Category Archives: Facts

Short, Single Subject posts

By and Large

Facts
By and Large
By and Large

“By the wind“ means sailing into the wind as directly as possible.

“Large“ refers to when the wind is blowing from some compass point behind a ship’s direction of travel, “abaft the beam.”

If a ship ship performed well in both situations, she was said to be a good vessel “by and large“, a phrase we use to this day.

The “by” part of the phrase means “close-hauled.” (This “by” also appears in the term full and by, meaning “sailing with all sails full and close to the wind as possible.”)

When the wind is in that favorable ‘large‘ direction the largest square sails may be set and the ship is able to travel in whatever downwind direction the captain sees fit.

Sorry McD it is “By and large” not “Buy the large”.

Like a kite string in the sky

Facts
White Tailed Tropic Bird Facts: Tail streamers are white and can be up to seventeen inches long. Feeds largely on flying fish.
Tropicbird

White-Tailed Tropicbird – Phaethon lepturus

  • Tail Streamers are white and can be up to seventeen inches long.
  • Forages by plunging into water from flight, submerging briefly; sometimes by swooping down to surface without striking water, taking flying fish in the air.
  • May feed most actively in early morning and late afternoon.
  • Courtship displays include two birds flying gracefully in unison, one above the other, with higher bird bending tail down to touch tail of lower bird.

Etymology
Phaethon – Greek mythology- son of Helios; killed when trying to drive his father’s chariot and came too close to earth
epturus: Greek leptós = ‘slender, thin’, and +ourá = ‘tail’

Songs and Calls:

A piping “keck-keck-keck”

Creole Wrasse Fact: How that pot gets stirred.

Facts, Fishes
Creole Wrasse Fact
Creole Wrasse, photo by NOAA

Creole wrasse – Clepticus parrae – are protogynous hermaphrodites; the largest fish in a group is a dominant breeding male, While smaller fish remain female. If the dominant male dies, the largest female changes sex.

Protogyny is the most common form of hermaphroditism in fish in nature. About 75% of the 500 known sequentially hermaphroditic fish species are protogynous.

Wrasses are always on the go during the day, but are the first to go to bed and the last to rise.

Etymology
Clepticus: Greek, kleptikos = ‘related to thieves’

Fly Flying Fish Fly

Facts, Fishes, Marine Life
Flying Fish
Flying Fish photo by Michael Bamford

Flying Fish Fact:
Flying fish can reach the height of four feet in the air, and glide distance of 655 ft before returning to the water.

The Exocoetidae are a family of marine fish in the order Beloniformes class Actinopterygii, known colloquially as flying fish. About 64 species. While they cannot fly in the same way as a bird does, flying fish can make powerful, self-propelled leaps out of water where their long wing-like fins enable gliding for considerable distances above the water’s surface. This uncommon ability is a natural defense mechanism to evade predators. The ‘Exocet’ missile is named after them, as variants are launched from underwater, and take a low trajectory, skimming the surface, before striking their prey.

Etymology
The term Exocoetidae is both the scientific name and the general name in Latin for a flying fish. The suffix -idae, common for indicating a family, follows the root of the Latin word exocoetus, a transliteration of the Ancient Greek name ἐξώκοιτος. This means literally “sleeping outside”, from ἔξω “outside” and κοῖτος “bed”, “resting place”, verb root κει- “to lie down” (not “untruth”), so named as flying fish were believed to leave the water to sleep ashore, or due to flying fish flying and thus stranding themselves in boats.

Conch Frittered to Extinction?

Facts, Marine Life, Mollusks
Conch Fact
Conch Fact

Mollusc Fact: 80% of legal internationally traded conch is consumed in fritters and salads in North America. The Queen Conch – Lobatus gigas is an endangered species and has been protected by over-exploitation by C.I.T.E.S.

Update: Conch populations continue to fall even in areas that are protected.
Full Story Here
A more dire story is here National Geographic 

Etymology
Lobatus – Greek lobus -‘hull, husk, pod, lobe’
gigas – Greek γίγας,- ‘giant’ , referring to the large size of this snail compared with almost all other gastropod molluscs.


Director of science and policy for the Bahamas National Trust, believes there may be some pushback against any conch regulations. “We’re not used to regulations or enforcements,” she told National Geographic. She believes that since the conch industry is the sole source of income for many Bahamians, any restrictions may be met with a degree of resistance.

Shelly Cant-Woodside

Fade with the darkness

Facts, Fishes, Marine Life
Pacific double-saddle butterflyfish
Butterflyfish Fact

At night, butterflyfish settle into dark crevices, and their brilliant colors and markings fade to blend with the reef background.

The butterflyfish are a group of conspicuous tropical marine fish of the family Chaetodontidae

Etymology
Chaetodontidae – The family name from Ancient Greek words χαιτέ, chaite ‘hair’ + οδοντος, odontos ‘tooth.’ This is an allusion to the rows of brush-like teeth found in their small, protrusible mouths.