Marine Biologist user here. Haven't done one of these threads in a while and I'm bored, so AMA

Marine Biologist user here. Haven't done one of these threads in a while and I'm bored, so AMA.

Can a penis masturbate into the blowhole of a whale comfortably?

An actual cool AMA and nobody bites. Faggots.

Any cool stories involving sharks or scary creatures of the deep?

how big are your mom's breasts?

What is the largest Great White you have seen? And wher?

Closest call?
Where have you worked?
How did you become a marine biologist?

Did Moby Dick actually happen? How about Jaws?

Why you lying though?

I have a couple, One of the guys I worked with was doing a biomass count in a murky lagoon, and out of nowhere he got body checked by a 15 foot tiger shark. It broke 4 of his ribs and he can't sleep on one of his sides comfortably, but other than that he was fine. Another guy got bit on the head after releasing a small reef shark that got caught in a net, it was pretty minor, and it was his fault for insisting on getting back in the water to cut it loose rather than pulling it up.

I haven't seen one in person, but I studied them for my Thesis. I know that the largest one I've seen on tape was Deep Blue, which is 22 feet. For reference look up pictures of Tilikum the orca, she's the same size as him.

It's not likely moby dick happened, if you saw the movie "In the Heart of the Sea" It was supposedly about the "True story" of Moby dick, that was modified by Herman Melville. As for Jaws, Benchley took inspiration from the 1916 Boston shark attacks, incidentally the attacks that are actually what put sharks in the headlines of mass media for the next century. They weren't perpetrated by a Great White though, most likely candidate is a blue shark, as one of the attacks occurred in a freshwater creek.

Bull shark* Not blue shark

Is the megalodon real?

Yeah, C. megalodon existed, there's a lot of fossil evidence for it, and it all points to a predator between 45-60 feet long, with a very stocky body that fed raptorially on whales in its time. Would have been terrifying to be in the same ocean as it. They also only went extinct just 2.6 million years ago, which is geologically a tick of the clock.

I fail to see how picture attached, is related.
Is there any possibility that it's, or a shark/predator og equal size, thriving on the bottom of the deeper oceans?

Where do you live and do your study user I'm in Hawaii and about to start my studies for an environmental science degree and get my marine bio degree later.
Also who employs you and what's your pay look like?

am I the only one actively watching this thread? This a great fucking thread.

Do you prefer biomass or biodiversity? I'm pretty close to the Benguela and not to far from Agulhas stream with the retroflection zone (agulhas bank) within driving distance so I've always been divided on which biome I admire more.

As far as I'm concerned, no. Animals like that have an incredibly high metabolism and need to eat high calorie food daily and in abundance to stay active. The largest sharks at depth are Sleeper sharks, that spend the majority of time at around 800 meters, but have been found at around 2000. They're scavengers mainly, and really lethargic. But large ones can be the size of Great Whites. They look similar to pic, which is a Greenland shark, they're in the same Genus.

are there any creatures in the sea that don't eat other creatures?

Biodiversity is multitudes more important than Biomass, it makes ecological systems healthier, more resilient, and more productive. Biodiversity has a direct effect on global carbon sequestration, trophic collapse and fish stock health. Biomass can mean anything, including aquaculture like fishfarms, which are incredibly harmful. It can also mean algal blooms or jelly fish blooms, which are equally bad.

Have you ever experienced anything creepy/weird/generally unsettling while out on sea?

Asking out of curiosity, I think this thread is really fucking interesting

Chemoautotrophs around hydrothermal vents i guess. It depends where you draw the line at "creatures" since Diatoms are single celled algae, same with dinoflagellates, and Kryll and small fish eat them in abundance.

Not really, you'd be surprised how monotonous it gets when you're collecting data. Although when you're diving you always get those moments where you look out past your visibility allows and the sea is just this rich blue and you're equally enchanted and terrified. I'm pretty chill around most animals in the sea though, sharks are incredibly timid and unless you actively make an attempt to piss them off or don't respect their space they'll leave you alone.

Have you made any significant discoveries in your field?

Or just any discoveries in general, I guess.

I'm currently working on how to age obscure Carcharhiniforme sharks accurately, it's really interesting. Since sharks don't have fully formed otoliths (ear bones) like bony fish, you can't really age them traditionally, some species of Horn shark can be aged by studying the dorsal horns, but for most other it's guesswork involving staining vertebral centra with different dyes and oils to try and count calcium deposits. Since shark skeletons are almost entirely cartilage they stand out a stark white against the off white creamy colour. But again, it's not entirely accurate, the rings change with latitude, lifestyle and species, and for a order as large and similar as Carcharhiniformes it can be a nightmare.

