
They are found mostly in the South Pacific
and Indian Ocean.
another interesting tidbit is that
once they choose their place in the reef
they are there forever and ever.

an awesome sight for
finding monster info
is FactMonster.com.
I stumbled upon it while googling
"Man Eating Giant Clam".
So. uh check into that.

Have a wonderful rest of the weekend sailors!

Wednesday, May 02, 2007

peanut. peanut butter and jellyfish!

weather: crisp and sunny


buona sera sailors!
(good evening in italian)

I've decided to switch from entries to clever titles.
and obviously I'm all about jellyfish today.
as usual there are particular ones I am thinking of.

the box jellyfish and his cousin the Irukandji.


























These Australian natives have managed
to cause some problems down under.
The box jellyfish for instance,
has claimed more lives down there
than snakes, sharks and crocs combined!
how is this possible? you wonder
extreme toxins my friends. extreme.
so ridiculously extreme that
they can stop cardiorespiratory functions in less than 3 minutes.

As for the Irukandji....
I was watching a show about these jellyfish
and both hosts of the show actually got stung by
the Irukandji and ended up in the hospital.
This happened because the sneaky Irujandji
is about the size of an adult thumbnail.
Which understandably makes him extra hard to spot.
He has only been known to have caused 2 deaths
but the "irukandji syndrome"
could have been mistaken for something else
so who is to say.