March 2009

Crustaceans feel and remember pain

The research, which is just published in the journal Animal Behaviour was carried out by Professor Bob Elwood and Mirjam Appel

Professor Elwood told BBC the research highlighted the need to investigate how crustaceans used in food industries are treated, saying that a "potentially very large problem" was being ignored.

Professor Elwood, who previously carried out a study showing that prawns endure pain, said: "There has been a long debate about whether crustaceans including crabs, prawns and lobsters feel pain.

Geradia (gold) coral. Some deep-sea coral are now believed to have lifespans in excess of 4,000 years.
Geradia (gold) coral. Some deep-sea coral are now believed to have lifespans in excess of 4,000 years.

Deep-sea coral found to be over 4000 years old

A black deepsea coral found about 400 meters from Oahu and the Big Island in Hawaii is more than 4,000 years old — making it the oldest marine organism ever found, according to researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Stanford University and the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Using a manned deep-sea research submersible samples were collected at the Makapuu and Lanikai deep-sea coral beds off the coast of Oahu, Keahole Point deep-sea coral bed off the coast of the Big Island and Cross Seamount about 100 miles south of Oahu.

On the origin of the great white shark

A new 4-million-year-old fossil from Peru described in this month’s issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology provides important evidence suggesting the shark’s origins may be more humble than previously believed.

Shark fossils very rare

Dana Ehret, Gordon Hubbell and Bruce MacFadden studied an exceptionally well-preserved fossil of a species of white shark (Carcharodon sp.) from Peru (estimated to be about 5 m long by the authors), consisting of a complete jaw with 222 teeth, and 45 vertebrae, in their paper.