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Why Are There No Sea Snakes in the Atlantic?
YouTube: | https://youtube.com/watch?v=SOqORIOudLw |
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View count: | 286,341 |
Likes: | 11,916 |
Comments: | 533 |
Duration: | 04:21 |
Uploaded: | 2019-08-13 |
Last sync: | 2024-12-01 03:30 |
Citation
Citation formatting is not guaranteed to be accurate. | |
MLA Full: | "Why Are There No Sea Snakes in the Atlantic?" YouTube, uploaded by SciShow, 13 August 2019, www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOqORIOudLw. |
MLA Inline: | (SciShow, 2019) |
APA Full: | SciShow. (2019, August 13). Why Are There No Sea Snakes in the Atlantic? [Video]. YouTube. https://youtube.com/watch?v=SOqORIOudLw |
APA Inline: | (SciShow, 2019) |
Chicago Full: |
SciShow, "Why Are There No Sea Snakes in the Atlantic?", August 13, 2019, YouTube, 04:21, https://youtube.com/watch?v=SOqORIOudLw. |
The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest on Earth, and yet there are no sea snake populations to be found there. What’s keeping aquatic serpents from making a home in these waters?
#SciShow #Snakes #Biology #Evolution
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Sources:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/1/15/4609687
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212099
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12636
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/4073/panama-isthmus-that-changed-the-world
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aec.12717
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190402113126.htm
----------
Images:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pelamis_platuras.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panama_Canal_Gatun_Locks.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuidaddepanama1.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish3217_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg
#SciShow #Snakes #Biology #Evolution
Go to http://Brilliant.org/SciShow to try out Brilliant’s Daily Challenges. The first 200 subscribers get 20% off an annual Premium subscription.
Hosted by: Hank Green
SciShow has a spinoff podcast! It's called SciShow Tangents. Check it out at http://www.scishowtangents.org
----------
Support SciShow by becoming a patron on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scishow
----------
Huge thanks go to the following Patreon supporters for helping us keep SciShow free for everyone forever:
Adam Brainard, Greg, Alex Hackman, Sam Lutfi, D.A. Noe, Piya Shedden, KatieMarie Magnone, Scott Satovsky Jr, Charles Southerland, Patrick D. Ashmore, charles george, Kevin Bealer, Chris Peters
----------
Looking for SciShow elsewhere on the internet?
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/scishow
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/scishow
Tumblr: http://scishow.tumblr.com
Instagram: http://instagram.com/thescishow
----------
Sources:
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/68/1/15/4609687
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0212099
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jbi.12636
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/4073/panama-isthmus-that-changed-the-world
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aec.12717
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/04/190402113126.htm
----------
Images:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pelamis_platuras.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Panama_Canal_Gatun_Locks.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuidaddepanama1.jpg
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fish3217_-_Flickr_-_NOAA_Photo_Library.jpg
Thanks to Brilliant for supporting this episode of SciShow.
Go to Brilliant.org/SciShow to learn more. [INTRO ♪]. Sea snakes are the most common group of marine reptiles in the entire ocean, with almost seventy individual species.
But despite their impressive diversity, none of them live in the Atlantic Ocean. Which is weird, and also nice! There's a whole ocean with no snakes in it!
But also there's an entire ocean of snake food and living space out there, so what's going on? The answer lies in their evolution, their biology, and a weirdly “dry†part of the ocean. The first reason is deceptively simple: modern sea snakes didn't evolve in the Atlantic.
All sea snakes alive today evolved in a part of the Pacific known as the Coral Triangle and nearby regions, with most species evolving in the last two and a half million years. So they might not have started in the Atlantic, but they've had millions of years to theoretically move there and establish new populations. But they haven't, in part because it's a pretty big ocean for such little reptiles.
Only one species of sea snake, the yellow-bellied sea snake, lives in the open ocean. Most of the others only live in near-shore shallows. The yellow-belly is the only species that would have much chance of making it to the Atlantic.
But each of the different ways it could even hypothetically reach the Atlantic has its problems. Like, going around the tip of South America or Africa might be too cold. Yellow-bellied sea snakes need temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius in order to be toasty enough to breed.
And too far below 18 and they'll flat out die. Given an annual mean ocean temperature of less than 17 degrees off the coast of South Africa, that's a no-go. Yellow-bellied sea snakes actually can live directly south of Africa, but it might be that the ocean is too cold just west of there, so they still couldn't make the whole trip.
Oddly enough, going around Africa might also be too dry. Sea snakes can't drink salt water. Instead, they drink a thin layer of rainwater that floats on the surface of the ocean after storms.
Yes, this is a thing. That's wild. But the southwest coast of Africa includes the Namib Desert with its infamous Skeleton Coast.
This region may go years without rain, even out at sea. Sea snakes going this way could become dehydrated and die. And they might not have any more luck trying to go the other way, where North and South America are the obstacle.
