THE BIOLOGY OF BIKINI ATOLL, WITH SPECIAL 

 KEFERENCE TO THE FISHES 



By Leonard P. Schultz 

 Curator of Pishes, U. S. National Museum 



[With 17 plates] 



The fpurtb and fifth atomic bombs were exploded over and in 

 Bikini lagoon in 1946. A year later in 1947, the palms were still 

 waving in the tropical breeze, the pandanus was fruiting, the tacca or 

 arrowroot foiTned tubers in the soil, and a new plant, the papaya, was 

 bearing delicious fruit. It had sprung from seeds left by the retreating 

 hordes of men. A lone dog wandered on Bikini Island, a cock was 

 crowing on Enyu Island, and the little brown rat was scampering 

 about at night. Birds flew overhead and fishes swam in the lagoon 

 nearly as abundantly as a year ago. 



Along the outer edges of the reefs in the crashing and foaming surf 

 life went on as before. The large purple slate-pencil sea urchins, 

 holding their positions by bracing their spines into crevices and irregu- 

 larities, were everywhere along the lithothamnium ridge. Farther 

 inward on the flat area in broad, shallow depressions were vast numbers 

 of the black sea cucumber, often concentrated by the dozens in pools. 

 Ghost crabs, leaving their sandy burrows at night, ran along the sandy 

 beaches. Their slower relatives, the hermit crabs, labored along, 

 carrying heavy snail shells on their backs. On land the nocturnal 

 coconut crab came from hiding to feed on the coconut, or the female 

 went down to the sea, to dip her tail into the water, causing thousands 

 of eggs to hatch the moment they were moistened. 



Yet, with all this life going on normally at Bikini, one should not 

 feel a false sense of security; the atomic weapon is terrible. The 

 radiations emanating from the isotopes resulting from the atom bomb 

 explosions are dangerous to animal and plant life. The lower animals 

 can withstand greater amounts of radiation than the vertebrates, but, 

 among the latter, man and the other mammals are most sensitive. 



The explosion of the Baker Day blast was so powerful that it could 

 have lifted an entire fleet of battleships high into the air as easily as 

 a summer wind blows thistledown across a field. The concussion in a 

 limited area from such a sudden explosion caused great mortality 



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