From the Vault: The Sargasso Sea

welcome to Stuff to Blow your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're going to go into the wettest of the woods, the saltiest of the woods. Today. The woods are salty, dark and deep, and we have promises to keep and miles to float before we sleep, because we're going to be looking at a sort of jungle in the ocean. That's right. Uh.

The ocean. Uh, it knows quite a mix of environments, from rich coral reefs to desolate deep sea waste, from sunlit shallows to hydrothermal vent heated depths, marine organisms, of course face numerous challenges, but the most basic demands boiled down to, you know, how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong. It's era to quote waiting for the barbarians, But this is especially true if you're small or your young organism. You're gonna need food and

you're gonna need shelter. Uh, And there's always gonna be something trying to eat you. And for a number of organisms, this is provided by Sargassum, a genus of brown seaweed of sometimes brown, sometimes described as brown and orange um. As we'll discuss there a number of different species here, but uh, Sargassum thrives abundantly in the shan. It floats

free of the ocean floor. It provides a buoyant, free floating environment that travels on the tides and offers food, refuge, breeding grounds, nurseries, hunting grounds, et cetera for a wide variety of organisms. So in this episode, we're going to discuss the sargassum organisms themselves, the environment that they offer, some of its benefactors, and also the problems posed by

the so called Great Atlantic sargassum belt. Yeah, and that last point is interesting because I will say, when you think of of seaweed, you think of the macroalgay world, you don't usually think of it as something that is particularly economically devastating or or even economically all that significant. But but that that is not the case for sargassum. Yeah, as well, it's it's it's an interesting topic to explore because in its present form, it kind of cuts both ways.

It's both vitally important to uh to so many organisms, and a number of organisms that are then important to us you know, various um uh, you know marine species that we depend on, various fish and so forth. But then on the other hand, uh, in an environment that is increasingly out of balance, uh, it also poses a threat, and it can pose quite a nuisance. So we'll get

into all that. So what got you thinking about sarcassum for today, Rob, Well, it's because tomorrow's episode of Weird How Cinema will entail sargassum and casual mention of a few of the creatures, one creature in particular that calls at home. Um. Well, we'll try to save all of that for tomorrow's episode. But but yeah, that was probably the first place I heard of sargassum. The weed of deceit.

I was wondering if we should announce the movie, but maybe we should just make everyone wait to find out they're going to be wondering. Wait, is it a Jaws clone where it's a big raft of seaweed instead of a shark. Is it like the Blair Witch Project, but instead of getting lost in the woods of Virginia or wherever it is, you get lost in the woods of the ocean of the Sargasso Sea. Well that the truth will just suddenly strike out at them and there'll be nothing they can do about it. Uh So, So tune

in tomorrow if you wish for that. But but for this episode, we're going to focus on first on on sargassum, the the organism. So sargassum glimpsed in the ocean or on the beach, it might just look like a big heap of brown mess. But about closer look, you'll notice that it's composed of branches, leafy bits, and what looked like plump berries. But they're not berries, So don't don't pick them. Um. I mean, I guess you could pick them. But what they are actually are new maticists. These are

air bubbles. Um. Uh, they are part of the organism held that you know, in in these little cysts that help it excel at floating around, right, Because of course, there are different types of seaweed, and some types of seaweed spend their life, you know, submerged in the water, and they might be anchored down by a type of organ known as a hold fast that is somewhat analogous to like the root ball of a tree that holds it, except in the case of seaweed, it would hold clumps

of seaweed to the ocean floor. Not entirely analogous, I mean, for many reasons, one of which is that uh, is that the seaweed that we're talking about today is technically not even a plant. It is a type of macroalgae, which will explain more about. But in the case of sargassum, Uh, there are types of sargassum that are free floating organisms that spend much or all of their lives just floating on top of the water to have good access to sunlight, of course, which they need in order to make their

food to survive. But they've got to just sit there and float on the top, and they're actually not even anchored to the bottom at all, They just float out in the open ocean. And I do just want to stress again that the genus is sargassum, and there I believe about a hundred and fifty species um all sargassum. Uh. The hundred and fifty number, I got that from the Ocean Foundation, though curiously I saw some higher numbers out there as well. I don't know if those were accurate.

I'm sticking with the one fifty, right. So there are different kinds that you'll find, especially in different parts of the oceans around the world, right. Uh. And we'll be talking about some key ones though, that are the most abundant, or at least in the the part of the world that we're gonna be discussing here. So, as I mentioned, sargassum is a brown macro algae, So it is different

than plants. And how exactly is it different than plants? Yeah, I think this is also important to stress because if you don't think much about seaweed, you might just you know, you know, you might just assume, well, right, it's some

sort of plant that grows in the water. Um. And I think that you might be reasonable to make that assumption just based on its physical appearance, and certainly the word seaweed um weeds are plants, yeah, and and seaweed is also used informally a lot of times to describe

both the algae and some plant organisms. But the algae are protests, meaning they are uh eukaryotic organisms, which are not animals plants or fun guy um so land plants for their part, they likely derived from freshwater algae about five million years ago. An algae is, of course, when we look at the just the root of the word um,

