ALGAL red tides can have some odd effects on marine creatures 鈥� causing sea lions to stray into pools and parking lots, for instance. Now high-tech medical equipment is offering a peek inside the animals鈥� skulls to discover what causes such bizarre behaviour.
of the University of South Florida in St Petersburg studied wild sea lions, including some that showed symptoms of poisoning by domoic acid 鈥� the neurotoxin secreted by the algae. He placed anaesthetised sea lions in an MRI scanner to image their brains, and found that the hippocampus of sick animals was half the size of that in healthy ones. The hippocampus controls an animal鈥檚 spatial awareness, which could explain why poisoned sea lions often get lost.
