fin in Biological News

Triple threat: World fin trade may harvest up to 73 million sharks per year

The first real-data study of sharks harvested for their valuable fins estimates as few as 26 million and as many as 73 million sharks are killed each year worldwide--three times higher than was reported originally by the United Nations, according to a paper published as the cover story in the Octob...

The faster they come

...her damage to the tail and fins may affect the social position of a given individual, and found that, indeed, aggressive behaviours tend to decline as fin damage sustained in fights accumulates. In other words: if a male has to fight too often to maintain his dominant status, he will probably end up losi...

'Bycatch' whaling a growing threat to coastal whales

... said, reportedly seizing 50 tons of minke whale meat. Other protected species of large whales detected in market surveys include humpbacks whales, fin whales, Bryde's whales and critically endangered western gray whales. The entanglement and death of western or Asian gray whales is of particular conc...

Embryology study offers clues to birth defects

... not hindlimb development. In zebrafish, the forelimb (pectoral fin) is also missing in retinoic acid-deficient embryos, but they were able to rescue fin development by treating such embryos with a drug that reduces fibroblast growth factor activity, thus supporting the hypothesis that retinoic acid nor...

UF scientist tapped by Howard Hughes Medical Institute to pursue 'best ideas'

...ublished in Nature in 1999 and 2002. Since arriving at UF in 2003, Cohn's group has discovered the evolutionary origin of the genetic program for fin development, shown how this program was modified to form fingers and toes, and identified the molecular basis for the loss of legs during whale evolut...

Lohafex provides new insights on plankton ecology

...g copepods. The dominant species Themisto gaudichaudii plays an important role in the food web of the Southern Ocean. It is the main food of squid and fin whales in the south-western Atlantic. A second fertilization of the patch after 3 weeks had no further effect on the phytoplankton indicating that...

Research links evolution of fins and limbs with that of gills

...ic skates (a living relative of sharks that has gill rays) responds to treatment with the vitamin A derivative retinoic acid in the same way a limb or fin skeleton does: by making a mirror image duplicate of the structure as the embryo develops. According to the researchers, the genetic circuitry that pa...

UNH researchers studying spiny dogfish, Gulf of Maine's mini shark

...were recorded, blood samples were taken and dorsal fin spines, vertebrae and reproductive organs were bro... on otoliths (inner ear bones), dorsal or pectoral fin spines. The second dorsal fin spine was previously used to identify the ages of ...

Older killer whales make the best mothers

...aid, "During annual photographic surveys, nearly every individual in the population has been recorded. Each animal has unique pigmentation, scars, and fin shapes, allowing us to track the survival and reproductive performance of each female over time". The authors aimed to investigate what benefits k...

UBC researcher reveals humpback whales' dining habits -- and costs

... Humpbacks belong to a group of whales called rorquals that includes the fin whale and the blue whale, the largest animal that has ever lived. Character...udies, Goldbogen now plans to compare lunge-feeding performance among blue, fin and humpback whales to determine whether the energy cost of a lunge is high...

Details of evolutionary transition from fish to land animals revealed

... of the skull, neck, ribs and appendages that are shared with the earliest limbed animals (tetrapods), as well as fishlike features such as scales and fin rays. This mosaic of features makes it a textbook example of a transitional fossil, say paleontologists. Jason Downs, a scientist at the Academy of...

Primordial fish had rudimentary fingers

... rudiments have been demonstrated once in the past, two years ago in Tiktaaliks, which is a more tetrapod-like group. Together with information about fin development in sharks, paddlefish, and Australian lungfish, the scientists can now definitively conclude that fingers were not something new in tetrap...

Worm-like marine animal providing

... changed their regulation and perhaps changed the gene function." Originally discovered in the 1700s, amphioxus appears fish-like with a small tail fin and medial fins, but no paired ones. They spend most of their time burrowed in sand, with their snouts extended for filter feeding. The human ge...

Over 50 percent of oceanic shark species threatened with extinction

...ll as indirect take in other fisheries. In most cases, these catches are unregulated and unsustainable. The increasing demand for the delicacy shark fin soup, driven by rapidly growing Asian economies, means that often the valuable shark fins are retained and the carcasses discarded. Frequently, discar...

Researchers to develop ocean sanctuary 'noise budget' to evaluate potential impact on marine mammals

...leets, heavy vessel traffic, is frequented by marine mammals like endangered Northern right whales, and forms a critical feeding ground for endangered fin and humpback whales. It is also home to acoustically-sensitive marine animals like commercially important haddock and other fishes, sharks and sea tur...