they're synonymous with seaweed, as alga is the Latin for seaweed. Okay, so if you if you just think about algae like the most I would say, if I was to go on my own personal life experience, when I hear the word algae by itself, what I tend to think of is kind of green pond scum, you know, kind of very like a something floating on top of a stagnant freshwater body like a pond or a lake, that is made of tiny little fibers that just kind of clumped together,

doesn't have any recognizable macro structures the way larger plants like like flowers or trees would. But that is not true of all kinds of algae. These macro algaees that we see in these types of seaweed, they have more complex structures that are more like the structures of land plants. So they might have something that is akin to the stalk of a land plant and something that is akin to the leaves. In these cases, they would be algal fronds. Yes, yeah,

so yeah, again they look very plant like. You can easily look at them and say, oh, they're they'll leave, they're the berries. But uh, at any rate, again, a hundred and fifty different species of sargassum. Uh, Though we're generally gonna be talking about specific dominant species within given regions. For instance, the two varieties found most often in the

Caribbean are Sargassum Natan's and Sargassum fluitans um. I don't think it will be necessary to remember that, but just know that again, we're gonna we're probably gonna refer to sargassum a lot, just generally, but we're gonna ultimately be dealing with specific species that are dominant within a given a region. So sargassum reproduces a sexually through fragmentation, a form of a sexual reproduction in which and split into fragments,

and those fragments then become adults. And furthermore, the Caribbean sargasm species in particular, and some of these other varieties that are important are hollow pelagic. That means that they not only float freely on the ocean, but they also reproduce vegetatively on the high seas. So they're they're completely in international waters, you know, they're they're they're they're a monkey knife fight that the land has no control over.

So yeah, but that would mean that they don't they can do their whole life cycle without like anchoring to the bottom at any point or returning to shore or anything like that. Right, And that's gonna that's gonna become important later on. It get it really gets in ultimately the idea of sargassum being the weed of the seed, so it grows abundantly in the ocean, where it forms

vast floating rafts, as it's sometimes called. Though um, I don't think these are rafts in the sense that you could, you know, be a shipwrecked sailor at sea and climb on top of it or hoist a sale on it, but essentially just big rafts big floating chunks of of the sargassum, all tingled together, stretching in some cases for miles, and these form and areas of converging surface currents, and in doing so they create a vital environment like we

alluded to earlier. But on top of the environment, the organism itself provides food. According to the Ocean Foundation, sargassum contributes and estimated six of the total primary production in the upper one meter of the water column. Okay, so that would refer to like different different stages of the food chains. So you've got the primary producers that are familiar to us. These are generally photosynthesizing organisms, like like plants on land, you know that absorbs sunlight to power

the chemical reactions that make their bodies. And then you've got the secondary uh, characters on the food chain that eat the primary producers. You know that that eat plants to survive. The same thing is true in the ocean. So you've got these primary producers that are at least near the top of the water column are going to be basing their their energy cycle on sunlight to to produce these molecules that make up their body that that in turn are eaten by other organisms that are the

sort of the secondary organisms in that food chain. Yeah, it's it's like you said at the very beginning, this is the forest that we're discussing. Like in a way, don't think of the ocean itself as the forest. Think of the think of the sargassum. These are these rafts of sargassum as the forest. Because the ocean, as we've discussed in the show before, the ocean can be a wasteland. The ocean can be a desert and um and in

that desert, the sargassum can be the oasis um. It serves as a place of refuge for various creatures as well as again breeding grounds nurseries. In fact, it's the primary nursery for a number of important to human to humans,

especially fish species like the Mai mai. And given all of this activity that's going on at the various creatures that call it home, sometimes exclusively uh their home, it's also prime stalking zone for many marine predators, So both sargasm predators who live there and have evolved a thrive in its environment, but also general marine apex predators that are drawn in by the by by the riches there by the biodiversity. Uh. Let's see if a few other

just sort of general um facts about sargassum. It can survive wide temperature and salinity variances, and after about a year, those new maticists that help it to remain buoyant, uh, they lose their buoyancy and bits of sargassum will then sink to the sea floor, where it will actually end up providing carbon for various deep sea creatures. So it's not only an important energy source for the sunlit shallow regions of the sea, but for the dark depths as well.

I guess, serving as kind of like that that nutrient rainfall that we've talked about before that rains upon the deep and indeed, when it washes up on the shore uh, I guess for for the most part we're talking about it, if it's washing up in manageable quantities um, it can actually nourish beaches, uh, can prevent sand from blowing away. Uh. And when it washes up, it also serves as a

food source for various coastal species. UM. And not only is it generally not harmful to humans, it's actually edible. More on that in a bit. UH. There are also

possible biofuel and pharmaceutical possibilities for sargassum um. We'll get into some of the drawbacks later on, but but one of the interesting things here is that like the idea of just sargassum piling up on the beach again in manageable quality quant quantities, it does bring to mind that sort of um contest, that disagreement at times over what constitutes the beach or what the beach should look like. You know, should there be anything on the beach other

than um humans strolling and enjoying their vacation. You know? Uh, you know, some of the some of the really beautiful beaches out there, a lot of times they are manicured, things like seaweed are collected regularly in order to have that sort of Hollywood beach presented. Uh. And in many cases, as an argument to me, may then no debris would be on the beach naturally, and it in the right quantities it can be important to keeping the sand from

washing away, keeping the beach from eroding, etcetera. I can see the point of view that would say I'm okay with the beach that has natural debris but not unmanageable amounts of natural debris or artificial debris. I mean you certainly you know you don't want too many beer cans.

