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Science

New Deep Ocean Creatures 216

Posted by Hemos from the down-under-the-sea dept.
An anonymous reader writes "NORFANZ was a recent expedition that went really deep into the ocean in the search for new species that live in the largely unchartered waters of the Tasman Sea. Check out the site and some very cool pics."
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New Deep Ocean Creatures More

New Deep Ocean Creatures

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  • That Giant Rattail.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Papatoast ( 245525 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:19AM (#6383012) Journal
    closely resembles one of the 'sea monsters' that lived in/near The Core in Phantom Menace. Shame it didn't eat Jar Jar....
    • Would you rather have that or Mr. Burns three eyed fish on your dinner plate?
    • Perhaps the sea monster from PM was inspired, as many cartoon creatures are, by the real thing? Look at Finding Nemo and its Anglerfish sequence. (I'll admit that I had no idea such a thing actually existed until today, and thought the Nemo creators very creative - the credit, though, goes to nature).

  • heh (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:20AM (#6383016)
    To assist with down load time, we have reduced the number of images in each photo page. Your favorite image may have moved to a new page, but no images have been removed

    I have a feeling someone isn't going to be very happy when they get to work this morning.

  • also of interest (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:20AM (#6383022)
    If you like this stuff, read this recent news story:

    Giant sea specimen baffles scientists [msnbc.com]

  • Beasts (Score:2, Funny)

    by Mark_MF-WN ( 678030 )

    Nothin' better than new beasts. And sea-beasts are the most interesting beasts of all!

  • A very important question remains... (Score:4, Funny)

    by shik0me ( 235948 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:21AM (#6383036)
    How do they taste?

    • Actually... (Score:4, Informative)

      by JaredOfEuropa ( 526365 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:29AM (#6383102) Journal
      "How do they taste?"

      Check out some of the older fish determination guides: some of them actually have information on the tastiness listed with each fish. These won't be in the guides though.

    • Re:A very important question remains... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I suspect a lot of these fish taste like a catfish from the ultimate of muddy waters. Very earthy. Anything that feeds near a vent probably tastes like rotten eggs from the sulfur.

    • True story... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by kiwimate ( 458274 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:57AM (#6383298) Journal
      There's a popular tourist/holiday spot up north in NZ called the Bay of Islands. One of the most popular towns is Paihia. There's a small aquarium on the main strip, which contains only sea creatures that were found in the local region.

      My wife and I went in there one day, and as we walked through the front door a very nice chap introduced himself, said he was the owner, and to feel free to ask him any questions we might have. We started walking around, and soon decided we wanted some more information about a particular fish, so asked him, and he obligingly answered our question. He then followed up by telling us, "By the way, that fish is also quite tasty to eat. You want to cook him up with just a splash of lemon juice, and he'll be beautiful". He then started pointing out other fish in that tank, telling us which were no good to eat and exactly how to cook the ones which were good to eat.

      That guy very kindly gave us a full guided tour of the whole aquarium (it was a slow day) -- including his own personal cooking suggestions for every single tank in the place.

    • Re:A very important question remains... (Score:4, Funny)

      by tuffy ( 10202 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:01AM (#6383317) Homepage Journal
      How do they taste?

      Like chicken, surely.

  • doesn't it become Guillon [stomptokyo.com]?

  • Deep sea crab (Score:4, Funny)

    by nacturation ( 646836 ) <nacturation@gmai l . c om> on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:22AM (#6383043) Journal
    Did you see the size of that? I'm just imagining how that would taste dipped in clarified garlic butter right now...
    • I'm just imagining how that would taste dipped in clarified garlic butter right now...

      Just a week ago I tasted some king crab, which is large, long-legged and spiky not unlike those in the article. I have a photo of its claw here [godsong.org]. :-P

  • Collecting specimins of ultra - rare fish? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Negadin ( 261695 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:22AM (#6383047)
    From the page: "Before our cruise, these were the only two records of this rare fish in the world. Its rarity lead to it being formally recognised as threatened. In one short trawl at around 90 m deep near Ball's Pyramid, we collected three specimens and excellent fresh photographs taken by Kerryn Parkinson."

    With only two records of a fish in existance, you then "collect" three specimens to keep?

    What happens if you never see them again?

  • Unchartered? (Score:2, Funny)

    by JDevers ( 83155 )
    So the Tasmanian sea doesn't lease itself out too much?

    I'm thinking that should be uncharted, as in no charts have been drawn up mapping it...

  • Funky Evolution (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Wyatt Earp ( 1029 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:23AM (#6383053)
    There's some funky stuff going on down there. Like the dating habits of the Humpback Anglerfish.

    "For me, this bizarre fish (the size of a tennis ball) is one of the most fascinating creatures in the deep sea. It has it all, its black, has big savage teeth, little nasty pin eyes, a big flabby stomach ready to fit in anything it can catch (irrelevant of size) and a rod lure off the top of its head with a glowing tip to coax in stupid prey. It doesnt stop there: its flesh is watery, its bones are very light (barely coated by a thin layer of calcium carbonate) and it can barely swim (theres not much of a tail). This animal just hangs mid-water waving its little lure and waiting to chomp. And this is only what the female looks like! The male is completely different. Hes very small and looks like a black jellybean with fins. He has no lure, has big eyes, huge nostrils and a fairly small mouth with curved hooked teeth. His body is made of strong red muscle for swimming long distances. Why the difference? Shes looking for food, hes looking for her. She releases anglerfish-type perfumes into the water and he spends all his time swimming around looking and smelling for her. When he eventually finds her (in the dark), he latches on to her side (with his hooked teeth) and drinks her food-rich blood in return for producing the sperm she needs when it comes time to release her eggs."

