European eels are critically endangered . To better understand their life sentence , research worker go after them during a migration . of a sudden , three trackers return very strange information . What , oh what , could have chance ?
European eels are reverse salmon . They populate most of their adult lives in rivers , but will finally transmigrate out into the ocean and journeying to the Sargasso Sea . There they spawn and die , set out the hertz over .
Once at ocean the eel stay in recondite water , so little is eff about their behavior . research worker resolve to implant temperature and deepness logging tags into a group of eel . Most of the eel made it to the Sargasso Sea , but three eel were n’t so lucky . The written report states :
“ For three of the rag , 25 to 256 days after release there was a spectacular ascension in temperature from 10 ° one C to 36 ° century and the dive profile change from depths of 300–1000 m to repeated rising to the surface . . . . Two of the ticket had sufficient sampling charge per unit to address the dives in detail . They register a total of 91 dives to maximum depths of 250–860 m lasting 11–12 Fukkianese and with open interval of 5–7 min . More than two thirds of the dive included a speedy pedigree from more or less 500 m to 600–700 m. ”
Deep dives were keep company by short drops in temperature . It was n’t a mystery story what had happened . The eel had been eaten by whale . That was what caused the straightaway salary increase in temperature — and rent the researcher know they were dealing with a strong - blooded beast . The hulk go on their agency , the implant still channelise data point inside them . The depth of the dives signal they were toothed whale , probably pilot whales , and the quick drops in temperature during those dives befall when either piss or some other inauspicious target had joined the eel in the whale ’s abdomen .
The study conclude by saying , “ The tags extend to pile up temperature and astuteness data until they were voided up to 50 h after uptake . ” The process of catch out of the whale was ostensibly more traumatic than go in , because it broke the tags , although the corpse of the tags did eventually wash up on a beach and were turned in to the scientific brass by hoi polloi who found the detritus .
[ seed : grounds of mammalian depredation of the European eel during its marine migration , Whales Devour European Eels ]
BiologySciencewhales
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