That's going to kind of ruin your beach experience. Yeah, nobody wants to step on a beer can on the beach, But likewise, nobody really wants to have to walk over a tin foot high mound of sargassum like dead, rotting seaweed. Right right now, Um, we're gonna be getting into the history of humanities awareness and understanding of sargassum here. And the first bit I want to share is that you know, certainly early sailors described sargassum mats, and one individual in particular,

Christopher Columbus. Uh, this was in when abundant sargas. Some fooled Columbus into thinking he was approaching land. And I couldn't find anything that really defined this for me. I don't know if you did, Joe, but I assume this is what the term the weed of Deceit refers to the idea that you might encounter sargassum mats out at sea and you could make the same air that Columbus made and think, oh, look at all the seaweed. Uh, there's it's thick. It's everywhere. We must be really close

to land at this point. Sure, I don't know that that's where the name comes from, but that makes sense. Yeah. So on September Columbus Road, and this is of course translated uh quote, we have begun to see large patches of yellowish green weed which seems to have been torn away from some islander. Reef. I know better because I make the mainland to be farther on. And then on September I saw a great deal of weed today from rocks that lie to the west. I take this to

mean we are near land. The weed resembles a grass, except that it has long stalks and shoots and is loaded with fruit like the like the mastic tree. Um so h yeah, I guess. On the on September six, it sounds like he was like, no, you can't fool me, We're not that close to land. But on September sevent he said, nope, we are close to land. Look at all this seaweed. I had to look up with the mastic tree is because I didn't know, but it's the

but it's known as Pistachia lentiscus. Ah. Yeah, I looked up a picture of it as well, and I do see some some prominent little round fruits berries that, yeah, the little berries that I assume that's that's what he was comparing to the what what are actually newmaticists. Yeah, as we mentioned earlier, the neumatosists or these little tiny

berry shaped gas bladders that helped the seaweed float. But in this case, yeah, it looks kind of like these berries in a tree that would have been familiar to Columbus. I think the looking at the mastic tree apparently is useful for its resin. So a special note is the Sargasso Sea. This is a truly vast patch of sargassum. According to the Ocean Foundation, the Sargasso Sea is sometimes

referred to as the Atlantic Golden Rainforest. Uh and the islands quote unquote uh in the Sargasso Sea can be acres across, while the regions they occupy can stretch for miles right now. The Sargasso Sea is interesting because it is the only real sea in the world that doesn't have any land boundaries. The Sargasso Sea is a sea within an ocean. It's uh, this patch in the middle of the Northern Atlantic. Basically, it's just a large patch.

If you were to look at the eastern coast of the United States, UH and you know in the Caribbean maybe with the bottom edge down around like Cuba and UH in Puerto Rico, and then going up along the the coast of North America up towards Newfoundland, and then you just extend out east from there, there's this big patch in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean which is known as the Sargas So see now we should be clear that it is not like blanket covered in sargassum seaweed,

but there are It is known for having large rafts of sargassum seaweed within it, and the Sargasso Sea is interesting in a number of ways. One thing about it is it's known for having uh for being a place where ships can easily become be calmed, and this is a a risk that people who are not very familiar

with sea voyages might not think about very often. But back in the days of sailing, one thing that was really dangerous is if the winds die down and you can't say, you know, there's nothing to propel your ship

in the direction where it needs to go. All throughout the the Atlantic around the Sargasso sea, there tend to be these wind currents, you know, they're there are winds that will blow you UH, that will blow you east to west, down from the from the coast of Africa, down towards UH, towards the Caribbean, and towards the northern coast of South America. And then there are winds and and currents in the ocean that lead up north along

the east coast of North America. And then if you go up north from there, there are winds and currents that will lead you back towards the east from the west. So essentially you create this box in the middle of the North Atlantic that is surrounded by currents that go in a circle around it. And this is often known

as the North Atlantic gyre. Now, anyone who has ever watched, you know, any number of of sailing movies or TV shows, or any TV show that includes like a a voyage by sail across the ocean, This is a This is almost a standard bottle episode right here where where suddenly the ship UH is in a is in a region where there's just no no wind at all, nothing could propel them, and everybody just sets around and gets like superstitious and Uh, and a little bit crazy until the

wind picks back up and saves everybody right. And you can imagine, like if you actually were traveling across the Atlantic and you didn't know what you were, what you were going to see, or what was going to be out there. Maybe you'd heard some tales of sea monsters.