No man, i meant biomass as in intensely productive upwelling areas such as California, Chile, S.Africa's west coast. Not much diversity but tremendous biomass.
More tropical areas = more diversity but comparitively little biomass.
So i meant comparing types of biomes, which do you prefer.
Oceanografag here btw

Just ask them politely :^)

I spent two years aging otoliths of only 4 or 5 demersal species. Boring as fuck. Shared the office with a guy aging squid. Fucking microscopic boredom. Interresting and very cool skill, but boring

Why dont black people like to swim?

How long did it take you to become a marine biologist, and why did you decide to become one? Currently considering declaring my major as biology in general, but I'm kind of interested in this stuff.

Oh cool, sorry for kinda patronizing tone of the last post, not common to meet another marinefag on here. Honestly having spent a lot more time studying the tropics I'm inclined to side with them, there's a really feeling you get when you see a healthy reef like in Northern Hawaii. The upwelling areas are mainly seasonal and very ephemeral so for the most part they're deserts, and when they are productive they have the chance to have harmful effects as a result of certain algal blooms. Although I do like how they get most of the charismatic fauna.

Do you have a fetish for fish, OP? ...Fishish

Where is the purest sea water located? I want to bottle it and sell it in shops

Undergrad otolith study was a nightmare, I find microscope work tedious in general, but with the shark ventra, they're a little bigger and more interesting to prepare. Plus you get shitloads of them from one specimen rather than just two really fragile ones that are lost if you fuck the dissection up.

More

What the fuck would people use salt water for..?

So get this. I go up to SA east coast to scuba where the tropical reefs start.so you start getting that crazy diversity. But I go in June and hit it at the time when the sardine run goes through. Its mindblowing

I did a 4 year masters course then got a research job. It's not as difficult as you'd think if you're motivated and apt enough. I'd wanted to be a marine biologist since I was 8-9. After I first watched Jaws. I was obsessed with sharks after that and decided to study it at Uni, did well there and took it to its logical conclusion. There's a big job market, and the oceans are more important now than they've ever been at any point in history, since so many fish stocks are under threat, more companies need research for oil platforms and more nations are resorting to natural energy like wave, sea windfarms and tidal.

How do you feel knowing your life is a waste of time?
Aging sharks, who the fuck cares, do something practical like digging a fucking hole.

Man, dya see any humpbacks? I know they follow the sardine run and have those huge feeding parties where the sea is bubbling with them.

Kek, says the disillusioned nobody prolly working a dead end desk job. I'm furthering science, I'm doing what I enjoy and I get paid well to do it. Cry harder dipshit.

Quite a few of my former classmates ended up doing survey work for oil companiea either directly or indirectly. It's a disgrace but chances are good you'll end up there with either a m.biology or especially an oceanography degree.
I went the academic route for almost a decade but there just isnt enough money in it plus the politics is sickening.

One of my lecturers nearly lost a finger to a coconut crab whilst studying mangroves. It took two guys to get the thing off him. He laughs about it now though. Crazy bastard.

And I nearly got stung by a stingray whilst fishing with friends in Virginia. I didn't realize what was on the line until it flopped onto the dock, and when I was to flip it over to get to the line to cut it it whipped its tail forward and nearly caught the meat of my forarm.

Damn nature, you scary

Yeah, fortunately I'm still in the academic route and I'm going to apply for a PhD next year, looking for that tasty tenure at a University.

No i didnt. Was careful not to venture too close to main shoals. The amount of sharks there are staggering. But they are not really dangerous ...its the disorientation that is dangerous. Just so much fish ..you wouldnt see anything coming your way be it whale shark or dolphin. So we saw smaller shoals..lots of dolphins..lots of ragged tooth sharks around. Very close proximity. We kept to deeper parts, 30m. Safer as the predators there arent actively hunting.

...

Yeah. I've never dove there, but it'd be terrifying with all those fish in the water, they're like shiny fuckin' missiles. I bet you'd get a nasty bruise or two if one of them clipped you.

Good for you, but good luck...it gets like GOT once you're on the payroll.
My favorite one

Have you ever fapped to box jellyfish porn?

They never touch you. You feel like moses

Nah, Diploblasts don't do it for me.

Answer these fucking trips OP you faggot.

OP deserves this for bringing such an elevated topic to /b

I'm gonna say not comfortable for the whale. Hammer your finger into your nostril about 200 times and see how you feel.

Isn't that the same shark that the sick fucks in Iceland make hakarl out of? Fucking weirdos.

Yeah, they sometimes make it from basking shark too. Its body tissues are full of urea, so they're poisonous as fuck. They're almost all blind too, since there's a parasitic copepod in the arctic circle that prefers to make its home on Greenland shark eyes. Prolly bullshit too, but local inuits claim to have seen them jumping from the water to take moose and polar bears from ice shelves. Also in inuit mythology these sharks originated when an old woman washed a grey rag in piss and it blew into the sea.

Aboard the Fridtjof Nansen I saw those them preparing a penguin for eating by basically letting it rot outside until tender. Wtf

>Iceland
>penguin

Set this autistic faggot straight OP, penguins are Antarctic.

What's your favorite race in Morrowind?