Wildlife

Medications, pesticides, found in blood of sea turtles on Great Barrier Reef

Heart and gout medications, pesticides, herbicides and other industrial chemicals have all been found in the blood of green sea turtles in the Great Barrier Reef, according to researchers.

The discovery was made as part of project led by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), which compared samples from turtles in urban areas to the more remote locations.

Chemical exposure has been linked to stress and other side effects in wildlife, and the indications of inflammation and liver dysfunction were found in some green turtles.

The scientists said the worrying thing was there are more chemicals they could not identify than chemicals they could identify.

Faceless Fish

An Australian museum expedition has come across a species of fish not seen near the country since 1873. It has no visible eyes, gills or any other facial features except for two nostrils and a mouth at the bottom of its body.

Dubbed the “faceless cusk,” the fish measures roughly 22 inches in length and was captured by trawling a deep ocean trench off Australia’s eastern coast at a depth of around 2 miles.

According to Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, the creature, known as a cusk eel, has been previously observed from the Arabian Sea, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Japan to Hawaii. But living at depths of up to 14,000 feet, it is rarely seen.