Posted on 11/12/2024 3:30:04 PM PST by nickcarraway
In a breakthrough for marine science, researchers have recorded the largest predation event ever observed. Captured off Norway’s coast, this monumental feeding frenzy saw around 2.5 million Atlantic cod devouring more than 10 million capelin within a matter of hours.
According to Oceanographic, this rare predation was documented by a team of Norwegian and MIT scientists, who used advanced underwater acoustic technology, specifically the Ocean Acoustic Waveguide Remote Sensing (OAWRS) system.
“This is happening over a monstrous scale,” explained MIT ocean engineer Nicholas Makris. By sending sound waves that reflect off fish, the team created a real-time map of the interaction, allowing them to identify individual species.
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Atlantic cod feasting on capelin is a natural phenomenon The event itself was dramatic but likely a regular occurrence in marine ecosystems, although it has never before been captured on such a large scale. Capelin, which usually gather in vast shoals during February to spawn, attract Atlantic cod, their primary predator.
While this event involved just 0.2 per cent of the capelin population, scientists warn that declining fish populations, especially in species like Atlantic salmon, may not recover from such events in the future if climate change persists.
The threat to the ecosystem Makris remarked, “When a population is on the verge of collapse, you will have that one last shoal. And when that last big, dense group is gone, there’s a collapse.”
This research is a reminder of the risks facing the world’s oceans, where over 97 per cent of migrating fish species, including economically valuable species, are at risk of extinction.
As climate change continues to push species out of traditional habitats, understanding these predator-prey relationships could be crucial to conserving vulnerable fish populations along Norway’s coast and beyond.
Insomniac agnostic capelin lie awake all night wondering if there is a cod.
“I was witness to an undersea, unexplained mass sponge migration!”
Capelin roe is pretty good, to those who can’t afford real caviar...
I just knew I wouldn’t get to the end of this article without seeing “climate change”. How much actual evidence do they have that this event has anything whatsoever to do with climate change?
and then they find out there really is a cod and it eats at them...
They obviously haven’t watched Michael Moore at an all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet.
Clever and fast!
Cod doing what cod do.
Enthusiastically clapping.
They had to get climate change in there, it is a hoax, so this news item is suspect in every fact and observation mentioned.
RE: climate change continues to push species out of traditional habitats
Put on the hip waders. The barnyard is getting really full.
Why can’t we just declare it an Act of Cod?🐟🐟🌊🌊
thanks for that. now I’m imagine Michael moore and Rosie O’Donnell hogging a buffet together. “even things you only see in your mind can’t always be unseen” L.Star
The last time this happened was when Stacy Abrams paid
Oprah Winfrey $1,000,000 to accompany her to the final Red Lobster All the Scamp U can Eat special.
COD IS GREAT! applies.
RE:...tiny swim bladders that resonate like the highest notes on a piano.
Imagine some nerdy scientist devoting years of his life to getting close to them to listen to the resonating notes.
Rival FBI agent in the X-Files episode Improbable, going through Fox Mulder’s piles of folders and books in his cluttered little apartment with the bed unreachable due to the mess.
“This guy hasn’t been laid in years.”
But presumably the shrimp in that case are already dead, he’s not hunting them.
As a former field biologist, I admit you are correct.
Just don’t tell Michael Moore…
Do you think his wife moves the shrimp, to make him think they are alive?
“Ooh, Ray, those sponges migrated about a foot and a half.”
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