Chapter 1174: 1174. Above the Ice Sea (3/5)

Chapter 1174 1174. Above the Sea of ​​Ice (35)

Floating on the Antarctic sea is a wonderful feeling.

Li Du squatted in front of the ice boat, and the wind blew, blowing the canvas and making hunting noises, and waves rippling on the water surface, the wind and waves pushed the ice boat forward.

But no matter the wind is strong or the wind is small, the boat is very stable and has been very stable.

The ice cubes under the water surface are too large to ensure the ice ship has a particularly good stability. This is one of the reasons why people choose to use ice cubes to build ships in Antarctica.

Some seagulls flew over their heads. Their bodies were more than half a meter long, with white tails, but their bodies were light brown, and they didn't look very beautiful.

After flying past a few times, a seagull took a sneaky look at the boat, and suddenly flew down to grab the strap of a kettle on the boat.

The blue and white bands are blown by the wind and may look like sea fish.

Ah Meow next to him narrowed his eyes, stretched out his claws suddenly, and slapped the seagull into the sea, tearing off a few feathers along the way.

The seagull quickly got out of the sea and spread its wings and flew up again, looking very embarrassed, but behind it it was still flying around the boat, as if it still didn't give up.

Sophie raised her camera and took a few photos, saying, "These skuas are really bold."

These are skuas, not ordinary seagulls, as the name suggests, they are predatory, and emperor penguins are forced to lay eggs in winter because of them.

Skuas like to steal penguin eggs to eat. Most penguins lay eggs twice a year and can produce three or four eggs. Emperor penguins lay eggs once a year and almost always lay one egg.

In order to protect their offspring, they have to lay eggs in winter and hatch successfully in summer, because the Antarctic is too cold in winter, and the skuas go north to overwinter.

The ice ship is floating in the Antarctic sea, surrounded by snow capped ice fields and pieces of ice floes, seabirds are flying overhead, there are fat penguins in the water and on the ground, everything is quiet and comfortable.

A splash of water suddenly appeared, and then, a sea lion poked its head out of the water.

This kind of animal has a huge body and looks like an emperor penguin, fat and stupid, but this is only for their performance on land. They definitely deserve their name in the ocean: fierce as a lion, vigorous as a lion!

Steve specifically reminded them: "Don't mess with the sea lions, they are not easy to mess with, and these short-tempered guys can be terrible when they get angry."

While talking, he opened a box, and there were some herrings in it. He picked up one and threw it into the distance. After the sea lion noticed it, he swam over.

The skuas also noticed that these guys were bold and quickly split into two groups, one to chase the herring that fell into the sea, and the other to jump directly at Steve to grab the fish.

Steve's bodyguard waved his arms to drive away the skuas. In the distance, the sea lion was also fighting with the skuas, but it was not so gentle. It jumped up from the water, opened its mouth to bite a skua and dragged it into the water.

The skua never flew again.

Not to mention that it didn't fly up, most of the other skuas that got into the sea didn't fly up either. Several sea lions popped up behind them, their mouths kept chewing, obviously those skuas became their food.

Steve laughed. "Ha, I was lucky, the herring ended up in a sea lion colony."

The two ice boats drifted one after the other, and Steve never got out of the net, and he never found krill.

At this time, Li Du was no longer obsessed with catching shrimps. He sat cross-legged on the bow of the boat leisurely, enjoying the tranquility that was rarely found in other places.

Suddenly, he noticed that the color of the water under the boat changed, from the azure blue water to beige!

The light brown stream appeared abruptly, and he thought he had encountered a strange undercurrent. At this moment, Steve shouted: "Shrimps!"

Hearing his words, Li Du suddenly understood: They met a group of krill!

Krill like to migrate collectively. A population floats to the surface and can cover an ocean area with a length and width of several hundred meters. Their population density is very high. There are 30,000 to 40,000 krill per cubic meter of water, which makes the sea water Discoloration.

Li Du asked, "It's the shrimp that made the water brown? Aren't they transparent? How could it be brown?"

"Their bodies are transparent to our eyes, but they are not completely transparent to sunlight. There are too many krills, which prevent the light from penetrating the sea water and become this color." Steve explained.

As he said that, he shook his head regretfully: "It's a pity that it's the extreme daylight. If it's at night, you can see a beautiful world. This ocean will become green fluorescent! The fluorescent color of the krill swarm is beautiful!"

When they encounter a group of shrimp, they can get off the net.

Krill mate in the Antarctic spring, October to November, and in the summer they come to the surface in large numbers to lay eggs.

Interestingly, the females lay eggs multiple times over consecutive days, rather than laying eggs all at once.

Once these shrimp eggs are separated from the mother, they will immediately sink to the seabed hundreds of meters deep, where they will hatch into larvae and survive on the yolk stored in the yolk sac in the eggs.

After eating up the yolk, they float to the surface to ingest phytoplankton.

Therefore, nets are formed on the surface of the sea, and all adult krill are caught. However, adult krill are not very big, and the sea water is very cold. They grow very slowly, and can grow up to five or six centimeters in length.

The two ships each cast a small net, which can then be collected immediately.

Li Du and Brother Lang each pulled the other end and used all their strength to close the net.

This is a throwing net, which is easy to use and can only catch small fish on the surface of the water. It is rarely used in ordinary times, but it is very useful here, especially suitable for catching krill.

As the nets are pulled up, a whole mass of krill emerges.

After landing on the boat, these krills jumped up and down, and their vitality was so tenacious.

"Turn back immediately," Steve said, "Don't pull them up, soak them in the water, and pull them up later when you get ashore."

The digestive ducts of krill are very simple, and the branched hepatopancreas are digestive glands. Their shells and meat are transparent, and the internal organs can be seen, especially the green digestive ducts are very eye-catching.

With well-developed digestive glands, krill can secrete a large amount of digestive enzymes. If they die, the digestive enzymes will still be active and will digest the protein in their bodies at that time.

That's why Steve wouldn't let them pull the net up, to keep the krill alive.

Brother Wolf grabbed a handful of krill from the fishing net, stuffed them into his mouth and ate a few like snacks.

Li Du also took one and ate it. The living environment of krill is pure and pollution-free, and there are no heavy metal elements. They eat green seaweed, copepods, amphipods and other small zooplankton, and the meat is pure and beautiful.

The shrimp meat is cold, very elastic, with a sweet taste, without any fishy smell, and it tastes like a snack in your mouth.

Li Du ate two by himself, and gave Ah Miao two more. Ah Miao was so happy that he ate the prawns from the net with his claws.