Who knows. You get into an area where there is less wind than you're used to than when you traveled into the area, you are suddenly be calmed, It becomes hard to travel, and you're just kind of stuck there in the water, and then you start seeing these weird rafts floating around in the middle of the ocean towards you. I can imagine that's pretty odd, And in fact, we maybe don't have to imagine, because there are some historical

sources that that may well be referring to this. I guess it's debatable whether they're referring to this or something else. But I wanted to look at the question how long has the Sargasso Sea been written about? Uh. It gets its current name from Portuguese sailors. I believe of like you know, the early modern period, or actually I think before that, from like the fifteenth century. But but I was looking around to see how far back written accounts

of the Sargasso c go. And I found an interesting, possibly applicable bit of history in a book by the British archaeologist and Oxford professor Sir Barry Cunliffe, uh And the book is called on the Ocean, the Mediterranean and Atlantic from Prehistory to a D fIF hundred from Oxford University Press in And this is in a chapter where Cunliffe is writing about records of exploration west of the

Pillars of Heracles. So the Pillars of Heracles today are understood to refer to the Strait of Gibraltar, that gap between between Morocco and the Iberian Peninsula, where you can just go through this narrow passage to get out of the Mediterranean Sea and into the broad Atlantic Ocean. And so he's writing about the exploration beyond this point out to the west by the ancient cultures of North Africa,

Europe and Central Asia. And for for most of these cultures, the Mediterranean Sea was of course their bread and butter. I mean the sea, even the Mediterranean Sea has has plenty of dangers and mysteries to it. But sea voyages within this region where you know, we're well understood for for trade and and exploration and warfare and fishing and all that. But sea voyages west into the Atlantic Ocean

or another story. And and so you get plenty of tales and say Greek thought of Greek mythology about islands that maybe lay out to the west of of the Pillars of Hercules, way out there in the ocean, that that is mostly unexplored by your people. Most of the early explorers who passed west of Gibraltar did so in order to travel along the coast to the north or south.

So this would be traveling up along the coast of the Iberian Peninsula, uh to form these ports along places like Cadiz that became a Phoenician port, or south along the coast of Africa. The Phoenicians and the Greeks did this to various extents, but the vast and presumably mostly empty Atlantic Ocean was not not among everybody, but widely assumed in ancient times to be a place of mystery

and danger, especially by Greek authors. And Kunlift gives the example of the ancient Greek poet Pindar, who was writing in the early fifth century b c e. Uh And so, to quote from Kunliffe here describing the Pillars of Heracles, situated at the western extremity of the known world, far from home, he advises, quote, what lies beyond cannot be trodden by the wise or the unwise. One cannot cross from Ghadeer towards the dark west. Turn again the sails

towards the dry land of Europe. The dark west. Yeah, I mean this vast, stormy ocean. You you don't know, if you know you travel out on it, Like would would you even reach land if you kept sailing? I

mean it was not known. However, Kunliffe writes that Phoenician sailors were more adventurous in general in pushing westward uh and about around the year six hundred b c E. A Phoenician expedition sponsored by the pharaoh Necho the second had been reported to have circumnavigated after and though we don't have the original sources for the account that I'm about to describe, there are later Roman quotations of the accounts of Phoenician sailors possibly pushing further west into the

Atlantic in exploration. And one of these notable sailors was a Carthaginian navigator named him Ilco. That's h I M I l c O, who lived probably sometime in the fifth century b c E. Now, the Carthaginians were an ancient civilization that was based along the coast of North Africa. I think their their capital was in modern day Tunisia.

But who expanded too much of the ancient Mediterranean? And then here I'm going to read from Cunliffe as he introduces and quotes another ancient source for for knowledge about Himilco. So Himilco quote, whose report published long ago in the Secret Annals of the Carthaginians, is selectively quoted in a grossly pretentious poem compiled by our Roman administrator Rufus Festus A. Viennas in the fourth century a d. A few lines of his Aura maritima will suffice to give the flavor.

And then this quotes lines three four. To the west of these pillars, Himilco reports that the swell is boundless, the sea extends widely the salt water streaks. Fourth, no one has approached these waters. No one has brought his keel into that sea, because there are no propelling breezes at sea, and no breath of Heaven's air aids the ship. Hence, because the mist cloaks the air with a kind of garment, a cloud always holds the swell and persists throughout the

humid day. And so that's describing possibly some of the becalmed area of the North Atlantic, with like within the Gyre region that we talked about before, you know, surrounded by the currents, but is very often very still in that middle area that overlaps with the Sargasso Sea. But then Cunliff goes on to describe further how Aviennas quotes

from Himilco to describe his voyage. Uh Cunliffe writes elsewhere he talks of monsters of the deep and beasts who swim amid the slow and sluggish crawling ships, and again great fear of monsters stalks the deep when the wind falls, the sluggish liquid of the lazy sea is at a standstill, while thick seaweed often tops the sea, and the tide is hindered by the marshy rack. The marshy rack, oh yeah um. And Cunliff also says Himilko was evidently not

enamored of his encounter with the ocean. Perhaps perhaps his vessel was drawn south into the dull drums and reach the Sargasso Sea, as some commentators have suggested, Or perhaps he reported in this dispiriting way simply to aggrandize his own achievement and to deter others. Another possibility is that his original report was embroid loitered by a Viennas Uh.

So we don't know exactly what he's describing here and if what he's describing is real, especially since we're only getting it quoted by a secondary source and we don't have the original source. But of course it is true. There's the danger of the doldrums, the calm part of the Atlantic, where you won't have winds to propel your your sales, so you can very well get trapped there.