Millions of years ago, there was an open corridor between the Pacific and the Atlantic in what is now Panama— a much warmer route than rounding the southern tips of Africa or South America. Trouble is, the isthmus of Panama formed long before sea snakes evolved, blocking them from simply swimming from one ocean to the other. We humans have opened that passage back up in the form of the Panama canal.
And there have been reports of individual sea snakes on the Caribbean coast of Colombia—which presumably made the trip through the canal. Even so, scientists think it's unlikely they'll establish an actual breeding population via this route. So in the end, even though it might seem like the Atlantic could be a nice home for the sea snakes with warm water and tasty prey, their biology and evolutionary history put that possibility pretty much out of reach.
If you're the kind of person who wonders why certain reptiles never moved to certain parts of the ocean—well, you are as curious as we are. If you want to keep up your streak of learning new things, you might enjoy the daily challenges over on Brilliant.org. From stats to electricity to computer science, there are fresh new challenges every day.
And whether you're commuting or just relaxing at home, they give you a fun, bite-sized way to learn, apply, and master new concepts. And if you like what you learned from a given challenge, there's a more in-depth course connected to each one. And they're even free—but Brilliant's premium members get access to the entire archive of challenges if you want to catch up.
The first 200 people to sign up at Brilliant.org/SciShow will get 20% off an annual premium subscription. So if that sounds up your alley, click on the link in the description, and thanks for supporting us. [OUTRO ♪].
Go to Brilliant.org/SciShow to learn more. [INTRO ♪]. Sea snakes are the most common group of marine reptiles in the entire ocean, with almost seventy individual species.
But despite their impressive diversity, none of them live in the Atlantic Ocean. Which is weird, and also nice! There's a whole ocean with no snakes in it!
But also there's an entire ocean of snake food and living space out there, so what's going on? The answer lies in their evolution, their biology, and a weirdly “dry†part of the ocean. The first reason is deceptively simple: modern sea snakes didn't evolve in the Atlantic.
All sea snakes alive today evolved in a part of the Pacific known as the Coral Triangle and nearby regions, with most species evolving in the last two and a half million years. So they might not have started in the Atlantic, but they've had millions of years to theoretically move there and establish new populations. But they haven't, in part because it's a pretty big ocean for such little reptiles.
Only one species of sea snake, the yellow-bellied sea snake, lives in the open ocean. Most of the others only live in near-shore shallows. The yellow-belly is the only species that would have much chance of making it to the Atlantic.
But each of the different ways it could even hypothetically reach the Atlantic has its problems. Like, going around the tip of South America or Africa might be too cold. Yellow-bellied sea snakes need temperatures above 20 degrees Celsius in order to be toasty enough to breed.
And too far below 18 and they'll flat out die. Given an annual mean ocean temperature of less than 17 degrees off the coast of South Africa, that's a no-go. Yellow-bellied sea snakes actually can live directly south of Africa, but it might be that the ocean is too cold just west of there, so they still couldn't make the whole trip.
Oddly enough, going around Africa might also be too dry. Sea snakes can't drink salt water. Instead, they drink a thin layer of rainwater that floats on the surface of the ocean after storms.
Yes, this is a thing. That's wild. But the southwest coast of Africa includes the Namib Desert with its infamous Skeleton Coast.
This region may go years without rain, even out at sea. Sea snakes going this way could become dehydrated and die. And they might not have any more luck trying to go the other way, where North and South America are the obstacle.
Millions of years ago, there was an open corridor between the Pacific and the Atlantic in what is now Panama— a much warmer route than rounding the southern tips of Africa or South America. Trouble is, the isthmus of Panama formed long before sea snakes evolved, blocking them from simply swimming from one ocean to the other. We humans have opened that passage back up in the form of the Panama canal.
And there have been reports of individual sea snakes on the Caribbean coast of Colombia—which presumably made the trip through the canal. Even so, scientists think it's unlikely they'll establish an actual breeding population via this route. So in the end, even though it might seem like the Atlantic could be a nice home for the sea snakes with warm water and tasty prey, their biology and evolutionary history put that possibility pretty much out of reach.
If you're the kind of person who wonders why certain reptiles never moved to certain parts of the ocean—well, you are as curious as we are. If you want to keep up your streak of learning new things, you might enjoy the daily challenges over on Brilliant.org. From stats to electricity to computer science, there are fresh new challenges every day.
And whether you're commuting or just relaxing at home, they give you a fun, bite-sized way to learn, apply, and master new concepts. And if you like what you learned from a given challenge, there's a more in-depth course connected to each one. And they're even free—but Brilliant's premium members get access to the entire archive of challenges if you want to catch up.
The first 200 people to sign up at Brilliant.org/SciShow will get 20% off an annual premium subscription. So if that sounds up your alley, click on the link in the description, and thanks for supporting us. [OUTRO ♪].