THE BULLION
Ambergris has been prized for thousands of years. The Chinese thought it came from sleeping dragons drooling on sunny seashore rocks, so they called it “dragon’s spittle perfume.” The Dutch and English used to breakfast on ambergris and eggs. It has been used as medicine, a spice for food and wine and, most significantly, as an ingredient in making fine perfume. It’s been cut up into round balls, polished, and worn as “whale pearls.” Ambergris is so valuable that just one gram of it (.035 of an ounce) can fetch up to $20. However, it comes in so many different colors, shapes, and textures that most beachcombers don’t know real ambergris when they find it.
UNCLE JOHN’S AMBERGRIS TEST
In case you’re not sure whether to show that weird goop you found on the beach to your science teacher…
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
1 batch of possible whale barf found on beach
1 needle, 1 match, and 1 candle (and adult supervision)
HOW TO DO IT
1. Heat the needle
2. Briefly touch the whale barf with the hot needle.
3. Real ambergris will melt instantly. A black oily residue will ooze from the pricked spot, and a puff of musky-smelling smoke will appear.
Dorothy Ferreira of Long Island, New York, got this piece of (maybe) ambergris as a gift in 2006. She’s having it tested to see if it’s the real thing. If it is, it may be worth $18,000!
HEY, LET GO OF MY BOAT!
The skies were clear, the wind crisp. Olivier de Kersauson’s sleek racing boat was speeding through the deep ocean off the island of Madeira in the South Atlantic. The veteran French sailor and his crew were just beginning an around-the-world race to win the prestigious Jules Verne Trophy, when all at once they got the surprise of their lives. De Kersauson was below deck when the hull shuddered and the boat slowed down abruptly. Looking out the porthole, he saw a giant tentacle thicker than his leg. Rushing up on deck, he found two other tentacles wrapped around the rudder. A giant squid 24 feet long had grabbed hold of the yacht and wouldn’t let go. Luckily for de Kersauson, he didn’t have to fight off the monster—as soon as the boat came to a stop, the giant squid released the boat and slid beneath the waves. “We didn’t have anything to scare off this beast, so I don’t know what we would have done if it hadn’t let go,” de Kersauson said later. “We weren’t going to attack it with our penknives.”
“HA! YOU MISSED ME!”
Diving for abalone—a shellfish prized for its delicate flavor—isn’t the easiest job in the world. The water is cold and murky, and predators prowl the shadows. Since abalone divers stay underwater for six or seven hours at a stretch, they have to wear lead-weighted vests to stay submerged. For one Australian diver, that vest saved his life.
Eric Nerhus was diving off New South Wales, Australia, in 2007 when a 10-foot great white shark decided to eat him—head first. The bite crushed Eric’s mask and broke his nose, but what came next was worse. Within seconds, his head and shoulders were completely inside the shark’s throat. But Eric had no intention of being shark lunch. A black belt in karate, he used his free arm to punch at the shark’s eyes and gills until it spit him out. But it was his vest that saved his life—it protected him from the shark’s teeth like a coat of armor. Lucky Eric walked away with cuts and scrapes, and bite marks on his chest. (The vest had to be thrown away.)
S. O. S.
Ten things you can do to Save Our Seas.
It’s only recently that humans have come to understand how much we need a healthy ocean to survive. The ocean makes most of the oxygen we breathe. It cleans the water we drink. It gives us food and even medicine. But we’ve haven’t taken good care of it—we dump our garbage into it, and we’ve fished some species to near-extinction, destroying coral reefs in the process. Today the ocean is in trouble. But if we work together, we can help stop the damage we’ve done…and we have to start right away.
AT THE BEACH
1. Keep the ocean clean. Take your trash home with you, even if there’s a trashcan on the beach.
2. Protect the sand dunes. Don’t walk or play on the dunes. They help prevent erosion.
3. Protect the wildlife. Avoid nesting areas, and don’t bother or chase sea birds or animals.
4. Protect the reefs. Reefs are very fragile. Just one touch can harm a reef—walking on one can kill it.
5. Fish smart. Catch what you can eat and release the rest. Take all fishing lines and nets home with you, even the broken ones. Birds and fish can get tangled in them and die.
