A few weeks ago I went to a flea market looking for a lamp and chairs, and came back with a 10-gallon fish tank instead. I filled it with water, added some gravel, and turned on the water pump. I also went to a nearby pond and grabbed a few pieces of aquatic plants to add to the tank.
A few weeks later, some of the plants had grown, but the duckweed, which I had hoped would have been covering the surface, were not doing so hot. I thought maybe it was that the current was too strong, so I turned off the pump so the water would be more still.
A few days later, the duckweed had indeed grown a little tiny bit better. But the water surface was now filmy. And on that surface film was a constellation of tiny organisms moving around.
I can't be sure, but under a magnifying glass, I spotted what I think were Daphnia (tiny crustaceans also known as water fleas), and tiny baby Planaria (little flatworms with triangular heads), gliding on the bottoms of the surface of the film (I had seen bigger ones gliding on the aquarium walls a few days before.) Since I was a kid, I have always been fascinated with both of these organisms. Daphnia, because as a tropical fish hobbyist I learned they were a favorite food of fish, and Planaria because of the well know regeneration properties: cut them in half and they form two new worms.
Suddenly I felt like Lisa Simpson, in the Treehouse of Horror VII segment called The Genesis Tub, where she performs a science experiment with a corroding tooth in a small tub that results in the creation of a tiny universe.
Well, at least the DNA says they're out there somewhere on Isabela Island.
And if they don't find the pure-breds, at least the newly identified hybrids can be used in a breeding program to bring back the Floreana Galapagos tortoise into existence and reintroduced into its native island, where it has not existed for 162 years.
Interesting how if this turns out to be true, it means that at some point the Floreana tortoise was an accidentally introduced invasive species on Isabela (and perhaps still is). In this case, turns out this may have been the salvation of the species!
An article in the New York Times relates new findings on aquarium fish behavior. Turns out they are much more aggressive than their counterparts in the wild:
It makes lots of sense when you think about how fish in the wild have a whole pond, lake, river or ocean to swim around in. Should they encounter an aggressive conspecific or hostile other species, there's plenty of room to swim away. Not so in the confined space of a small aquarium.
One thing the article does not address is differences between species in their responses to aquarium overcrowding. Solitary species must surely get more aggressive than social fish who thrive in schools.
My brothers and I kept freshwater aquarium fish for many years, and we did lots of research on what kinds of fish to get, making sure we get species that like the same water and temperature conditions, and were social and non-aggressive. Many of the fish we used to keep were smalls ones that were happiest in schools, like South American tetra species, or Asian species like the zebrafish and the cherry barb. The optimum size of the school for a given fish tank volume must differ between species.
The fish used in the study, the Midas cichlid, is by nature territorial and aggressive, so the effects of living with other fish in a small fish tank on aggression must be more acute in this species that in others. Still, the study is important in helping us be aware of the silent stress that fish may endure in aquarium tanks. Maybe it will point us to what species are suitable to aquarium life and which are not, what the optimum tank sizes for different fish species are, and in what numbers of fish to keep them in a given volume of tank.
Last summer I had the great privilege of visiting what scientists have identified as possibly the most biodiverse spot on Earth (one hectate of this place contains more tree species than are native to all of North America).It is also home to some of the numerous indigenous cultures that still lead a traditional existence. The forest is Yasuní, in Ecuador, where I was born. None of my relatives in Ecuador have been there, so it was a special privilege to tell them about this national treasure while lies in the tropical east of the country.
On the lake, by the Napo Wildlife Center, Yasuní National Forest, Ecuador.
Because it sits on large oil reserves, the forest could easily succumb to the pressures of an oil-addicted world, plus the needs of a developing nation. In addition to the toxic pollution of oil extraction wold come the colonization, deforestation, illegal logging, and unsustainable hunting that comes with the oil-access roads.
But the forward thinking government of Ecuador made a bold proposal to save the park from this threat. In 2007, the government of President Rafael Correa proposed to keep the oil under Yasuní permanently under ground in order to protect the park, fight global warming and preserve the lands of the indigenous populations there. In exchange, the government would receive several billion dollars from developed countries.
Trailer for Yasuní - Two Seconds of Life, a wonderful documentary about Yasuní Forest, the forces that threaten it, and the plan to save it.
So far, donations from governments have not been forthcoming. At a screening for Yasuní, Two seconds of life, a documentary about the forest by a team from Ecuador, Austria and the US, which premiered in the US in the Ecuadorian Embassy in Washington, DC, I heard talk that instead of governments, perhaps the private sector might be a better source of donations.
