Sent 27 November 2020. Part of Little Blue Letter.

“The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea.
~ Isak Dinesen
Bigfin squid sightings in Australia
  • Bigfin squid (Magnapinna sp.) are one of the most cryptic animals in the deep ocean.
  • They occupy the bathypelagic zone (1,000 to 4,000 m depth) and are characterised by their unusually long arms and tentacles, and reach a total length ranging from 2 to 7 m.
  • Only a dozen sightings have been recorded worldwide, often kilometres underwater, with no adult specimens ever obtained.
  • The recent observations recorded in the Great Australian Bight are even more exciting, with multiple sightings being recorded within the same area in a short time frame.
  • This was also the first time these animals have been measured using paired lasers, giving a more accurate picture of their size.
Gif of the week
Humpback whale
©BBC America
#OceanOptimism
  • More than 100 short finned pilot whales were saved from stranding by volunteers in Sri Lanka. Although this species is known to strand in large numbers frequently, the community effort to refloat the animals took over 16 hours and was successful.
  • Tristan da Cunha has announced that 700, 000 sq. km of its waters, would be designated a Marine Protected Area (MPA), the fourth largest of its kind. The tiny island in the South Atlantic boasts with rockhopper colonies, sevengill sharks, yellow-nosed albatross and many more species that the new MPA aims to protect.
Typical Tristan da Cunha seabed
showing a klipfish (Bovichthys diacanthus) endemic to the islands.
© Sue Scott
Ocean Opportunity
 
Underwater wine
  • Did you know there is such a thing as sea-water infused wine? Dating back to the ancient Greece, grapes were sunk in the sea prior to fermentation to make a sweet wine on the island of Chios.
  • Attilio Scienza and Antonio Arrighi are trying to replicate the method, producing the first 40 bottles in 2019. The result was a wine “with a scent of Mediterranean herbs and an aroma of honey and almond”.
Little Blue Letter was curated this week by Irina Chemshirova. Irina is a PhD student at the Falkland Islands Fisheries Department and GEOMAR, Kiel. However, she rarely manages to be both places at once. Her study animal is Illex argentinus, she is investigating the delimitation of the stocks through various methods such as trace element analysis and RADseq DNA sequencing.
Editing etc. by Glen Wright.
Glen is a researcher studying marine governance, the high seas, and ocean energy.
He is a drinker of tea, lover of the sea, and an Oxford comma user. 
Glen recently published Academia Obscura: The Hidden Silly Side of Higher Education.
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