AT HOME
6. Don’t let go of that balloon! Sea turtles mistake balloons (and plastic bags) for their favorite food, jellyfish, which can be a fatal mistake.
7. Shop smart. Only buy things that you really want or need. The less stuff we throw away, the less stuff that gets dumped in the ocean.
8. Eat sustainable food. Eat fish and shellfish caught or farmed in ways that support the oceans in the long-term. Go organic—pesticides and fertilizers from traditional farming are poisoning the ocean.
9. Reduce your greenhouse gas footprint. When you walk, ride your bike, turn off the lights, and recycle, you produce fewer greenhouse gasses. That helps reduce global warming, and helps keep the oceans at temperatures that support wildlife.
10. Learn everything you can about the ocean. Share what you’ve learned with your friends. They might be inspired to help protect the ocean, too.
And…on June 8th, celebrate World Ocean Day.
POLAR OPPOSITES
Some chillin’ facts…
NORTH POLE
• The Arctic is a frozen ocean surrounded by continents.
• The Arctic is named after the Big Dipper constellation, also know as the Great Bear. In Greek, both are called called Arktikos.
• The pack ice in the Arctic Ocean is an average of 10–12 feet thick.
• Polar bears, walruses, beluga, and narwhals are found only in the Arctic.
• Trees and shrubs grow along the southern edges of the Arctic.
• Lots of land animals live in the Arctic—arctic foxes, rabbits, caribou, elk, and reindeer, to name a few.
• Even if all the ice in the Arctic Ocean melted, the oceans wouldn’t rise. That’s because ice floats on the ocean and displaces its weight in seawater. Think of a full glass of iced tea: When the ice cubes melt, does the level rise? No, it stays the same (unless, of course, you’ve been drinking the tea).
POLAR OPPOSITES
…to help you keep your poles straight.
SOUTH POLE
• The Antarctic is a continent surrounded by ocean.
• The word Antarctic means “opposite of Arctic.”
• The ice sheets covering the continent of Antarctica have an average depth of 1.5 miles.
• Emperor, Adelie, Chinstrap, and Gentoo penguins live only in the Antarctic.
• No trees or bushes grow in the Antarctic—only moss, algae, and lichens. Because it’s so cold, some plants actually grow inside the rocks.
• The only land animals that live in the Antarctic are midges, mites, ticks, and nematode worms.
• Because Antarctica is a continent, if all of its ice sheets melted, the ice would flow off the land into the sea. That would cause the ocean to rise by 200 feet.
The continent of Antarctica, seen from space.
SEALS
Go ahead…clap your flippers and bark.
WHAT HAS A TORPEDO-SHAPED BODY, 4 FLIPPERS, AND NO EARS?
You guessed it—a seal. Its torpedo-like body allows it to zip through the water at speeds of up to 25 mph, and dive down 1,000 feet. Its two front flippers have claws and are used for steering; the rear flippers are its propellers.
WHAT’S THE BIGGEST SEAL?
It’s the elephant seal, of course, which can weigh as much as 5,000 pounds.
WHAT’S THE SMALLEST SEAL?
An adult ringed seal tips the scales at only 110 pounds.
WHAT DO SEALS LIKE TO EAT?
> Krill, squid, and fish—but not necessarily in that order.
WHERE DO SEALS LIVE?
Anywhere they want to. Really. Seals live in all of the oceans of the world. They even pop up in freshwater lakes, such as Lake Baikal in Russia. But the majority can be found near Antarctica and the Arctic Circle.
HOW MANY KINDS OF SEALS ARE THERE?
There are 18 seal species, which include the harbor seal, the bearded seal, the crabeater seal, the harp seal, the spotted seal, and the hooded seal. There used to be a 19th species—the Caribbean monk seal—but it was last seen in 1952. It’s now thought to be extinct.