Perhaps. But I also wondered if maybe small private donations might also help. So recently I went to the Yasuní-ITT Trust Fund, a fund administered by the United Nations that will take donations and help pay for this innovative preservation initiative. I saw that one could make personal donations, and so I made one. I was happy to see that I was not alone.
Click on graph for larger view.
As you can see above, there were personal donations from individuals in developed countries, especially the US and the UK. But there were even donations from people in poor countries, including Ecuador. Maybe with some better marketing and some savvy use of the internet, the world could be crowd-sourced for funds to help save this jewel among forests!
But another source of hope lies not outside of the park, but within, with the people who live there. When I visited the forest, I stayed at the Napo Wildlife Center, an eco-lodge run by an the indigenous Kichwa community of Añangu, within the park boundaries. I spoke to one of the older guides from the tribe, who told me that before they started the eco-lodge, his people, who are a river people who depend completely on the forest for food and medicine, faced the threat of outsiders deforesting and hunting, with the government doing nothing to prevent it. They took matters in their own hands, developing with the help of outside NGOs a wildlife center and eco-lodge, which now serves as a home-grown and sustainable alternative to oil-development. Other parts of Ecuador may benefit from this model, including the unique and endangered cloud forests on the Western slopes of the Ecuadorean Andes, which were recently featured in the New York Times.
I didn't take many photos during my trip; I relied on my travel companions to do that. But here are a few of the photos I did manage to take. Nothing like experiencing it with your own senses though.
My friend by the base of a tall ceiba tree.
Myself at the canopy of a ceiba.
Capped Heron (Piherodius pileatus)
A species of Amblypigid, or tailless whip scorpion, an arachnid related to spiders and true scorpion. This one was the size of my hand.
Guides from the Napo Wildlife Center. The gentleman on the right is a native of the Kichwa Añangu community.
And please consider donating to the Yasuní-ITT Trust Fund! Show Ecuador and the world that there is an alternative to destructive and irreversible oil development, and that we care.
The other day I was in the National Zoo in Washington DC and I walked into the Small Mammal House since it was an especially sleepy day at the zoo and most of the critters were resting and hiding away and I was in the mood for furry cuteness. The Small Mammal House seemed like a good bet. I wasn't disappointed. I saw quite a few sengis, aka "elephant shrews" (a misnomer, since they are not true shrews, but interestingly are actually more closely related to elephants and manatees than to true shrews). They were weird and adorable which is just what I wanted.
On one of the notes outside the glass enclosure containing some rare golden lion tamarins was a box describing the importance of habitat protection for saving threatened species, in which they used as an example, the importance of closing certain trails in the nearby Rock Creek Park, because these areas are the sole habitat of an endangered "shrimp-like species". Intrigued by the notion that this urban park was the unique habitat of a rare species that existed no where else on the planet, I looked around the Small Mammal House for more information about this mysterious "shrimp-like creature". I didn't find any, so I got on the Google and found out the little rascal is called Hay's Spring Amphipod and it lives no where else but for a few springs in in the zoo and in the adjacent Rock Creek Park. Surely the Invertebrates Exhibit will have a special section on this species that exists no where else in the Universe but for a few creeks in the District of Columbia (and possibly Maryland)! But no. Lots of cool animals with no backbones: giant land crab, charismatic cuttlefish, ephemeral jellyfish, but no mention of DC's own very special and endangered crustacean. How could this be? Why isn't this little critter on the State District emblem?
Not Hay's Spring Amphipod, but a close relative (Pizzini's Amphipod, Stygobromus pizzini). Photo by Brent Steury, National Park Service.
Perhaps because it is a lowly, pale and blind amphipod that lives in mud and water? Thomas Roscoe Rede Stebbing may have said it best when he wrote in 1899 of the lowly amphipods:
No panegyrist of the Amphipoda has yet been able to evoke anything like popular enthusiasm in their favour. To the generality of observers they are only not repelled because the glance which falls upon them is unarrested, ignores them, is unconscious of their presence.
And indeed, Hay's Spring Amphipod (Stygobromus hayi) spends its life in groundwater near natural springs, so it's not likely something we'd see during a walk in the park. It's also not furry or doe-eyed. In fact it's pale and blind, feeds on rotting organic matter and is less than an inch long. But with a little bit of marketing, perhaps we could make this the DC mascot! An underdog creature for an underdog State Federal Disctrict! A tiny survivor holding its own in the middle of a tough city.
But more seriously, I think the little amphipod would be an excellent reminder of how we humans have endangered life of all kinds, great and small, and that endangered species are everywhere, not just in exotic far-off places, but sometimes in our own backyards.
Some of my own ideas for the DC official crustacean mascot.
