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National Geographic : 1961 Feb
Contents
substance released into the air makes people sneeze and suffer sore throats. Fortunately, however, dinoflagellates are mainly creative, not destructive. Suddenly a cluster of foraminifera floated into the viewing field of my microscope. I was struck by the similarity many of them bore to familiar seashells of the visible world -a boat shell here, a periwinkle there, and perhaps a chambered nautilus. The shells of these little organisms, fash ioned from calcium in the sea and deposited over eons of time, form much of the lime stone strata now quarried by man. Chalk like that of the white cliffs of England's channel coast is packed with fossil foraminifera, a half million to the teaspoonful (page 212). In the micro-marine art gallery before me, I was especially intrigued by lacy bits of life called radiolarians. Here are perhaps the most exquisitely beautiful of all living things in the sea. Often the protoplasmic froth that forms their central core is bright orange or red or green. From these centers radiate ul trafine glassy needles of silica. Observed thus in the living state with their colors unfaded, these starry radiolarians had a splendor that was unforgettable (page 210). It is on such microscopic stuff as this, dia toms and dinoflagellates and the rest, that the voracious life of the ocean depends. The phytoplankton ("phyto" for plant), and the zooplankton grazing upon them, exist in a soupy layer, a veritable chowder of nourish ment where the sun penetrates the sea. Planktonic animals in this layer mysteri ously rise and sink in a daily cycle, apparent ly to bask in the light intensity they find most suitable. Subdued light seems favored; the layer rises toward the surface as the day ebbs, sinks again with the coming of dawn. This migration may cover 500 feet. Planktonburgers Could Save a Life How plentiful is the puree of minuscule life? Copepods that can consume 120,000 diatoms in a day have been found to number 60,000 in the belly of a herring. And about half a billion herring a year are landed at British Isles ports alone. Plankton in astro nomical numbers support these prodigious eaters-and many more. The sulphur-bot tom, or blue whale, largest animal ever to exist on earth, maintains its tremendous bulk exclusively on a diet of plankton. I wondered how a planktonburger would taste. Fishy, no doubt. But its nourishment might save the life of a sailor adrift on a raft, or a downed airman. Thor Heyerdahl, aboard the Kon-Tiki, found plankton "good eating." And Alain Bombard, who crossed the Atlantic alone on a raft, reported that plankton "tast ed like lobster, at times like shrimp, at times like some vegetable." Our haul with the Research revealed a Starry traveler in an inky void, a baby octopus reflects the light of flash bulbs. Internal organs appear faintly within the translucent body, shown 10 times life size. Octopuses have three hearts and the keenest brain of all the nonvertebrates. 222
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