WHAT IS THE MOST FEROCIOUS SEAL?
The leopard seal wins this award. A predator that gets its name from its black spots, it can grow to be 12 feet long. It has long, sharp teeth and a head that looks like a reptile’s. A leopard seal likes to lie in wait under the ice in Antarctica for its dinner to come along. Then it bursts out of the water, snapping up penguins, smaller seals, and sometimes taking a bite at a polar explorer or two.
FOLLOW THAT FIN!
For more than 20 years, a dolphin named Pelorus Jack guided sailing ships through dangerous waters.
Hundreds of shipwrecks litter the sea floor between New Zealand’s North and South Islands, victims of the treacherous rocks and swirling currents of a narrow channel known as the French Pass. So when the sailing ship Brindle entered the channel in 1888, the sailors were understandably alarmed when they heard a shout from a crew member. Had they run aground? No, but to their amazement, they saw a Risso’s dolphin swimming alongside the ship.
GOING MY WAY?
Risso’s are open-ocean dolphins that prefer the company of their own pod, not people. To see one at all was rare; to see one near a ship was very unusual. What was even more odd was the dolphin’s behavior: It wasn’t playing in the bow wake, as dolphins commonly do. Instead, it seemed to be leading the ship through the channel.
And when the Brindle set out on its return trip, the dolphin was waiting at the mouth of the channel, ready to guide the ship safely back. The grateful sailors nicknamed their finny guide Pelorus Jack, after the pelorus, a compass used to get one’s bearings on the open ocean.
For the next 24 years, Pelorus Jack guided ships safely through the channel. The dolphin was so reliable that ships would wait for him to appear before going forward.
The dolphin’s fame grew and people flocked to see him, including authors Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain. Then in 1904, a drunken passenger on a ship called the Penguin shot the dolphin. Pelorus Jack swam away, leaving a trail of blood behind him. No one knew if Jack was alive or dead. Two weeks later, the dolphin reappeared and took up his usual post. But Jack never led the Penguin through the channel again. The shooting incident caused an outrage, and a law was passed making it illegal to shoot a dolphin in New Zealand waters.
One of the few existing photos of Jack.
GOODBYE, OLD FRIEND
Five years after the shooting incident, on February 12, 1909, the Penguin sank on the rocks of French Pass. It was the only ship lost in the channel during Pelorus Jack’s career.
Pelorus Jack guided his last ship on April 12, 1912. He disappeared shortly after that, and probably died of old age. Grateful New Zealanders declared a day of national mourning to honor him.
FUNGHI
No, not a mushroom, but the famous Dolphin of Dingle.
Funghi is a bottlenose dolphin who swam into the Bay of Dingle one day—and never left. Since 1983, Funghi has entertained visitors to Dingle, a quaint town on the west coast of Ireland, every day of the week, escorting boats in and out of the harbor. He surfs the bow wakes of the boats, and even lets swimmers come up and play with him. The dolphin’s presence has become so predictable that a huge tourist industry has grown up around him, making Funghi famous all over the world.
LONG-ARMED RESCUE
Can’t reach that hard-to-get spot? Call the world’s tallest man!
On December 13, 2006, veterinarians at Royal Jidi Ocean World in Fushon, China, found themselves facing a tricky problem: Two mischievous dolphins had swallowed some large pieces of plastic that had been left by their pool. The vet couldn’t anesthetize them and remove the objects surgically because, unlike most animals, dolphins can’t breathe if they’re not awake.
The vet tried to pull out the plastic pieces by reaching down the dolphins’ throats, but his arm was too short. They needed someone with a really long arm. Enter Bao Xishun, the World’s Tallest Man. According to the Guinness Book of Records, he’s 7 feet, 8 inches tall. His arms are 3 feet, 4 inches long—long enough to reach down and pull out the dangerous pieces of plastic.