Oceanic sharks worldwide at serious risk from high-seas fishing, rising demand for shark products

... sharks are the predominant species captured by a wide range of commercial fishing methods, and they are among the most popular species used for shark fin soup in Asia. Oceanic sharks are particularly at risk from overfishing because they are caught in international waters where there are no limits on t...

To save or savor? It's decision time for Atlantic bluefin tuna

... can grow to 1,500 pounds, live in offshore waters and must be hauled onto boats to be measured, implanted with sophisticated electronic tags or have fin clips for DNA analysis removed. Block and her students have uncovered remarkable details about the journeys of these giant fish, which can swim t...

New research reveals shark superhighways and hotspots

...erhead shark, a coastal species, which will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally Endangered due to overfishing and high demand in the shark fin trade." Though the sharks that live near the oceans surface frequently get more attention, almost half of the known species live in the cold, dark ...

Ocean's fiercest predators now vulnerable to extinction

...l species, which will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally endangered due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade, added Baum, who is an NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Baum pointed out that fishing for sharks in internat...

New book reveals an evolutionary journey of the human body

...similar types of genes. The transformation of fins into limbs didnt involve the origin of new genes, but rather, ancient onessuch as those involved in fin developmentwere used in novel ways to make limbs with fingers and toes. Additionally, scientists turned to creatures such as flies, worms, yeasts, ...

Economists: Reduce fish catch now for bigger net profits later

... To establish the relationship between fish stocks and profitability, the authors modelled outputs for four different fish big eye tuna and yellow fin tuna of the western and central Pacific, northern tiger prawn and orange roughy in Australia plotting revenue and profit curves against fish biomass....

Northwestern study looks at sensing, movement and behavior

...it generates a weak electric field all around its body, and sensors, also all around its body, register any perturbations. By fluttering a ribbon-like fin along the entire length of its body, the knifefish can swim both forward and backward to catch its prey, the water flea. After developing their mat...

UW launches cutting-edge DNA 'fin-printing' project for salmon

...an genome. The process, sometimes referred to as DNA fingerprinting in humans, could be called DNA "fin-printing" for fish when a bit of tissue from a fin is used for the analysis. Prior to genetic markers, fisheries scientists primarily relied on capturing young fish, putting metal or plastic tags on t...

New light trap captures larval stage of new species; DNA barcode technology used

...e meticulously sorted and identified our catch, using a microscope to count fin rays, scales, and bones and examine pigmentation patterns that distinguish ...differed slightly from the known species of Atlantic gobies by having fewer fin rays and lacking a frenum, the small fold of tissue in the pelvic fins of m...

Humpback whales have brain cells also found in humans

...ed the brain of an adult humpback whale and compared it with the brain of a fin whale (another baleen species) and brains from several toothed whales, incl...ertain cells into "islands" in the cerebral cortex that is also seen in the fin whale and other types of mammals. The authors speculate that this structur...

How does a zebrafish grow a new tail?

...by a different kind of Wnt protein called Wnt5b, turns down the genes that are turned on by Wnt/Beta-catenin, impairs cell proliferation, and inhibits fin regeneration. Fish that have a mutant Wnt5b protein regenerate missing tails very quickly. Too much of another related protein, Wnt8, also increases c...

UF scientists discover evolutionary origin of fins, limbs

... intuitively one would think the genetic tools for fin development would be brought together in that plac...ebrates was a major evolutionary innovation toward fin - and eventually limb - locomotion, Cohn said. The... lamprey - a species of jawless fish with a dorsal fin and tail but no side fins - considered by biologis...

IMF Launches World’s First DNA Database for Myeloma Patients

... swordtail fishes. Swords are conspicuous, elongate projections of the tail fin and are known to be subject to female mate choice. "Swords resemble gono...sensory bias in females," he said. "That is, male ornamentation of the tail fin may have evolved largely due to the pre-existing preference for an elongate...

Certain fish have a special mating preference

... swordtail fishes. Swords are conspicuous, elongate projections of the tail fin and are known to be subject to female mate choice. "Swords resemble gono...sensory bias in females," he said. "That is, male ornamentation of the tail fin may have evolved largely due to the pre-existing preference for an elongate...

Same mutation aided evolution in many fish species, Stanford study finds

...h evolved independently from marine ancestors that are covered head to hind fin in body armor. Although it's not clear why losing the armor is a benefit to...e same genetic switch to work a visible change in the fish. However, in the fin study the group wasn't able to pinpoint the exact genetic alteration. Th...