Here at Flex Technologies, we sell silicone products for the marine industry, among many others. We think it is amazing that humans have mastered the seven seas, and are proud to do our part to help marine related businesses thrive. In order to celebrate the ship builders, captains, dock workers, and everyone else who makes the marine industry run, we thought we would list some fun marine and marine industry facts here.

They think with their stomach

Mesonychoteuthis hamiltoni, or the colossal squid, is the biggest squid in the world. It was believed to be a myth until recently. In 2007, a dead colossal squid washed upon the shore of New Zealand that was the largest one every recorded: 33 feet long and 1,000 pounds. When scientists brought it back to the lab to study, they found something amazing; the digestive system of the colossal squid runs directly through the middle of its brain.

Squids live in freezing waters at high pressures. Because of this, they have extremely slow metabolisms, so don't require much food to live. In fact, they can survive off of just one ounce of food a day. Still, their brains do require more energy than the rest of their body, which may be why it is in the shape of a donut, with the digestive system running right through it. When a squid eats, its brain actually absorbs nutrients directly through the digestive tract to the brain, even before it reaches the squid's stomach.

Knight of the fishes

When you think of fish, you don't normally think of armored behemoths, but that is just what the Giant Arapaima (Arapaima gigas) is. You see, the Giant Arapaima lives in a very dangerous place: the Amazon River. The Amazon River is full of piranhas, which are an apex predators in rivers due to their swarming behaviors. 

So how does the Giant Arapaima survive in such dangerous waters? A suit of armor! This fish, which weighs about 300 pounds when mature, has evolved armor by growing two layers of scales. The outermost layer is a hard shell, while the inner layer is built out of rotating stairway collagen structures. When the piranhas bite the outer shell, the inner shell bends and absorbs the kinetic energy, keeping the hard shell from breaking. Carry on brave and gallant fish!

I wouldn't want to taste that water

At their peak, human beings have anywhere between 2,000 and 8,000 taste buds, all located in one concentrated area: the tongue. But that is a mere fraction of the amount of taste buds the catfish boasts, and its buds are located all over its body (essentially making it a giant, living tongue)! Catfish have about 100,000 different taste buds, each about 50 nanometers in diameter. 

Catfish live in deep, murky waters, where site does them very little use. And while they are bottom feeders, they are also predators. To cope, they have evolved taste buds which they use in a similar way that dolphins use echolocation, or wolfs smell to hunt. Any prey within a few meters alerts the catfish's taste buds, which the catfish uses to triangulate their position because they are placed all over its body rather than concentrated in once place. The difference in strength of taste on different parts of the catfish's body give it a very good idea of where its prey is located.

X-Ray vision (ish)

Dolphins are pretty awesome, but did you know they had a super power? Just like superman, dolphins have an effective x-ray vision. They can actually see through the other animals in the ocean due to the way that echolocation works.

Dolphins create high frequency sonar bursts through their blowholes by passing air through a network of tissues. These bursts measure in between 40 and 130 kHz. This is a shorter wavelength, which isn't great for traveling long distances, but does penetrate softer objects. So when a dolphin uses echolocation, other dolphins and fish would be mostly transparent except for their bones and teeth in the "acoustal holographic image" a dolphin's brain creates.

Long journeys

Many of our goods are shipped to and from America every day. Much of the world relies on marine transportation for much of its economy. Those container ships get a lot of miles under their belt. In fact, the average container ship will travel 3/4 of the distance to the moon every single year on its travels across the oceans.

Inspector lazy

We like to think that everything shipped here gets double and triple checked for safety (at least). However, the fact is that around the world, only between two and ten percent of shipping containers are ever actually inspected. While the United States often exceeds expectations, here they rest directly in the middle with an average of five percent of shipping containers coming in ever getting inspected.

Living shield

The Giant Arapaima may have its own set of armor, but the Pompei Worm takes it to a whole other level. These little works only grow to about five inches in length, but live in one of the most inhospitable places on earth: volcanic vents. These vents are so hot that they heat the water around them to 176 degrees Fahrenheit. It was thought for a long time that they were the most heat tolerant animal in the world, but that turned out not to be the case.

Scientists used pressurized capsules to remove some of these worms for testing in a lab. However, they all died after ten minutes of exposure to temperatures of just 122 degrees Fahrenheit. Obviously, this confused the researchers, as they had just pulled the worms from conditions much hotter. It turns out that the change in conditions had killed off a layer of bacteria that normally lives on these worms. This layer of bacteria acts as a living shield for the worm, which returns the favor by secreting a mucous which the bacteria feed on in a great example of a symbiotic relationship.

The largest migration

The largest migration in the world also happens to occur every single day. In the Sargasso Sea, one of the most wondrous water bodies in the world, a huge kelp bed covers the ocean, held in place by converging currents. This kelp gives food and shelter to thousands of different marine species. The waste from these species then feeds the layer of marine life below the kelp, a process that repeats itself as deep as 5,000 meters below sea level. Every single night, over 5,000 different species surge up from the depths of the Sargasso sea to feast on the kelp bed above.

We hope you enjoyed these fun marine facts. To all you boat manufacturers, captains, and other nautical workers out there, if you looking for silicone products for the marine industry, Flex Technologies is the company to call. Our silicone tubes and hoses for marine use are made of the highest quality. For more information, please do not hesitate to give us a call today.