Top 27 Best Deep Sea Organisms

[Raph's Girl]

Cuz they apperantly had nothing else to do. Discovery.com's blog is counting down this month the top 27 Deep Sea Creatures. Well the Top 27 in their opinion anyways. ATM they have 27 - 12 down. My fave so far is #26.... the Pig Butt Worm.

Charming looking fella aint he:

Pig Butt Worm, Chaetopterus pugaporcinus

This species bring a whole new meaning to butt face. It's Latin name even means butt face. I jest... it actually means resembling a pig's rump. Chaetopterus is a polychaete and like other worms it has segments. Some of the segments are just a little bit inflated. But it's not just it's looks that puts this little fellow on our list. It feeds by deploying a mucus cloud that traps material in the water. Shaped like a butt and uses a mucus cloud to feed...enough said.

The other creatures so far are:

27: Brachiopods (an ancient bivalve)

25: Stalked Crinoids aka Sea Lillies


24: Tube Worms

23: Dumbo Octopus. This thing looks like a Pokemon!

A music vid of one to the tune of a Duran Duran song.


22: Xenophyophore (largest single cell organism in the world!)

21: Pram Bug (they um...inhabit the dead bodies of Jelly fish...and lay their eggs inem)

20: Swimming Sea Cucumbers (which I've always found to be way kewl)

19: Black Devil/Humpback Anglerfish. In typical Anglerfish fashion these things are major scary!


18: Venus Fly Trap Anemone (cuz it looks like a Venus Fly Trap...)

17: Tripod Fish. It "walks" on 3 stilt like fins. Plus it's one of the few species that's asexual (has both male and female parts) and doesn't need to mate with another Tripod fish.

16: Red Eye Gaper. It's an extremely weird looking fish in the Angler family. Kinda looks like an orange frog:



15: Spookfish (looks like a toothless Sawfish)

14: Hairy Vent Snail. Dude!! A snail with hair (actually soft spines but still)


13: Deep Sea Corals....apperantly another species to add to the "What would survive a nuclear blast" list.

12: Remember a couple years back when I posted an image of a hairy white crab just discovered?? Well they ended up giving it the name Yeti Crab. Altho the scientific name is Kiwa hirsuta and translates to Hairy Goddess of the Shellfish.

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best-d-9.html

[Cipher]

They better not leave out the cuttlefish! It's a close relative of octopi and squid, but it can completely change the texture of its body, use changing skin tones to hypnotize prey, put its tentacles into shapes that make it look like either a rhino, or a space ship, and during mating, small males will disguise themselves as females to slip in close to the girls. Also, like octopi, they're very smart and can be taught tricks.

Everyone needs to Wikipedia these guys, ASAP.

[Machias Banshee]

Great topic, Raph's Girl!

I love the picture of the Red Eye Gaper, but the Crinoid moving around just creeps me out...

Cuttlefish are Beautiful when they communicate! I Do hope they take a look at the Vampyroteuthis infernalis...



Vampire squid have rows of spines AND suckers, their beaks are ivory white, and their eyes are the loveliest shade of light blue...

[KROW]

Originally Posted by Cipher

They better not leave out the cuttlefish!

Now I have Jack Sparrow's speech in my head from PotC 3. Thank you, sir.

Originally Posted by Raph's Girl

Pig Butt Worm

Ever blow a bubble with bubble gum, and it's so big that you take it out of your mouth to see it? Yeah, that's what this thing looks like -- and what a name. Manatees' self-esteem just went up.

[Raph's Girl]

Originally Posted by Cipher

They better not leave out the cuttlefish!

Yeah... Cuttlefish are way kewl. Im also hoping they include Nurse Sharks, Dog Fish, Betta/Siamese Fighting Fish and Mud Skippers. Oh and maybe even Goby's.

Goby's are sooo awesome the way they skuttle around. I had a tank full of Bumblebee Goby's a couple years back. They're super tiny brackish water fish. Very easy to take care of and eat all forms of meat.



Gonna be interesting to say the least what the next animals are on this list.

[Raph's Girl]

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--10.html

#11 is up. I give ya....

Venus' Flower Basket....it's a majorly weird looking sponge...

And why is it called Venus' Flower Basket?

This sponge has some resident shrimp species that call it home. Shrimps in the genus Spongicola move into Euplectella sponges once they are ready to mate, and are trapped inside of the sponge for the rest of their lives. In Japan, it was common to give Euplectella as a wedding gift, as a symbol of the two shrimp being united (or imprisoned, for you cynics out there) for the rest of their lives. For this romantic reason, Euplectella is also called Venus’s Flower Basket.

[Raph's Girl]

#10 Echinothuriid Sea Urchins.

The top spines in some species have big, puffy, balloon-like sacs with an offensive substance...these spines are functionally similar to hypodermic needles and may emit an offensive fluid to ward off unwanted visitors.

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--11.html

[Drtooth]

Misread the word Organisms.... expected a completely different kind of thread.

[Dr. Doom]

Ditto here.

[Voltron]

Originally Posted by Raph's Girl

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--10.html

#11 is up. I give ya....

Venus' Flower Basket....it's a majorly weird looking sponge...

And why is it called Venus' Flower Basket?

What?! Sea Condoms should be #1 on that list.

[愛]

Not gonna lie, I read this as "Top 27 Best Deep Sea Orgasms." I guess I need to get off the internet sometimes.

[Hannah]

Top ## lists should never be in the "news" ever.

