Nature's Hub

Here's a bright information!
So you might have known about the largest fish, the most poisonous fish, the most ferocious fish and the fastest fish but have you ever wondered who among them is the strongest and toughest?
Many people wonder if its the shark but its not it. So let me introduce you all to the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (Thunnus Thynus).
The Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is a species of Tuna in the Scombridae family. These are native to both the eastern and western Atlantic as well as the Mediterranean Sea. Although it was prevalent in the Black Sea as well but now they are extinct in that area.
It can weigh upto 680 kg or 1,500 pounds making it a rival to the Blue Marlins, Black Marlins and Swordfish as the largest Perciformes (Species that belong to the order of Clade Percomorpha consisting perch-like Percomorphans.)
It can live upto 40 years, migrate across all oceans and can dive deeper than 3,000 feet. Since they are built like torpedoes, along with their strength they have immense level of speed and also have retractable fins and eyes set flush to their body. From the moment they hatch, they become ferocious predators looking out for school of fishes like Mackerel, Herring, Eels etc. They hunt by sight and have the sharpest vision of the bony fishes category. In the first year of it's life it undergoes a body adaptation known as Regional Endothermy which is the ability to regulate body temperature and exerts a tackle force of upto 320 pounds, similar to the Bigeye Tuna. However, it has a distinguishable greater amount of stamina which makes it harder to catch and a more potent predator out there and also probably the most potent predator of the Tuna family. However it's called the strongest due to its ability to quickly adapt to its environment and can endure various ups and downs of the temperature due to its Regional Endothermy adaptation.
Although it is hard to catch, it forms a greater source of income from the Tuna family since Tuna fishing generates about 42 billion dollars in economic activity each year. A single Atlantic Bluefin Tuna is sold for over 1.75 million dollars as it is a highly sought-after delicacy for Sushi and Sashimi in Asia.
Feel free to get more brighter informations and to be amazed by posts like this.
Source:https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/bluefin-tuna

Fun Fact!
The most deepest part of the world, the Mariana Trench is as fascinating as it gets.
Mariana Trench, the most deepest part of the world, is located in the Pacific Ocean, near the Guam and the Mariana Islands. It's about 11,000 meters or 36,200 feet deep which is almost 7 miles and its width is about 70 kilometers or 44 miles and about 2,550 kilometers or 1584.5 miles long. It is said that if we infuse Mount Everest at the bottom of Mariana Trench, its peak will still be 7,000 feet or 2,133 meters below the sea level. The Mariana Trench falls under the jurisdiction of the US Government since it's a part beside the Guam and the Mariana Islands which too fall under the jurisdiction of the US Government. Its depth and approximately 15,750 psi pressure force which is about 1,071 times more pressure than normal sea level, makes it difficult for any deep or bottom level expedition.
The Mariana Trench was first discovered by the crew of the British Ship, H.M.S. Challenger, after which the bottom part of the trench was named the Challenger Deep, in the year 1875. Since then, very few people or group have explored the depths of the trench, namely H.M.S. Challenger 2 in 1951; US Navy Lieutenant Don Walsh along with Swiss Oceanographer and Explorer, Jacques Piccard, on 23rd January, 1960, using a submersible called the Trieste; Filmmaker James Cameron with his submersible, the Deepsea Challenger and lastly, the American Naval Officer, Victor Viscovo in May, 2019.
According to the reports of the explorers, it is stated that the climate of the trench is both varied and sometimes extreme as it is made up of active mud volcanoes and bubbling pockets in the floor that release Sulphur and Carbon Dioxide and the temperature sits between 1 to 4°C at the bottom. According to the scientists at Newcastle University, the trench is also polluted with extremely high levels of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs) which included Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) and Polybrominated Diphenyl Ethers (PBDs) which are used as electrical insulators and flame retardants. This POPs were released into the trench due through industrial accidents and landfill leakages from the 1930s to the 1970s, until they were finally banned.
But do you know?
In these harsh conditions also there are many fascinating life forms that are surviving in the depths of the ocean.
A mud sample from the Challenger Deep taken and examined by the Japanese Oceanographers revealed that there are approximately 200 different types of species of microorganism which include types of Microscopic Plankton and Shells. The most common creatures in the trench include the saucer-sized, unicellular Xenophyophores and they feed on sediments; amphipods, which are large shrimp like scavengers and small sea cucumbers called Holothurians.
Along with these, larger species have also been found living in the depths like the Hadal Snailfish, which is small, pink and completely scaleless, is found at the depth of 8,200 meters or 27,000 feet. Its skin is so transparent that you can literally see through its liver and it also holds the record of the deepest fish captured on the seafloor. Then we have the Deep Sea Dragonfish which are found at the depth of about 200 to 1,800 meters. It has a giant set of teeth which are much bigger than its body. Researchers have also found Dumbo Octopus, Zombie Worms and Deap Water Jellyfish.
Hope to make you people even more amazed by posting fascinating facts like this even more.
Source: https://geographical.co.uk/science-environment/geo-explainer-exploring-the-mariana-trench #:~:text=A%20mud%20sample%20taken%20at,xenophyophores%2C%20which%20feed%20on%20sediment.

