The Blues VII

Image: Cláudio Dias Timm
Porphyrospiza caerulescens

Uh oh! It's that time of year again when all looks lost, all looks cold, all looks... blue. Blue Monday strikes again. The attic groans under the weight of Christmas decorations already laden with a thin layer of dust. Christmas gifts have lost their lustre and joined the rest of your belongings as mere possessions cluttering your life. And if you don't follow through with your New Year's resolutions this time, you'll have to get a new Christmas jumper to ease over that ever-expanding belly.

But worry not! Or continue worrying, just be sure to do it with friends. Friends like the Blue Finch.

Jelly in a Jelly

You'd think it'd be difficult to put a lump of jelly into a jelly-bag. Wouldn't it all slip and slide? Not to mention squidge and squash,

Turns out it's actually extremely easy. If your jelly-bag is a hungry Comb Jelly and your jelly is a delicious Comb Jelly, they'll do it all by themselves!

Sea Gooseberry

Image: National Museums Northern Ireland

It's an alien spaceship in outer space!

Jelly and Tadpoles are a Bad Mix

Image: UAF

You can't be too picky about what you eat when you live in the Arctic. If you insist on residing amid such bitter cold and ice, you better be prepared for that layer of blubber that clings to everything you eat. Perhaps that's why most Comb Jellies stick to warm, tropical climes.

The Blobs!

Check out this beautiful octopus! Is that a devil costume?

Worst Necklace, Ever

Ooooooo! Is that a sparkling ruby at the end of a delicate, silver necklace?

No. No, it's not. Silly.

Deep Scenes from Wiring the Abyss

Here's a fantastic video from Ocean Networks Canada, featuring some highlights from their Wiring the Abyss expedition of 2012.

This Sea Cucumber is one of my favourites. What else would you expect to see if you opened Pandora's Box and unleashed all the evils of the world? A big, black cloud of noxious gas? A great, big dragon who lets out a big, black cloud of noxious gas every time he huffs and puffs? A pile of fortune cookies with stuff like "hate is cool" written inside?

Nope! Of course it's a Sea Cucumber! A small, translucent Sea Cucumber with weird little legs and weird little muck-plungers around its mouth. And a strange suggestion of devil wings on its back, as it floats in the darkness with ease, leisure and malevolence.

Let's cross our tentacles and hope they're not all quite so fiendish down there!

Bloodybelly Comb Jelly

Image: MBARI
Lampocteis cruentiventer

It's Valentine's Day! Just about. I can think of nothing to better express my profound feelings of love and gratitude for my wonderful readers than a hairy, carnivorous, disembodied heart.

Venus' Girdle

I've said it before and I'll say it again: this Venus woman most certainly adores beautiful things!

Platyctenid Comb Jelly

Image: Wikipedia

We've learnt a lot about all sorts of Comb Jellies, but now it's time to look at a rebel in their ranks, the black sheep of the family. Actually it's the black sheep of the entire phylum.

A to B in the Deep Sea

I think it's great to move around sometimes. Quite a few animals in the world seem to disagree, to say nothing of plants, but I find that movement can give one some really welcome options.

Get this:

Imagine you're at A. You see B. You like B. B looks good. Why not just go over to B? Sweet! I don't even have to think about it.

There's a saying: "the grass is always greener on the other side." It actually means that no-one is ever satisfied with A, and B always looks better for some reason or other. And once you're at B both C and A start to look increasingly appealing.

Anyway, in the deep sea, there is no grass. And all the green looks a bit sickly and murky. Still, those deep sea oddities still like to move about a bit, and that's great. Some of them have really odd ways of doing it, which is also great.

You know what else is great? That's right! The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute. That's exactly what I was thinking! They do a whole bunch of great stuff, one of them is making great videos like this one. So why don't we check it out:

MBARI Video

Wow! Great stuff! And you know what? Some of those weird animals there look pretty familiar. In fact, a lot of them do, because weird is what we do here!

Lobate Comb Jelly

Image: Wikipedia

Lobate Ctenophores are Comb Jellies in the order Lobata. They got lobes!

Beroid Comb Jelly

Image via Wikipedia

Beroid Comb Jellies are the Ctenophores that belong to the genus Beroe. They are basically a sack with a gigantic mouth at one end and, unlike other Comb Jellies, they have no tentacles for capturing prey. Why? Because they don't need them of course!

Comb Jelly

Image via Wikipedia

Comb Jellies are another of those peculiar presences that one can scarcely imagine being a real, proper animal, let alone a very hungry predator of the high seas. They look somewhat akin to jellyfish, but that's probably because near enough anything composed mostly of jelly can't help but look at least a bit like whatever the most famous jelly thing happens to be. Comb Jellies actually have an entire phylum all to themselves - Ctenophora, and under this banner they have conquered the world's oceans from pole to pole and surface to floor. There are only about 150 or so species and while they are nowhere near as diverse as Cnidaria in general, they are certainly more varied than jellyfish. So what ties all the Comb Jellies together?

Monstrosities of the Deep Seas

Ah, the deep sea. Where it appears that to live, one simply MUST be monstrous. Life here is so horrendous and so difficult that just about everything is horrendous and difficult to look at. Marvellous. Here we look at some deep sea denizens. There are no sunlit shots or beautiful, wide vistas, just the merest glimpse through the porthole and into the darkness...