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Warm water continues to rise through fractured rock near the summit of a submerged mountain off Vancouver Island, concentrating developing eggs in one place.<\/p>\n
Survey work by Fisheries and Oceans Canada<\/a> directly documented this egg field on the Tuzo Wilson Seamount Complex, with marine biologist Cherisse Du Preez observing Pacific white skates depositing eggs in the warmed zone.<\/p>\n Repeated observations showed the egg cases spread across the summit rather than clustered at one outlet, indicating sustained use of the site over time.<\/p>\n That tight link between a single volcanic system and such a large nursery sets a clear boundary for the discovery and points to why the biology of the species itself needs closer examination next.<\/p>\n Meet the Pacific white skate<\/p>\n Far below sunlight, the Pacific white skate<\/a> lives from about 2,600 to 9,600 feet down, staying mostly out of view.<\/p>\n Scientists know it as Bathyraja spinosissima, a pale deep-water skate<\/a> related to rays and sharks, with rough skin and slow growth.<\/p>\n Adult females can reach about 6.5 feet long, but their depth keeps encounters rare and basic biology hard to pin down.<\/p>\n That lack of sightings makes a single nursery<\/a> site unusually valuable, because it offers a place to study reproduction directly.<\/p>\n Giant skate eggs, high stakes<\/p>\n Each egg case measured around 20 inches across, with rounded edges and a slight curve that fed the ravioli nickname.<\/p>\n The tough shell held a developing embryo, and the oversized yolk inside carried fuel for years of growth.<\/p>\n Producing such large eggs costs the mother a lot of energy, yet the payoff is a better-fed hatchling.<\/p>\n That strategy can fail if conditions stay too cold, so a warm<\/a> volcano top may tip the odds.<\/p>\n Heat speeds young development<\/p>\n Warm water<\/a> likely shortened gestation, the time embryos grow before hatching, making this nursery a place where time mattered for survival.<\/p>\n Development inside each egg case normally takes about four years, a long stretch during which embryos remain exposed to deep-sea conditions.<\/p>\n \u201cThe warm water likely speeds up the gestation period of the eggs, resulting in more successful juveniles,\u201d Du Preez said.<\/p>\n If warmth trims even a small part of that wait, more young skates could survive before entering deeper, harsher water.<\/p>\n Safe place for skate eggs<\/p>\n Higher on the seamount, young skates started life in water that was shallower than their adult hunting grounds.<\/p>\n This seamount, an underwater mountain rising from the seafloor, leaked warm fluids that helped corals and sponges hold on.<\/p>\n At that depth, fewer large predators patrol, and the rough landscape gives egg cases and hatchlings places to hide.<\/p>\n The site could protect young skates until they were strong enough to drop into colder, darker waters below.<\/p>\n Galapagos gave an early clue<\/p>\n A 2018 paper<\/a> reported Pacific white skate eggs sitting near hot springs on the seafloor.<\/p>\n Those hydrothermal vents, hot springs that release heated water, warmed the egg cases enough for embryos to keep developing.<\/p>\n Researchers also collected genetic material from the cases, linking the nursery to Bathyraja spinosissima and showing the behavior was real.<\/p>\n Finding a far bigger nursery on a Canadian volcano suggests that using volcanic heat may be more than a one-off trick.<\/p>\n Counting eggs without scooping<\/p>\n Researchers could not scoop up and count every case, so they relied on wide-area mapping and careful review.<\/p>\n Video runs traced egg patches across the summit, and analysts compared overlapping images to avoid double counting the same spot.<\/p>\n That approach also let the team flag which cases looked fresh and which already held empty shells.<\/p>\n Even with good footage, the final estimate still carried uncertainty because currents and terrain hid part of the field.<\/p>\n A volcano becomes a food web<\/p>\n The egg field did not sit alone, because warm, mineral-rich water drew a community that could feed on, or shelter, it.<\/p>\n Crabs, snails, and other scavengers can bite into damaged cases, turning lost embryos into meals that recycle energy quickly.<\/p>\n Living cases also attract predators, and a dense nursery can reshape local feeding patterns around a single patch.<\/p>\n If the volcano cools or disturbances remove the egg cases, the whole hotspot could fade as quickly as it formed.<\/p>\n Protecting skate egg nursuries<\/p>\n Deep-sea nurseries face threats that are easy to miss, because they sit far from shore and far from view.<\/p>\n Bottom-contact fishing gear and future seabed mining could crush corals or scrape eggs, and recovery would take years.<\/p>\n Because the species grows slowly and invests heavily in each case, losing a nursery year could echo for decades.<\/p>\n Clear maps of where skates breed give government fisheries managers a concrete target, but protection only works if it is enforced.<\/p>\n This volcano nursery shows that deep-sea animals can use geothermal warmth as a tool, not just tolerate it.<\/p>\n Future work will need to track how often skates return, how fast embryos grow in warm water, and what protection holds.<\/p>\n Image cr\u00e9dits: NEPDEP 2023.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n Like what you read? Subscribe to our newsletter<\/a> for engaging articles, exclusive content, and the latest updates.<\/p>\n Check us out on EarthSnap<\/a>, a free app brought to you by Eric Ralls<\/a> and Earth.com.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2013<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than one million giant, leathery skate egg capsules from a deep-sea ray-like fish have been documented incubating…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[49,48,66],"class_list":["post-467199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}