That could well overlap with large stretches of seaweed, the Sargassum seaweed that you would find in the Sargasso Sea. So one possible interpretation of what we're getting here is that this ancient Carthaginian sailor him Ilco actually sailed to the Sargasso Sea, survived, returned to Carthage eventually, and you know, lived to tell the tale. But again, it's worth stressing that modern some modern scholars are are doubtful. It's hard to know for sure, but some details line up if

they're accurate. You get these reports about the marshy rack of seaweed coinciding with the Doldrums. It it lines up in a kind of interesting way. And then finally, of course, the mention of sea monsters right there, I wonder if it's possible to mistake the shadow of a huge floating raft of sargassum for a sea monster stalking the deep. Again,

I don't know, but it strikes me as possible. Yeah, Yeah, And well, once you get into discussing sea monsters, of course, as we've we've explored in the show before, especially looking at the work of the check then douser Um, Yeah, on sea monsters. I believe he pointed out in his book that you know, at times sea monsters are a manifestation of u uh, certainly of of second and third hand accounts of of actual organisms. Other times their products

of the mind. Sometimes they're products of of economic or political forces. So they're the whole host of reasons uh to to speak the word of the name of the sea monster. But that's certainly the Yeah, the doldrums that seemed to be described here, and then the uh, the the the rack, the muck, the seaweed here this does sound a lot like the descriptions modern description is of

the s O c oh. And sorry, there's one thing I didn't clarify, but just to avoid confusion, because it's not a common word, I had to look this up. Rack here in this quotation is spelled with the W W R A c K, And I was like, what is that referring to? Is that like referring to like a like a shipwreck, because rack sometimes is an alternate spelling of rack or wreckage. But also I looked it up and apparently it is also just a word sometimes used to refer to a massive seaweed like green vegetation.

Could be oh, there is a rack with a W. Yeah, okay, well sometimes that I wasn't familiar with the precise definition, but I totally understood it in the context of the sentence. It's like, look at this rack. There's no getting through it. So so certainly you can imagine that the rack would not be a great place to find yourself as a human sailor, certainly in in ancient times. But of course, the rack is home to a great mini organisms, as

we've already alluded to here. So uh for one thing, you have you have various um micro and macro um epiphytes. These are organisms that grow on the surface of a plant and derived derives its moisture and nutrients from the air, rain, and water. Uh. So you have that's those sorts of

organisms growing there. You have fun, guy. You have more than a hundred species of invertebrates that are known to uh to to live within the sargassum, over a hundred species of fish, four species of turtle again, and it kind of spirals out because once you have a certain amount of of life uh fostered within the sargassum, it's going to attract other things as well. So you'll see

things like sharks showing up, etcetera. So we are not going to attempt to cover everything that lives in the sargassum, but we are going to talk about some of the standouts, because there are some really fun, really interesting, really weird organisms that call the rack home. Uh in the first of which I want to talk about is the sargassum fish also known as the sargassum frog fish. Now is this the one that you lured me into this episode with?

Because the first thing that I became aware of when you were getting interested in sargassum was was that you came to me and you said, Joe, there is a fish with hands. Yes, yes, this would be uh, this would be the sargassum frog fish. Um and uh and and I'll and I'll explain what I mean by by hands. And they're not quite hands, but they are enough like hands that you're committed to get excited. Um and uh

and yeah, it's probably the most famous sargassum denizen. It's the species history of history o a frog fish of the family uh at tananara day and it's the only species of its genus. So uh, we'll describe them here, but also feel free to look up images or video. I mean, there's nothing quite like seeing video of these these creatures. I think there's some wonderful national geographic footage.

But also the Weird House Cinema selection for tomorrow also will feature some actual footage of this creature right at the top. Um, So the uh. The sargassum fish grows to around twenty centimeters in length, so about seven point eight inches and I should I guess I should say, first of all, they generally have this appearance that you'll find with other frog fish um and uh and and

they're related to uh into the angler fish of the deep. Uh. So they have these upturned mouths, which kind of give them kind of this uh, this frowny face look, this kind of froggy appearance and uh and and so that that's the first thing to drive home about them. So they have that that kind of body that I think at number of you can get imagine, but I think sometimes sort of think of it as the drawbridge jaw. Yes, yes,

that's a good way of describing a drawbridge jaw. And of course, like like pretty much all fish, you know, they're they're going to consume by by lunging and inhaling, you know, pulling their their prey rapidly into their mouth. Um. Their masters. These particular fish, though, uh, the sargassum fish are masters of camouflage, at least within the sargassum environment, because they've adapted to physically look like the sargassum, complete

with fleshy appendages that look like weed. I've seen some of the some of the appendages have even been compared to organisms that live within the weed um. So they just they just they look like they're just a part of the environment. You'll see images or even footage sometimes of the sargassum fish hiding in the seaweed, and you

really cannot pick them out with a human eye. I think at some point I watched a documentary or part of a documentary that had some of these in it, and it was one of those like, you know, trick shots where they show you the shot and then it's like, there are three sargassum fish in the shot, you can't see them at all, and then has to like circle them or zoom in on them or something. I think I've seen the same one. Yeah. Um. But of course

it's not just their physical structure and initial coloration. Other cool thing about them is they can further adjust their coloration from dark browns and greens to light browns and greens to complete the illusion, to to fine tune it so that they blend in, you know, seemingly completely um.

