What the heck is this thing???
It’s a physonect siphonophore, of course. Duh.
I just know PZ is going to love this: the siphonophore image is from a website that has incredible high-resolution images of truly wondrous and bizarre beasties dwelling in our oceans. Here’s what they say about themselves:
Through close collaboration with key players in the oil and gas industry, the “Scientific and Environmental ROV Partnership using Existing iNdustrial Technology” (SERPENT) project aims to make cutting-edge ROV technology and data more accessible to the world’s science community, sharing knowledge and progressing deep-sea research. The programme will interact with science and conservation groups globally and transparently communicate our project to the public to increase the awareness of our fragile marine resources.
I am always leery of such corporations when they go a bit green, but this may very well be on the up-and-up. And the images are stunning, well worth a weekend once-over.
…via BoingBoing.
July 15th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
Astonishing!
Our incredible planet is rich in treasures. I only hope that we have enough time to study a substantial fraction of life’s stunning expression before the next Great Extinction (driven by humanity) cleanses the oceans and the land.
I was brought recently to bitter understanding that we who are old enough to understand the heart-clenching beauty that billions of years of life have wrought upon Earth are going to be the last to see first-hand the glories of this, our only, home. We are the last humans who will remember the smell of a healthy ocean, to feel the winds blown across living continents, to feel the vibrant throb of life while standing deep in an ancient forest.
I’m reminded of a sci-fi story where old Grandpa takes the kids to the museum to see a reproduction of a tree. The kids accuse Grandpa of lying when he tells them that trees were everywhere when he was a kid.
July 15th, 2006 at 1:18 pm
Those pictures reminds me of a friend of mine in Western Australia, that last year took the big leap and made a living out of his hobby, underwater photography.
Visit his website Underview for some nice pictures.
They are really meant to be seen “live” on print where they look truly stunning, almost 3D, especially when printed on canvas.
There’s also some really nice screen savers and wallpapers available for download here: Underview Downloads
July 16th, 2006 at 2:54 am
Some of those pics are in the current edition of New Scientist, although it seems only the print version (not the website).
July 16th, 2006 at 7:14 am
Amazing! With a black background we can say that is a pretty deep creature thing, so strange that any mind could deeply think and wonder. The ocean must is bigger than the land hence has a larger number of creatures than on land. Our responsibility must extend as wide and as deep as an ocean.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Couldn’t tell from the content whether you knew the origin of “Between the devil & deep blue sea”.
The devil was, in a sense, the hand of man ( a product) that could not be relied on when things didn’t go well. Specifically the long wooden strut that runs the length of the bottom of a wooden ship was the ‘devil’. Covered with planks out to sea, if a leak happened there… deep blue sea. Bloop. Same ref, The devil to PAYE (as in pave, tar) short for “devil to paye and no pitch hot”.
Get it? We make our own devils. O-rings. Exploding fuel cells… Easy list to build on.
July 16th, 2006 at 1:53 pm
Strange creature. Looks like alien form of life…
July 16th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
I look at these creatures and the environments in which they survive and say ‘How can The Universe not be filled with life!’
July 16th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
The Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach California has a really beautiful room full of exhibits of biolumenescent creatures. Here is a link to an art exhibit featuring them
http://www.pbase.com/artaacom/jellyfish__aquarium_of_the_pacific
altho the aquarium has its own website, too.
At the Monterey Aquarium, a few years ago, there were only two exhibits of moon jellies, altho they may have increased their collection since then. I have yet to see fireflies. We don’t have them in Los Angeles.
July 16th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
I enjoyed this picture considerably. What is interesting, and Phil might agree with me, is that there are a few body plans known to zoology and paleontology (but not familiar to most people) that are unusual enough that they could be a basis for a sci fi movie about aliens. Vetebrates (reptiles in particular), mollusk, and insects variants which typically star in such fare only scratch the surface on the true level of exoticness that a true alien would appear. Start with an exotic body plan, come up with unusual circumstances for the world it evolved on, imagine considerable amounts of the alien ecology and elements of their evolution THEN have them visit us, possibly this might result in a much more interesting and realistic scenario.
July 17th, 2006 at 3:41 am
It is beautiful and evokes thoughts of wonder at the magnificence of our universe! From APOD and pictures of the cosmos, to pictures of the microscopic, wow! Thanks for showing us this!
If you bend your mind just a little, it looks like a stop-motion picture sequence of the shuttle just after it separates from the main fuel tank, which is tumbling out of the way.
July 17th, 2006 at 5:19 am
Ack! Aliens! They’re here already,,,
Hey, I’m a native Angeleno and here I am living in Georgia.
Wendy, come to Georgia. We have TONS of fires flies. They really seem to love this hot, humid environment. Plus, there’s this stuff that falls from the sky, they call it RAIN,,,
Gary 7