{"id":578517,"date":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/578517\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T11:46:08","slug":"crab-odyssey-crustacean-wandered-the-seas-in-a-bottle-for-months-scientists-find","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/578517\/","title":{"rendered":"Crab Odyssey: Crustacean Wandered the Seas in a Bottle for Months, Scientists Find"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome back to another special edition of the Abstract! As I mentioned in last week\u2019s newsletter<\/a>, I have saved up some of the most mind-boggling studies from 2026 so far to share while I\u2019m out on vacation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With that said, here are the studies this year that hit the bottle, went hog wild, slithered into prominence, and double-detonated.<\/p>\n

First, a tale of survival on the high seas from a trash-bound crab. Then: a hybrid emerges from radioactive fallout, a snake in the grass (and lots of other places), and a surprise from a space jellyfish.<\/p>\n

As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens<\/a>, or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Next week, we\u2019ll be back to our regularly-scheduled programming. Until then, enjoy the last special summer edition of the Abstract!<\/p>\n

Tell me about a complicated crab <\/p>\n

Sato, Hajime et al. \u201cSwimming crab in a bottle: A two-month drift on the ocean surface while entrapped.\u201d Ecosphere.<\/a><\/p>\n

In the summer of 2022, scientists conducting a boat survey off the coast of Sesoko Island, Japan came across a floating bottle of Shaoxing cooking wine carrying a lonely female crab.<\/p>\n

It appears that this three-spot swimming crab (Portunus sanguinolentus) entered the bottle as a youngster and then grew too large to get back out again. Judging by its size, the crab spent at least one or two months drifting across the seas, like a crustacean Odysseus consigned to Poseidon\u2019s whims. Though the scientists released the crab, she did not get to enjoy her freedom for long as she was promptly dissected in order to reconstruct her journey, according to a study published in April.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hypothesized that the crab survived by hunting juvenile fish that entered the bottle,\u201d said researchers led by Hajime Sato of Hiroshima University. \u201cThe stomach contents revealed that the crab consumed the same fish species\u2026observed near the bottle. Green and brown algae\u2026most likely growing inside the bottle, were also identified in the diet.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"(a) A plastic bottle immediately after being collected offshore Sesoko Island, Okinawa, Japan on July 15, 2022. (b) A large, live swimming crab, Portunus sanguinolentus, entrapped inside the bottle. (c) Several juvenile fishes were collected together with the bottle. Stomach contents of the crab included (d) fish scale, (e) fish bone fragment, and (f) algal fragments. The scale bar indicates 300\u2009\u03bcm. Image: Hajime Sato.<\/p>\n

The team likened the crab to the story \u201cThe Salamander\u201d by the writer Masuji Ibuse, which tells the tale of a salamander that grew too large to escape its burrow. The story also reminds me of one of my favorite anecdotes from a study<\/a>: Anacondas will sometimes slither into chicken coops, feed on all the poultry, and then become so engorged that they\u2019re unable to escape.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In addition to offering a timeless warning about feasting in confined spaces, the study is a testament to the negative impacts of anthropological debris on wildlife. Who knows how many other animals are out there in the wild, trapped in our trash?\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottle was made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE), which is buoyant in seawater and can persist in the environment for several decades (>28\u2009years) while retaining its shape,\u201d the researchers noted. \u201cGiven its narrow-neck design, we hypothesize that such bottles may have similar impacts on other crustaceans and fishes associated with drifting objects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough little evidence has suggested that drifting debris has an immediate and direct impact on crab populations,\u201d they concluded, \u201cshouldn’t we listen faithfully and carefully to the tragic messages from small marine organisms?\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, not every message in a bottle is an antiquated handwritten letter\u2014some are living symbols of our changing world.<\/p>\n

In other news\u2026<\/p>\n

Beware the crossbred radioactive boars<\/p>\n

Anderson, Donovan et al. \u201cMaternal lineage of rewilded swine in Fukushima contributes to faster introgression in wild boar populations.\u201d The Journal of Forest Ecology.<\/a><\/p>\n

The tale of the bottled crab is not the only study this year that sounds like a dark children\u2019s allegory\u2014indeed, it\u2019s not even the only one from Japan.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In January, researchers reported on the emergence of hybrid pig lineages made up of domestic swine that escaped in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant disaster and began breeding with wild boars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The feral swine have introduced genes into wild boar populations through a hybridization process known as genetic introgression. The hybrid population has skyrocketed both due to the relative absence of human interference in the fallout zone, and because swine breed much more often, and produce larger litters, than wild boars.<\/p>\n

