Image: EricksonSmith via Flickr Striped Sea Robin Are those legs? They look like legs! |
Sunday 30 September 2012
Sea Robin
Friday 28 September 2012
Thursday 27 September 2012
Vampire Squid Feeds on Filth!
Image: Richard E. Young That's a mouth, that is |
The diet of this deep sea cephalopod has long been a mystery. Other squid, octopus and cuttlefish are predators of fish and crustaceans, but the Vampire Squid has always been perfectly comfortable being utterly unique.
They use their flabby body and slothful ways to survive in the incredibly low oxygen levels found at depths of 900 m (3,000 ft). Now, Henk-Jan Hoving and Bruce Robison from MBARI have discovered how they can eat without having to do all that tedious "moving" which we all find so exhausting.
Along with their 8 arms, Vampire Squid have a pair of thin, thread-like filaments that can be up to 8 times longer than their 30 cm (1 ft) body. Extending one of these out into the water, they allow it to get covered in the slowly descending precipitation of dead bodies, faeces and general muck known as marine snow.
Once covered in this unsavoury nastiness, the Vampire Squid draws the filament back in, uses mucus secreted by its suckers to bundle up the filth into a bite-sized morsel, and then eats it.
Basically, they're like Sea Cucumbers, except they don't eat it off the floor.
Finally! Now that you know their terrible defect and that they're not just a perfect bundle of gelatinous lovely, you can TRULY love them!
Wednesday 26 September 2012
Killing you softly. And slowly. And horribly.
So they got one of those tiny cameras that are making our lives a living, near-future nightmare, put it in a mussel and then had us all watch it watch itself get brutally consumed by a starfish.
Pretty darn sick. And a grim example of the horrors that lie beyond our limited scope. The horrors that are too slow, too fast or too small for us to grasp. Let alone the horrors we don't yet even recognise as horrors! 'Tis all horror! Horror all the way down!
Of course, we all know that some molluscs turn the tables on even the most vicious of starfish. Your death will be avenged! Slowly.
Pretty darn sick. And a grim example of the horrors that lie beyond our limited scope. The horrors that are too slow, too fast or too small for us to grasp. Let alone the horrors we don't yet even recognise as horrors! 'Tis all horror! Horror all the way down!
Of course, we all know that some molluscs turn the tables on even the most vicious of starfish. Your death will be avenged! Slowly.
Sunday 23 September 2012
Friday 21 September 2012
Wednesday 19 September 2012
Sunday 16 September 2012
Snailfish
Friday 14 September 2012
Dominos
Image: Wikipedia Therea petiveriana |
Wednesday 12 September 2012
Sunday 9 September 2012
Mushrooms From Hell: Stinkhorns
Image: eyeweed via Flickr Aseroë rubra |
Friday 7 September 2012
Wednesday 5 September 2012
Green Bomber
Image: Casey Dunn |
Sunday 2 September 2012
Pyrosome
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)