And they can do this quite rapidly as well. This is important for the sargassum fish because again it is a voracious hunter, but also it's the jungle baby so you know they're they're also they also also have to be on guard against other predators, so it also helps protect them. Now they let's get to the hands, so if you will. Uh. So, theirs their pelvic fins uh. You know the fins up front. They have nine to eleven rays uh in them and they're stalked, essentially forming

what act like clause. Basically, they can use these things again they look like claws, they look like fish clause, and they can use these to grip objects, and they use these to clamber over and through the seaweed. Okay, so they can use them to grip objects, not in the sense of like like our fingers, where you would manipulate objects freely, but they can grip things in the sense of like sort of pushing against surfaces. Right. Yeah,

they're not gonna be able to use an iPhone. They can't play the piano worth of darn, but but they can use these appendages. You have to sort of grip and push through things, which is gonna be vitally important when you're hanging out in the sargassum like little gravoid spines. Yeah, so they're really cool. Definitely look up, I mean they're beyond cool. They're a little creepy looking. I highly recommend

checking them out. Um. So, so obviously the adults live in the mats and their eggs are placed there as well, but the larvae develop in the water columns between fifty and six deep. Um. And you might think, well that, I guess the sargasum environment then is just no place for for kids, right um, And this is this is certainly the case, especially since the sargassum fish is more than happy to eat them as l so they're in

they're not only incredibly voracious, but their notorious cannibals. I was reading about some of the studies where they've they've caught sargassum fish and they've they've looked inside at their bellies and they'll find like multiple juveniles. You know, they'll find some juveniles and they just they'll just just gobble them up. Delicious. Yeah. So again, just a fabulous fish. Just it's everything about it is UH is both beautiful and frightening, uh in just the right proportions. Now, they're

not the only creature that that that lives there. Again, and they're not the only creature that that takes sargassum as part of its uh you know, official or unofficial name. For instance, there's the sargassum pipe fish. This is a species of pipe fish that makes his home in the sargassum mats. Uh, And like all pipe fish and seahorses, the male carries the egg. Um. They're just into these elongated um, you know, beautiful fish with that kind of signature.

Uh seahorsey head now um, just briefly a couple of other organisms. The first in general should say that that the Sargasso Sea in particular as the spawning site for various eels uh, including threatened and endangered eels. But speaking of decapods, there is also worth our consideration the Sargassum swimming crab or U. Portunists say, I uh, this is uh just one variety of crab you'll find in sargassum mats, but it's an impressive one and a species adapted to

blend into the environment. They have an orange brown colorization that apparently matches up with the sargassum pretty well, and as the name implies, they're more adapted for swimming than walking. Uh. The fourth pair of legs are modified into paddle like structures. Now, crabs, of of course, are noted for walking sideways, So you might wonder how does it swim, Well, they tend to swim sideways as well. Uh, and apparently they're quite fast.

They depend on a mix of active and passive hunting, so they'll they'll actively chase after something against sideways to catch it, but they'll also fall back on that that sort of ambush hunting within the jungle of the sargassum. Yeah. Now, in addition to these organisms that spend all or most of their lives in the sargassum, there are also organisms that use sargassum as a sort of like a stepping stone during their migration patterns. One example that's often referenced

would be young sea turtles. Yeah, and I've also heard that it's important to even like migratory bird space species. Again, it's it's it's an oasis in the waste, an oasis in the desert of the sea. Than so, Now, earlier we we alluded to the sargassum being not not only this this bountiful environment, but also potentially a problem, a problem for humans and the sort of human likes and dislikes concerning beaches. But all so just for the environment

as a whole. As the Ocean Foundation points out, it's ecologically important the sargassum, but it doesn't mean it doesn't have some downsides, especially when you're dealing with large volumes, right, And this is something that's become especially a problem within just the last decade or so. Actually, it can really be dated to a year in particular from what from everything we've been reading for the year two thousand eleven.

Starting around two thousand eleven, something started happening with sargassum in the Atlantic Ocean, where there was a sudden increase that has gone on in many years since then of of sargassum inundations where beaches and shorelines along areas in the Caribbean, along the coast of Florida, along places in the coast of the northern coast of South America would just be caked with sargassum, like they're just mounds and mounds of seaweed piling up to the point that it

in some cases would make these shores unusable for what humans have been using them for, usually in in the years beforehand. Yeah, if if any of you out there are are snorkelers or are you know, related to our friends with snorkeling enthusiasts, then you've you've probably heard about the blight of sargassum, about the disappointment of of, say, you know, reaching a popular snorkeling area and finding that there's just sargassum everywhere, um, you know. So it's in particular.

One of the things that the Ocean Foundation points out is huge rafts of it can actually smother other sea grasses and even coral reefs. Um. You know. Granted, coral reefs are facing uh a number of problems, um you know, and and uh and we've gone into that in past episodes. But but certainly this could disrupt your ability to even properly view them as a as a tourist in the ocean, as a as a snorkeler um, you know, out there

trying to to observe this natural habitat. Uh. It can also this is interesting this this has brought up as well. Apparently sargassum can serve as a means of transport for invasive species, though UM I honestly wonder if this at all compares to human enabled invasive species transport. It seems like um it almost wouldn't matter compared to what humans can and have done. Um, you know, importing species like the lion fish into regions that um, that that are

not balanced enough to to contain them. Well, yes, but I would also say that there I think there is at least a strong likelihood that human behavior is a major contributor to these these new build ups of sargassum. Yeah, and we'll and we'll get into into more of that in just a second. Um, just a few more points here that the Ocean Foundation made uh. Sargassum of course can prevent boats and fishermen from setting out to sea. It can also prevent sea turtles from making it to