Did you know?
Currently, the Antarctic Blue Whale (Balenoptera musculus intermedia) is considered to be the biggest animal in the entire planet. It's so massive that it can weigh upto 400,000 pounds which is equivalent to approximately 33 elephants and has a heart of the size of a small car. During it's feeding season, it can consume upto 8,000 pounds of Krill Fishes.
It is also considered to be the loudest animal on Earth and is usually even louder than a Jet Engine because its calls may reach upto 188 decibels and compared to that the sound of a Jet Engine is measured at about 140 decibels. The Antarctic Blue Whale's whistle even at low frequency can be heard for hundreds of miles which they probably use for attracting other Blue Whales.
But the saddest part is that their numbers have drastically reduced due to the starting of commercial whaling in 1904. Even though they were protected by the International Whaling Commission in the 1960s, the illegal hunting still continued until 1972. This in turn resulted in a massive decline in their number, from about 125,000 individuals in 1926 to 3,000 individuals in 2018 and is classified as "Critically Endangered Species" on the IUCN Red List.
Although there's a sharp decline in their number but there is still a hope for them since recently, a group of scientists led by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) has counted 55 Antarctic Blue Whales in the Sub-Antarctic Island of South Georgia which is a good news since it is described as "unprecedented" and their waters remain a massive feeding ground for them.
Currently, CCAMLR (Southern Ocean Commission) is working to protect this endangered species of the true giants. I hope, I provided you with a valuable and newer information.
Source:https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/meet-the-biggest-animal-in-the-world #:~:text=The%20Antarctic%20blue%20whale%20(Balaenoptera,to%2098%20feet%20in%20length.

Fun Fact.
We often used to learn or atleast me, that insectivorous or carnivorous plants cannot produce food or photosynthesise on their own as they lack the nutrients to produce them and largely depend on insects or smaller reptiles or amphibians to get trapped inside and take nutrients from them.
True?
Not exactly or atleast it's partially the truth but not the whole.
As the further studies and researches suggest that these carnivorous or insectivorous plants also contain chlorophyll in their leaves. And we know already that plants can make their own food with the help of chlorophyll and sunlight, soil and water leaving oxygen in return.
So what's the issue?
Well the plants also need one common essential nutrient to fuel the food making process, i.e. nitrogen. All plants require nitrogen as well as other essential nutrients depending on the type of plants.
In the case of carnivorous or insectivorous plants, they grow in soils highly deficient of nitrogen and for this reason they cannot depend on their soil for nutrients. So they adapt their leaves in a mechanism to trap prey and derive the nitrogen from them through the help of the developed enzymes they have. This nitrogen is then incorporated into chlorophyll and chlorophyll-binding proteins.
Carnivorous plants have evolved around 5 times in evolutionary history and
Charles Darwin was among the first to classify carnivorous plants on a phylogenetic tree in the year 1875.
These plants are found in every continent except for Antarctica and their most suitable or preferred environment would be the water-logged or nitrogen deficient soil. They also adapt phenotypic plasticity, i.e. the ability of individual genotypes to produce different phenotypes when exposed to different environmental conditions like for example in Pitcher Plants, just to adapt to the environment.
So, we learn or atleast I do that Carnivorous or Insectivorous Plants do photosynthesise but with their own present chlorophyll only but require only nitrogen from the dead insect or animals and hence possess this trap mechanism to trap insects and small reptiles or amphibians.
Source: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt8md99872/qt8md99872_noSplash_14a8de43ef70ab02263a9e1fcbd11be2.pdf%3Ft%3Dqs9xp2%23:~:text%3DThese%2520plants%2520are%2520found%2520in,traps%2520have%2520been%2520found%2520recently.&ved=2ahUKEwjN24Ksk8iAAxXHgVYBHWFLCl8QFnoECA8QBQ&usg=AOvVaw1k8gMDS2jl8rLSAtfAZeDJ