\"\"Photograph of suspected hybrids between domestic swine and a wild boar, taken in the evacuation zone on August 31, 2017. Arrows indicate individuals with varying coat colors that are suspected to be hybrids. Image: Hiroko Ishiniwa\/Mukogawa Women\u2019s University<\/p>\n

Genes \u201cintroduced by escaped swine following the FDNPP accident have persisted and spread within wild boar populations through repeated backcrossing and range expansion,\u201d said researchers led by Donovan Anderson of Hirosaki University. \u201cThe results underscore the ecological significance of hybrid individuals as indicators of post-accident population recovery and gene flow dynamics in a contaminated landscape.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Did I mention that the hybrid hogs are also radioactive? Their bodies contain high levels of cesium isotopes from their habitat, even after more than a decade. This phenomenon of radioactive wildlife has been observed at other contaminated sites, such as Chernobyl, offering yet another eerie glimpse of the persistent human impact on the natural world.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Snakes on multiple ecological planes<\/p>\n

Sim\u00f5es, Tiago R. et al. \u201cExceptional brain and ecological diversity in the earliest snakes.\u201d Nature.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to return to one of my all-time favorite beats\u2014SNAKE NEWS. Snakes have evolved into a dazzling array of species that range in length from a few inches to 36 feet and occupy wildly different habitats. But the origins of these legless lifeforms have long been shrouded in mystery, as scientists have debated whether early snakes first emerged in water, in underground burrows, on land, or falling from the sky (just kidding).<\/p>\n

Scientists have now discovered that the answer is basically: all of the above. By studying rare fossilized remains of snakes\u2014including one exceptionally-preserved new species that lived 85 million years ago\u2014a team found that the earliest snakes lived in burrows (fossorial), above ground (non-fossorial), and in marine habitats, challenging the idea that they slithered into existence from one type of environment, according to a study published in July.<\/p>\n

\"\"Newly discovered Cretaceous snake Tametara mirim from Brazil, which clarified snake origins. Image: Sim\u00f5es, Tiago R. et al. \u201c<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cSnake origins therefore were not shaped by a single, linear event as traditionally thought,\u201d said researchers led by Tiago R. Sim\u00f5es of Princeton University. \u201cInstead, early snake evolution involved repeated shifts in habitat use and sensory ecology, characterizing a dynamic ecological history in which multiple lineages independently explored fossorial and non-fossorial lifestyles.\u201d<\/p>\n

How appropriate that the evolutionary history of this amazing group should be non-linear and, dare I say, serpentine. This has been SNAKE NEWS.<\/p>\n

A brilliant binary blowup<\/p>\n

Michailidis, Miltiadis et al. Shared cloud interactions unveil a candidate binary-system supernova pair with no known analogue. Nature Communications.<\/a><\/p>\n

What\u2019s better than one star blowing up? That\u2019s right: two stars blowing up right next to each other, a situation that has been reported for the first time in a study published in July.<\/p>\n

For more than a century, astronomers have marvelled at a vast dust cloud called IC 443, also known as the Jellyfish Nebula, which is all that is left of a massive star that went supernova thousands of years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Located about 6,000 light years from Earth, this beautiful nebula has been visible to telescopes since the 19th century. But a team only recently discovered that another supernova remnant, called G189.6+3.3, appears to occupy the same space thanks to long term gamma-ray observations captured by NASA\u2019s Fermi telescope. The results suggest that the objects were once a pair of stars that orbited each other in a binary system before they both exploded.<\/p>\n

\"\"IC 443, aka the Jellyfish Nebula. Image: Wikipedia\/Siderevs nuncivs<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIC 443 is one of the most extensively studied supernova remnants in the Galaxy, yet the surrounding region remains shrouded in mystery,\u201d said researchers led by Miltiadis Michailidis of Stanford University. \u201cHere we show that 16 years of Fermi-LAT observations uncover\u2026gamma-ray emission from G189.6+3.3, a source long hidden in the shadow of the much brighter IC 443.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The discovery \u201cbolsters the hypothesis that these two remnants are part of a binary system, both resulting from separate supernova events,\u201d an observation that has \u201cno known analogue\u201d in all of observational astronomy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a reminder that even the most famous and well-observed celestial objects can still contain amazing hidden surprises for those patient enough to look.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading! See you next week.!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome back to another special edition of the Abstract! As I mentioned in last week\u2019s newsletter, I have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[85,46,141],"class_list":["post-578517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}