Each dolphin was held down by a dozen keepers, and towels were wrapped around their jaws to keep the dolphins’ sharp teeth from scratching Bao’s arm. The operation was over in seconds. Good thing, too, because the plastic had been in the dolphins’ stomachs for over two weeks. The vets said they would have died soon if the long-armed surgery hadn’t worked!
GENTLE GIANTS
These huge sharks are the “vacuum cleaners” of the sea!
Some of the largest fish live by eating the smallest food. Meet the giant sharks: These easy-going guys have nothing in common with their fiercer cousins. They’re “filter feeders”—they swim along with their mouths wide open, scooping up huge amounts of water which they strain through long bristles called gill rakers. They flush out the water and keep the stuff they like: plankton, fish eggs, and tiny shrimp known as krill.
BASKING SHARK
The basking shark is the world’s second largest fish—it can grow up to 33 feet long and weigh 8,000 pounds. The basking shark also has hundreds of tiny teeth inside its mouth…but they’re of little or no use. These filter-feeders hang out near the surface of the ocean, either alone or in schools of up to 100 sharks.
WHALE SHARK
Whale sharks are the world’s biggest fish. They can grow up to 46 feet long and weigh more than 47,000 pounds. (Remember, they’re not whales—they’re fish.) The whale shark has 3,000 teeth in its cavernous mouth, but the teeth are tiny and harmless. Whale sharks are found in all the warm oceans of the world.
MEGAMOUTH
The first megamouth shark was discovered in Hawaii in 1976. Since then, only 38 more have been seen, making the megamouth one of the rarest sharks in the world. This weird-looking creature has an oversized head with big rubbery lips and a huge mouth, lined with 50 rows of tiny teeth. The largest mega mouth on record measured 16 feet long and weighed 2,205 pounds.
SHARK JOKES
For those of you who like a little bite in your humor.
Q: What happens when you cross a great white shark with a cow?
A: I don’t know—but whatever you do, don’t milk it.
Q: What does a shark eat with peanut butter?
A: Jellyfish.
Q: Why do sharks swim only in saltwater?
A: Because pepper water would make them sneeze.
Q: What happened to the shark who swallowed a bunch of keys?
A: He got lockjaw.
Q: How can you tell a boy shark from a girl shark?
A: You give it a fish. If he eats it, it’s a boy…if she eats it, it’s a girl.
Q: Why don’t sharks eat clowns?
A: They taste funny.
Q: What do you get from a bad-tempered shark?
A: As far away as possible!
Q: Where do fish go when they want to borrow money?
A: A loan shark.
Q: What do you get when you cross a big fish with an electric wire?
A: An electric shark.
MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE
You never know what you’ll find washed up on shore.
LUCKY FIND
The most incredible “message in a bottle” story of all time took place in San Francisco in 1949. Jack Wurm was having a rough time: He’d lost his job and run out of money. Hopeless and depressed, he took a walk along the beach, trying to figure out what to
do next. Then he noticed a bottle with a piece of paper in it sticking out of the sand. He picked it up and pried off the cork. What he found inside was almost too good to be true—a signed will that read, “I leave my entire estate to the lucky person who finds this bottle.” The will belonged to the late Daisy Singer Alexander, heiress to the Singer sewing machine fortune. She had thrown the bottle in the Thames River in England 12 years earlier. The bottle and the will had drifted all the way around the world to San Francisco, and to Jack Wurm—who became a millionaire overnight!
GUESS WHO?
Some fish do whatever they can to not look like a fish.
LEAFY SEA DRAGON
These relatives of the sea horse look like floating pieces of seaweed—a perfect disguise for hiding among the patches of kelp-covered rocks where they make their home in cool waters off the coast of Australia. Their mouths work like a drinking straw: When the tiny shrimp they like to eat swim by, leafy sea dragons slurp them up like a milk shake.
Uncle John's Creature Feature Bathroom Reader For Kids Only! Page 11
