KOMPAS.com – Researchers discovered an ancient volcano beneath off Canada’s Pacific coast, still active and covered in thousands of giant eggs.
Before the expedition, the research team thought the ancient underwater mountain was extinct and the waters around it were freezing cold.
However, they found that the mountain, which rises up to 1,100 meters above the seabed, was spouting warm water.
Quoted from the Live Science page, Tuesday (18/7/2023), the hot, mineral-rich liquid that gushes keeps the waters around it warm.
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Therefore, the area around the mountain became an ideal environment for some living things.
In fact, surprisingly, researchers also found the Pacific white skate, a shark family animal that looks like a stingray, going in and out to lay its eggs on the top of the mountain.
“This is a very special place at a very special place,” said marine biologist and principal investigator on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) expedition, Cherisse Du Preez.
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Covered by thousands to millions of eggs
He said that the largest area where the animal with the scientific name Bathyraja spinosissima breeds is the Galapagos Island in the Pacific Ocean.
This conservation area, which is part of Ecuador, contains dozens of Pacific white skate eggs.
However, the newly discovered skate spawn area on an ancient volcano is many times the size of the Galapagos.
“I estimate the egg-capped seamount peak has I don’t know, a hundred thousand or a million?” he said.
“These eggs are huge, measuring about 1.5 feet (half a meter),” Preez continued.
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For information, the pacific white skate is a sea creature that inhabits depths between 800-2900 meters off the west coast of North and Central America.
Reporting from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), adult females can grow up to 2 meters and produce rectangular-shaped eggs.
These eggs are commonly referred to as mermaid purses or mermaid purses because they look like small bags.
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Skate eggs need volcanic heat
In 2018, Preez said, researchers found several eggs near a hydrothermal vent near the Galapagos Islands.
These conditions suggest that female skates take advantage of volcanic heat to incubate their eggs.
As animals that reproduce by laying eggs and giving birth or are ovoviviparous, skates may need warm water to speed up the egg gestation period.
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Next, female skates will lay eggs and produce young, which take four years to grow into juveniles.
“The shallow tops of seamounts are almost a coral garden and a safe nursery for skate juveniles to grow before they descend deeper into the ocean,” explains Preez.
Because it is not protected and can be threatened by fishing activities, researchers will continue to monitor the seamounts and the eggs that cover them.
“This discovery shows how important habitat is for nurseries and for overall ocean health,” he said.
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2023-07-20 01:00:00
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