Stoplight Loosejaw

Image via Wikipedia

There are two kinds of Stoplight Loosejaw, the Northern and the Southern. Together, they are found all over the world aside from the poles. They are a kind of deep sea dragonfish, but unlike most of their kin they spend all their time about 500 to 1000 metres deep without undertaking migrations to shallower waters for food.

They possess several unique features. For one, they are capable of emitting red bioluminescence. This is incredibly rare. The only other animals capable of doing this are a few other relatives of the Loosejaw. And a beetle, apparently. As it turns out, it is an extremely worthwhile skill.

Sunflower Starfish

Image via Wikipedia

The Sunflower Starfish is a giant amongst starfish, reaching in some cases as much as 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) across. By that measure, they can be regarded as the biggest starfish in the world although their abundance of soft, fleshy tissue means they are not the heaviest. Some Sunflower Starfish come in bright orange or yellow colours. Coupled with up to 24 arms, you can easily see where they get their name from. Others are brown or purple, which is substantially less cheerful.

Daddy Longlegs

There are 3 creatures in the world that are often referred to as Daddy Longlegs: a fly, a spider and another arachnid. They all have long legs, some of them become daddies, but that's about all they have in common. Except for this one, weird thing. All the Daddy Longlegs are believed by some to be one of the most venomous animals in the world, but can't apply their venom to humans because of their mouthparts. It's as if it's an attribute of the name "Daddy Longlegs" itself, and is just passed on to whatever particular beastie is in question. Is it actually true of any of them? Let's see...

Blobfish

Image: scienceray.com

Cheer up, mate. Might never happen! Look at this ugly mug drooping and dripping all over the place like a right, old misery guts. This facial expression isn't actually a result of unhappiness from being pulled from the sea and dropped on the ground, although it IS a result of being pulled from the sea and dropped on the ground. The problem is that Mr. Blobfish comes from depths of 600 to 1,200 m (1,970-3,940 ft). Instead of using a swim bladder to maintain buoyancy, he has gelatinous flesh that is slightly less dense than water, allowing him to float just above the sea floor. It probably doesn't look so bad down there, but up here he looks a little melty and... splat.

False Catshark

Image via Wikipedia

False Catshark... that's a rather odd name isn't it? Catsharks are named after their long, feline eyes, while the False Catshark is named after it not being a proper catshark even though it also has cat-like eyes. Some Catsharks are also known as dogsharks, but that's something for another time. I'm not ready for that kind of crazy talk just now.

Sea Spider

Image by Ken-ichi via Flickr

Sea Spiders are incredibly weird creatures. To me, they somehow look like they are barely there at all. I can sort of imagine a normal spider having some kind of personality, at least getting angry or scared or something, but I really can't say the same for the Sea Spider. They're just so ridiculously alien, maybe even austere, but definitely weird.