[Raph's Girl]

#9:
The Giant Isopods. They're really really REALLY big oceanic potato bugs that eat dead things...



#8:
The Red Lure Jellyfish. It's a Jellyfish with.. a red lure!

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--13.html

http://www.lifesci.ucsb.edu/~biolum/...sm/erenna.html

[Drtooth]

Just wanna say one more thing...

I mean a Top 5, top 10, top 20... any interval by five I understand. But 27 is such a random number, don't you think?

Maybe they were gonna do 25 greatest and just felt that it was unfair to leave 2 out....

[Raph's Girl]

Originally Posted by Drtooth

Just wanna say one more thing...

I mean a Top 5, top 10, top 20... any interval by five I understand. But 27 is such a random number, don't you think?

Maybe they were gonna do 25 greatest and just felt that it was unfair to leave 2 out....

The only explination they give is that it's 7 more than 20.

[KROW]

Originally Posted by Drtooth

Misread the word Organisms.... expected a completely different kind of thread.

Great. Now I've got an image of the sea cucumber's defense mechanism stuck in my head.

Gah...

[Cipher]

Originally Posted by Ai

Not gonna lie, I read this as "Top 27 Best Deep Sea Orgasms." I guess I need to get off the internet sometimes.

[Raph's Girl]

Wait till ya see the next group:

#7: Predatory Tunicates

What are they?? Well um.. they're apperantly hermaphrodite cousins of us humans!! Wouldn't invite them to a family reunion tho....

This tunicate post is dedicated to Miriam. Those invertebrate sacs are one of our closest living invertebrate relatives. Let's hear it for notochords and pharyngeal slits!

Most sea squirts are harmless little buggers that filter plankton out of the water column. Water comes in through one siphon and out another (the in- and excurrent siphons). One group of sea squirts stands out-the family Octacnemidae. The several genera in family have hypertrophied oral siphons (that's just fun to say-hypertrophied oral siphon) that form two large lips creating an oral hood. Anchored to the bottom, the wait until an unsuspecting small crustacean swims by. Then WAMM the large lips clamp close and its bye bye little arthropod. Think Venus Fly trap but marine, deeper (200m to 3800m), and cooler.

Looks like our cousin is saying hi:



Footage at this link as well from a group of em at the Monteray Bay Aquarium:
http://www.mbayaq.org/efc/living_spe....asp?inhab=168

#6: Giant Sea Spiders. Which can get HUGE....dinner place size huge... meep!

But there is nothing to fear from these creatures. There is barely any meat in them. In fact, there is so little room in their body that vital organs, gut and gonads are pushed down to its tippy toes. They have 8 legs but males have 1-2 pairs of ovigers as well, which look like small legs and are for carrying the eggs (see photo on left). Like the sea horses, male sea spiders care for the eggs thanks to their deadbeat-good-for-nothing-don't-have-a-care-in-the-world moms.

Pycnogonids feed on sessile (=non-moving) animals like barnacles, hydroids and corals. The literally suck out the life juices form their prey with a long proboscis. The guys are cool and inhabit most of the deep seas

#5: Barreleye Fish (altho their scientific name translates to Behind the Anus... Hmm... Behind the Anus and Pig Butt Fish...I see a theme).

There's apperantly 12 species of this fish and all but one have tubular eyes

that protrude from the skull, always gazing dreamily upwards

Also:

Those crazy eyes have huge lens (yes size does matter) with an inordinate amoutn of rod cells and rhodopsin

They possess bioluminescent organs on their sides and stomachs that serves a counterillumination from below.

All the species have transparent to translucent heads! You can just look right in there and see all the fish's thoughts in that tiny little fish brain. the clear heads presumably allow the fish to collect more light. [/QUOTE]



#4: Gold-Footed or Scaly Foot Snail

So named because the foot of the snail is litterally made of Pyrite (fools gold)!!

The scales or sclerites that cover the entire length of the snail's foot can be up to 8mm long. The presence of mineralized scales is remarkable in itself, but the existence of iron sulfide as skeletal material is unknown from any other animal. The purity of sulfides, among other lines of evidence, suggest that the building of the scales is controled by the gastropod itself. The sclerites are thought to evolved recently and be homologous to the operculum. It is thought they may serve as defense again cone shell also occuring at the vent.

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--17.html

[KROW]

Originally Posted by Raph's Girl

Looks like a deep sea sock puppet.

Originally Posted by Raph's Girl

!



BA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Raph's Girl]

#3: Flesh Eating Sponge! Muahahahahaha.... Spongebob T-Rex!

The prey, mostly small crustaceans and other invertebrates provided with setae or thin appendages, is trapped on the surface of appendages of the sponges, which is lined by tiny hook-like spicules acting as Velcro. Then the cells of the sponge migrate towards the prey, and individually phagocytize and digest fragment of the prey. This is a very unusual phenomenon in pluricellular animals, a unique case in which a non-microscopic prey is digested in the absence of any digestive cavity. This has been investigated in one species, but is likely general for all the carnivorous sponges (family Cladorhizidae), which are deep-sea species usually a few cm high (not really dangerous for a diver...).

The first species of this group was discovered recently in 1995 by scientists in French caves. Since the initial discovery many more species have been discovered on the abyssal plains, seamounts, and virtually every other nook and cranny of the deep. The four genera have quite different forms ranging from grass-like, to a candelabra shape, to my personal favorite a lollipop tree.

http://blogs.discovery.com/deep_sea_...-best--18.html