mangrove

tags: Environment, Cyclone Nargis, Myanmar, Burma, Mangrove, Rhizophora species, Shrimp Farming, Fish Farming Mangrove, Rhizophora species, in Cuba. [larger view]. I've written about the importance of mangrove forests before, and about the environmental disasters and human tragedies that result when they are wantonly destroyed. Unfortunately, as we are witnessing now, the widespread destruction of Burma's mangroves has magnified yet another human disaster in the wake of cyclone Nargis, a tragedy that might have claimed more than 100,000 lives, according to some news services' estimates…
Scientists were startled last month when they discovered that mangrove killifish, a fish native to Florida, Central America and the Caribbean, spend weeks of the year living in the rotten branches of trees, fully out of the water. The fish typically live in pools of water made by the roots of mangrove trees. When those pools dry up, however, the fish "flop their way" into rotten branches, using tunnels dug out by insects. There they... If you listen carefully, you can hear them singing... line up end to end with one another and wait out waterier pastures. Three details make the killifish…