net in these cases as well. So you know, again you have it massing up on the beach in particular, if it's um, you know a certain amount of that is arguably good for the beach, but if you have too much of it, yeah, it's gonna actually interfere potentially in a sea turtle's ability to come on shore lady eggs and then have the hatchlings be able to properly get back out to sea again in in an appropriate amount of time. And if it masses on the beach,

the sargassum it. If it's not removed in time, it can produce hydrogen sulfide, which can have a major can have major detrimental effects on coastal ecosystems. Yeah, I mean it can have all kinds of negative effects on the wildlife itself. I mean, one would be like if it doesn't reach the beach, if you're just talking about it

still being in the water. Big blooms of algal organisms in the water can have downstream effects when the blooms eventually die and then there's all of this dead, decomposing material in the water, and then the decomposition of the material ends up robbing the water of dissolved oxygen, which in turn leads to these big fish die offs and die offs of other organisms because there's not enough oxygen

in the water for them to breathe. Yeah, and also all that decomposition in the water can promote harmful blooms of bacteria and other microbes. I guess the way to to to think of it is it's basically like spiraling imbalance in the ecosystem and uh and and uh it's it's place in this this this this cascade of imbalance. Now to get kind of a I guess, sort of a bird's eye or I guess satellite view of things UM. I found this pretty helpful. I was looking at a

July twenty nineteen article from NASA Goddard. They utilize the satellite images to observe the Great Atlantic sargassum belt uh so at this point, based on simulations, they confirmed that its shape was due to ocean purnants and that it can grow large enough so as to blanket the surface of the Tropical Atlantic from the west coast of Africa to the Gulf of Mexico. Major blooms have occurred in every year between twenty eleven and again, this was a July article, so that's as far up as it went

at the time. UH with the exception of which this was apparently uh in this year was impacted by unusually low seed populations during the winter, but otherwise eleven onward, it's been sargassum season. Prior to eleven, most of the free floating sargassum in the ocean was primarily found in patches around the Gulf of Mexico and the Sargasso Sea. But then something changed, something seemingly in the biochemistry the ocean. Obviously, you know, people were asking a lot of questions about

climate change. Uh, and and ultimately I guess the reality is is complicated, but basically yes, it's pointed out by a doctor Paul all up Bon Tempi of NASA's Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry Program, the ocean's biochemistry is changing due to a mix of natural and human forces, and it seems to be leading to an ecosystem shift with important implications for marine life and human life, since we depend on many of the species in question and live in

and in many of the environments that are impacted. UH. Climate change is certainly a key aspect of this, as it impacts precipitation and ocean circulation, but increased water temperatures specifically don't seem to be the cause. It's these other causes. But again, uh, climate change is very much part of the issue. I don't want to make it sound like

it's not. Yeah, if you're If you want to read more in depth about this research, there's a really good article in the Atlantic by Ed Young from July nineteen called hy waves of seaweed have been smothering Caribbean beaches. Again.

This from July nineteen by ed Young. Uh, that's worth looking up, and it gets into a lot of the difficulty and uncertainty and trying to figure out exactly what the underlying factors leading to this change that we first saw in the year two thousand eleven was establishing this this huge belt of sargassum that was not there previously. And and what we want to be very clear, this Atlantic sargassum belt is different from the sargassum in the

Sargasso Sea. The Sargasso Sea is further north in the North Atlantic off the east coast of of like the United States, whereas this would be something that stretches more

between Brazil and Africa. In fact, one of the things that ed Young writes about in this article was the very idea of the satellite photos that you were talking about that one of the fortunate things for studying sargassum blooms on the large scale is that sargassum reflects more infrared light than the sea water around it, So when you look down with satellites, sargassum patches can appear as hot spots in the ocean that can be seen from space.

Young sites the researcher named Jim Gower of the Fisheries

and Oceans Canada for for doing this satellite research. But yeah, these satellite photos found that the bloom really began in April of two thousand eleven, which correlates with you know these times when these pile ups on the beaches, the sargassum inundations really started becoming a problem that people noticed, but they started noticing the blooms off the coast of Brazil and the satellite images from two thousand eleven and then Young also points to research by someone named Ming

Chi Wang from the University of South Florida who, along with her colleagues, they've basically established that, yeah, this bloom is just going to be an ongoing yearly thing. Now, uh that that it's coming and it's probably not gonna stop. Though. One of the interesting things this article gets into is a delay between the proximate causes that are likely leading to the blooms and then when the blooms show up within you know, what we can see with our satellites

or what's piling up on our beaches. Because a couple of the factors that have been identified as likely candidates leading to these blooms, one is um is water being discharged from the Amazon River, you know, coming out of

South America. UM. And this water coming out of the Amazon River is probably being especially saturated with nutrients from agriculture that's happening all along the Amazon basin, and so this is like it's like fertilizer that is flooding into the ocean, and then of course that is feeding blooms of of this macro algae. And then there are other factors they get into that are probably contributing, such as

like what the different temperatures are this year. It's the same thing you were talking about that um that climate change doesn't seem to be the cause of it in the sense of increasing ocean temperatures lead to uh, lead to macro algy blooms, because that doesn't appear to be the case, but downstream, other effects of climate change are very likely contributing to this. It's just not the temperature of the water itself. Another factor that they're talking about

is access to the seed populations of of seaweed. It's like, how many patches of seaweed are there leftover that survived the winter of the previous year and can act as a kind of seed for the regrowth of the seaweed every new season. Yeah, because I think it kind of brings back that point about the neumaticis having a like a year's lifespan, so there's going to be a certain amount of crossover as well there from one year to

the next. Um. I was impressed one of the quotes that you pulled from the from the Young article just about how many tons of seaweed we're talking about here? Yeah, yeah, yeah, So the estimate, I think this would be referring to the year previous to when this article was written, so that it was published in twenty nineteen, So I think this would be referring to the summer of eighteen during June, when the Sargassin Belt was at at its most fruitful.

