Current Events Lesson Plan: January 26-February 1, 2017
Current Event: Rare Ruby Seadragon
Australia’s rare ruby seadragon has recently been seen alive for the first time. The ruby seadragon lives in waters too deep for human divers, so a team of researchers used a remote-controlled submersible (undersea vessel) to scour the murky sea bottom. After several attempts, on the team’s last try, the submersible’s camera finally captured the first images of a living ruby seadragon. Leafy and and weedy seadragon species have been known to inhabit the southern shores of Australia for some time, but some specimens had baffled scientists for many years. A few bright red seadragons with no leafy appendages were collected by trawling or found washed up on beaches. Because all these creatures were dead, scientists assumed they were leafy or weedy seadragons that had been damaged by the trawls or had decayed before they were collected. In 2015, however, a team of marine biologists analyzed samples of these “damaged” specimens’ DNA and discovered that they were in fact a new species: the ruby seadragon. No one had seen a living ruby seadragon, however, so the team set out to find one.
Marine researchers captured images of the rare ruby seadragon hovering above the sea floor off the coast of Australia. Credit: Scripps Institution of Oceanography/UC San Diego
Objective:
Seadragon is the common name for several kinds of fish similar to seahorses. The two most well-known kinds are the weedy (or common) seadragon and the leafy (or Glauert’s) seadragon. Both species typically live in reefs or among seaweed off southern Australia. Like seahorses, seadragons have a long snout and skin covered in bony plates. But seadragons generally grow larger than seahorses. Seadragons are slow swimmers. They feed on tiny living things called zooplankton as well as on shrimplike animals, sucking them into their tubelike mouths. Seadragons can live for 10 years or more in captivity, but probably less in the wild. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore seadragons and other animals.
Words to know:
Discussion Topics:
1. Seadragons are found in the waters off southern Australia. Ask your students to name some other animals native to Australia. (Students might name cassowaries, emus, kangaroos, koalas, platypuses, wallabies, wombats.)
2. Ask your students, “If you could be any type of scientist what would you study?”
