Creatures of the deep sea

December 12, 2011 • 4:25 am

We often forget about all those bizarre creatures that have evolved in the deep sea. Here’s a video compilation of unusual—and scary—species from two episodes of BBC’s series Planet Earth/Blue Planet (I’m not sure whether those are two series).

See if you can guess the first, second, third, and fifth animals.  The ctenophores (one is #4) always amaze me.

h/t: Michael

18 thoughts on “Creatures of the deep sea”

    1. Your two comments were rather good as well 🙂

      Additionally, through my psychic (as if) powers, I’m going with

      made me -> made my

      However, I admit to going with ‘made me’ at first too because there wasn’t any christian babble present to sustain the madness.

      Reply

  5. I just read up on the Ctenophora ~ I’m a bit astonished, there’s an awful lot to take in, but this will do for a start:

    Nervous system and senses

    Ctenophores have no brain or central nervous system, but instead have a nerve net (rather like a cobweb) that forms a ring round the mouth and is densest near structures such as the comb rows, pharynx, tentacles (if present) and the sensory complex furthest from the mouth.

    The largest single sensory feature is the aboral organ (at the opposite end from the mouth). Its main component is a statocyst, a balance sensor consisting of a statolith, a solid particle supported on four bundles of cilia, called “balancers”, that sense its orientation. The statocyst is protected by a transparent dome made of long, immobile cilia. A ctenophore does not automatically try to keep the statolith resting equally on all the balancers. Instead its response is determined by the animal’s “mood”, in other words the overall state of the nervous system. For example if a ctenophore with trailing tentacles captures prey, it will often put some comb rows into reverse, spinning the mouth towards the prey

    “…it will often put some comb rows into reverse, spinning the mouth towards the prey” ~ What? How does that work? *shudder*

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  6. #1 is a carnivorous tunicate. #2 is a pelagic sea cucumber. #3 is an annelid worm. #4 the ctenophore. #5…#5…

    ? wtf is #%??? It must be a weird sea urchin.?

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    2. I reckon you’re right on all counts, including #5 the sea urchin. They do have some control over their spines. I guess it’s the spines that it is using to walk with (rather than it’s tube feet which most urchins would get around on).

      You could have got the worm below phylum though. It’s definitely class polychaeta and I am going to guess that it is order aciculata.

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  8. As a recently qualified scuba diver I can warmly (well coldly in scottish waters) recommend it. Some of the things you see down there. It’s like being on a different planet. even just 20m down

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  9. 1. No tengo idea. How about calling it Pac Man On A Stick?
    2. Holothurian
    3. Remipede(?)
    5. Echinoidean

    Watching these hauntingly beautiful creatures makes me wonder why anyone would need to believe boresome, poorly-conceived mythology when there’s plenty of magic and wonder in our world much less the universe.

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  11. Footage like this reveals the massive failure of imagination of most TV and film science fiction. Even with full computer animation enabling filmmakers to put literally anything on screen, we still get films like Avatar where the alien life is all just minor variations on the basic vertebrate body plan. You don’t have to look very far on Earth to find things much, much weirder than that.

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    1. I agree. But, I thought there were some nice (if fleeting) references to marine invertebrate animals in Avatar. There are some fan worms (Sabella?) on the first mission and the seeds of the “tree of life” look like young jellyfish, for example.

      Reply

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