It was estimated to contain twenty two million tons of seaweed. And then there's even a clarification later in the article that that estimate is probably low since the resolution of the satellite camera that's taking the infrared imagery to establish that number, it has like a minimum sort of pixel distance resolution, so it can only see patches that show up at a minimum resolution of something like a kilometer.

I think it was it could be wrong about that. Uh. Doing that just tough memory, but I think that's what it was. And uh. And so like patches that are smaller than that, with which there are probably plenty, they're not even really showing up on the imaging. So that's a lot of seaweed. That's a lot of seaweed, folks, and and that's ending up on a lot of it's

ending up on the shores eventually. But one thing that is worth stressing again is that while researchers have probably identified some very good candidates for the explanations of of these blooms and inndations of sargassum in the last decade or so, there's still some uncertainty. There's like stuff we don't know about what what could be leading to it, and what could be the limiting and contributing factors. Anyway, the article by ed Young is a really good read.

You should look it up. Yeah, absolutely, I recommend that one. Now. You know, in the past, I think it's been brought up when we're dealing with invasive species or species that are out of balance, one of the best things that you can do is develop an appetite for that species. Uh. In human beings now I don't I don't think anybody's making an argument that that could make a difference with the sargassum. But it is again worth noting that sargassum

is something that humans can eat. Uh. We mentioned that already, and I found a wonderful blog titled Eat the Weeds with Green Dean. Um. So his name is Dean, but he's Green Dean. Get it and the blogs. The blog is titled Sargassum Sea Vegetable and in this post, Green Dean points to a few different culinary traditions that have recipes for sargassum. Uh. Though he points out that given the different species, basically it's sargassum is going to quote very in taste and texture, so there is no one

way to cook your local species. Uh. He says that some amount of experimentation is going to be required, but basically he goes through different cuisines. In this post, points out that sometimes it's consumed fresh, other times it's cooked, saying coconut milk or vinegar or lemon juice. Other times it's smoke dried, or it's boiled. Sometimes it's even sweetened and put into steam buns. Sometimes it's cooked with fish. Basically, they're just numerous ways to approach it. But it's it's

worth checking out the link. I recommend it. It said eat the weeds dot com. You'll find a post on the sargasm sea vegetable. Um. I'm not sure I've ever had sargassum in a dish. Maybe I have, and I just wasn't alert to it that now I feel like, I really, I really want to have it. I don't know if I have either. I mean, I've had a number of seaweed salads, but I don't know what species were in them. Yeah. Well I know some basic things.

I mean, I know like comb and Combo of course, is a seaweed based food additive that is an amazing source of umami flavor. It's it's it's almost like raw msg. It's that it's good stuff um. But but yeah, other than that, I don't know. I mean, I've had I've had like various seaweed salads at Japanese restaurants that have had different types of seaweeds, some that looked kind of like orange brown, like like some species of sargassum do.

So maybe I have. I don't know. Huh, Yeah, I think I've i've only I know I've at least one time had like a sampler of seaweed salads from the Japanese restaurant. But in those cases, I think they were all still rather green. They didn't have um any kind of darker coloration. So I don't know. I'm gonna look for it now now it is on it is it is something I want to specifically try out, knowing that it is sargas them. I just looked it up to make sure I thought that combu was not sargassum, and

it is not. Combu is a type of kelp. Well, obviously we'd love to hear from everyone out there about this topic in general, but but specifically on this question of the cooking and the consumption of sargassum. If you've, if you've, you definitely know you've had it, and you've had it in a particular way that was yummy or or or or not yummy. Let us know we would love to hear from you, and likewise, just in you know, in general, any feedback about about the various organisms we've

discussed here surrounding sargassum or sargassum seaweed itself. Perhaps you're a Snorkeler and have your you know, two cents you want to throw in right in, we'd like to hear from you in the meantime, if you would like to hear other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, you can find us in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed and you know where to find that, just wherever you get podcasts. UM subscribe if you can rate us, if the platform allows you to um, you know it

gives us, I guess a good rate. Guess what we're asking for. You know that supposedly helps us out, but in general we're just thankful if you're if you're listening to the show, and uh, you know, right in, let us know what you like about the show, what what you would like to hear from us in the future, what other topics you would like us to consider. Yes, absolutely, uh so, I guess we're closing out here, so huge, thanks as always to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.

If you would like to get in touch with us, as as Rob just asked there, to let us know feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for a future episode, or just to say hi, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow Your Mind dot com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts, My heart Radio with the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows. B b b b B boded by many pressing into part