Here's a fun thing to learn.
There's a kind of funnel-web spiders native to North America, the Hobo Spiders (Eratigena Agrestis), which live in the Pacific Northwest, from British Columbia, east to Montana, Wyoming and Colorado and south through Oregon and northern Utah.
It's mainly frequent in the areas such as log or timber piles, rock piles or borders or retaining walls, holes or where tall grass meets the foundation or crevices in soil and concrete, where they can make their characteristic funnel webs. Their webs are funnel shaped sort of like a tornado but seemingly wider at the top.
It looks identical to the funnel-web tarantulas found in Australia but shouldn't be confused with it. It can run at an average speed of 0.45 meters or 17 inches per second and at a maximum speed of about 1.1 meters or 40 inches per second. It largely resembles funnel-web spiders look with a cephalothorax, the part where the legs are attached to the front body region, with darker brown markings and brown legs. The abdomen has distinctive yellow markings on a grey background and this could be identified mostly with a microscope or hand lens. The pattern is generally more distinctive in immature specimens and unlike many other similar spiders, it doesn't have multiple dark arm bands in their legs. That's why spiders with such bands are not Hobo Spiders and often confused with this kind.
It generally eats houseflies and cockroaches but will sometimes eat other spiders too. It has a unique way of first attacking their prey and then trapping them or binding them in their funnel shaped web.
In the 1980s, United States termed Hobo Spiders to be potentially toxic. However, today this spiders are no longer considered of probable medical importance thus questioning the validity of it's designation of being potentially toxic.
But at the same time, it's biting can cause extreme pain, nausea, headache and fatigue and even intense fever but can be cured by washing up the area, applying ice if swollen and seeking rational medical help. On the brighter side, these spiders are not very aggressive by nature and would only be defensive to any incoming threats.
So, if you ever visit or wonder the forests of North America, beware of these little friends.
Source: https://ipm.ucanr.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7488.html #:~:text=In%20North%20America%2C%20the%20hobo,through%20Oregon%20and%20northern%20Utah.

Did you know?
For decades scientists thought that an excess substance, a rather special substance called the Royal Jelly and altercations in it, elevates a regular honey bee larvae to a queen bee. But the new research suggests that it's not what's fed that matters for the growth of a queen bee.
Royal Jelly is a substance, more than half of which consists of water and the rest of it is a combination of protein and sugar and is fed to the babies. It's secreted from special gland situated in the heads of the worker bees.
So what makes the difference?
Well many recent studies suggested that their genetic coding helped in the growth and the Queen Bee is kind of a chosen one but that too quickly got debunked since there are 14 known genes involved in worker bee to a Queen Bee, and the genes are much alike to each other. Moreover, according to Dr. Ryszrad Maleszka, we are only scratching the surface of biology, we are dealing with 500 million years of animal evolution and honey bee biology is no exception.
So what makes a Queen Bee?
Well we don't know yet and still researches are done for it's discovery but we know now for sure that feeding Royal Jelly with some altercations in it's composition makes a Queen Bee is a big myth.
Source: https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/livestock-and-animals/honey-bees/handling-and-management/raising-queen-honey-bees #:~:text=Queens%20are%20raised%20from%20the,the%20time%20of%20larvae%20hatching.

Welcome Everyone. This page is created for the purpose of exploration of nature, animal behaviour, their organising capacity and much more. So feel free to get some informative knowledge and ask questions. I will try my best to clarify your doubts.