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Brad Steels / Alamy Efforts to rid fish farms of blood-sucking aquatic lice by using chemical pesticides have ended up giving the pests increasing resistance, leading to widespread infestations in the north-eastern Atlantic Ocean. Somewhat like ticks on land animals, salt-water-living salmon lice ( Lepeophtheirus salmonis) hook on the skin of salmonids (mainly salmon and sea trout), feeding on their blood and mucus and creating sores that can get infected and even cause death. In natural conditions, lice numbers drop over winter as trout return to fresh water and salmon disperse into the cold...

Richard Becker/Alamy House-dwelling spiders avoid surfaces that certain aggressive ants have walked over, suggesting that there may be some sort of chemical the ants leave in their wake that could form the basis of an ecologically sound way to keep spiders out of people’s houses. Alongside his regular spider sex pheromone research, Andreas Fischer at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, has been seeking practical ways to maintain healthy ecosystems while keeping arachnophobic humans comfortable in their own homes. Advertisement He says commercial pesticides “kill everything”, d...

Hermit crabs prefer to occupy darker-coloured seashells, especially if they are living in a dark and gloomy environment

Reinhard Dirscherl/Alamy Whale sharks are the world’s largest living fish, measuring up to 18 metres long, but somehow they can suspend themselves in an upright position despite having a body density that is greater than that of seawater. A study of captive whale sharks suggests this may be due to air they take in as they feed at the water’s surface. Scientists have previously observed whale sharks ( Rhincodon typus) feeding vertically in the wild. Although they often use slow fin movements to hold themselves in place while feeding on plankton … Continue reading Subscrib...

Andres Kalamees Buoys fitted with cartoon-like eyes act in a similar way to scarecrows, keeping seabirds safely away from areas of the sea where they might get caught in fishing nets. An estimated 400,000 diving birds drown each year when they become entangled in vertically oriented gill nets that hang down in water between floats or buoys. In a bid to reduce deaths, a team of bird conservation researchers led by Yann Rouxel at the BirdLife International Marine Programme in Glasgow, UK, has developed and tested a method of turning the buoys into marine scarecrows. Advertisement Researchers pr...