    Or the Mossish ( Caulophryne jordani )

    "Like other anglerfishes, males are very different. They are small and have simple fins. In this species, the male latches on to the female and doesn't let go. Their skin fuses and he stays as a permanent pimple with eyes, drinking blood and making sperm."

  • Disgusting (Score:3, Funny)

    by Sabalon ( 1684 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:26AM (#6383083)
    Not only do I not like seafood, but looking at underwater life just turns my stomach.

    The fish don't bother me, but the crabs and other oddball forms are just too weird. Everything is either spiny or gooey.

    Blech!!!
  • ...I heard about this [yahoo.com] over the weekend. Giant something or other... Looks like it has been one hell of a week to be a marine biologist, eh?

  • Shrimp (Score:4, Funny)

    by seen2much ( 576446 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:27AM (#6383089)
    I see they discovered the goblin shrimp, but did they discover this species [penny-arcade.com]
  • These guys go out and pull up all kinds of samples from the ocean. Why doesn't someone try this kind of thing on land and catch a BigFoot?

  • New creatures indeed (Score:5, Funny)

    by Scurrility Extempore ( 685637 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:29AM (#6383106)
    Incredible! Finally, an authentic photograph [oceans.gov.au] of Cowboy Neal!
  • That was one of my favorite Deborah Gibson songs.

  • Old (Score:5, Insightful)

    by tsa ( 15680 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:30AM (#6383114) Homepage
    I think one of the reasons why these creatures look so weird is that they may have had the most time of every type of creature to evolve. The deep sea is not affected by ice ages and warm periods that have a large influence on the surface of the planet, so the enviromnent in which these creatures evolved may have been virtually undisturbed for many millions of years.

    • Re:Old (Score:4, Insightful)

      by tiled_rainbows ( 686195 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:39AM (#6383186) Homepage Journal
      My first reaction to your comment was to post something saying how you were totally wrong, but then I read it again, and it's an interesting point.

      Are you saying that this environment has existed in its curent state for so long that the species living in it have had more time to adapt to more and more specialised niches within it?

      Whereas on land, where you get ice ages, meteorite strikes, etc, every so often, species have to adapt quickly, so therefore, in the long run, the less specialised species are at an advantage?

      If you were saying that, then I agree with you.

      • Re:Old (Score:2)

        by tsa ( 15680 )
        Exactly. Evolution can only go to these extremes if it has a long time in which to do that.

      • Re:Old (Score:5, Funny)

        by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @07:31PM (#6387494)
        Actually, he was saying they look this way because they're much more highly evolved than any other species on the planet. Sure, it looks ugly and crazy to us, but we just don't understand their superpowers. They will reveal them in time.

        And I, for one, will welcome our new ichthyoid overlords!

    • Re:Old (Score:2, Interesting)

      by nietsch ( 112711 )
      Not quite right. the temperature may be somewhat constant, but that does not mean that the environment does not change. Think about the influx of nutrients that comes from land, or the amount of oxygen or coarbondioxide that is dissolved in the water. Now pour some changing ocean currents in the mix because the north atlantic and pacific are partially frozen over. That does have some influence doesn't it?
      If your argument were right, we'd still be fishing up tribolites.

      • Re:Old (Score:3, Interesting)

        by tsa ( 15680 )
        What I understood from the various documentaries that I've seen is that nutrients from above do not play a very large role in the food circulation in the deep sea. And the watertemperature in the deep sea is always 4 degrees C because water has its highest density at that temperature. But I'm as much a layman in these matters as the next person I must admit.

        • Re:Old (Score:4, Informative)

          by Sgt York ( 591446 ) <jvolm@NospaM.earthlink.net> on Monday July 07, 2003 @02:00PM (#6384645)
          Nutrient flux to the bottom plays a huge role in the deep water ecosystem. With no light, there is no photosynthesis, so the bottom of the food chain difffers from what we are used to. If there is a vent nearby, the creatures that feed off it's heat & chemicals form the base of the food chain. If there is no vent, the only source of food is the manna from above. Animals that die and sink, feces, solid runoff from shores, etc form the bottom of the food chain. Detritus fills the place of plants, scavengers take the place of herbivores, and predators, well, they're still predators.

          It is conceivable that at times of massive kills at the surface (comet/asteroid strikes, climate change) the flux of food increased rapidly. This would give rise to a brief period of intense growth, coupled with an increase in the diversity in each species. Once the feast is over, there will be a massive die-off (i.e., selection event) as the scavengers, then predators starve.

    • Re:Old (Score:3, Insightful)

      by NoData ( 9132 )
      1) If you subscribe to most modern accounts of biogenesis, there was likely a single source for the origin of life (or at least the life from which every living thing today evolved). So, every living thing has had just as much time to evolve as every other.

      2) If by "longest time" you mean time in a constant environment, please see all the other posts in this thread on how land ecology impacts deep sea ecology. Furthermore, keep in mind the earth's tectonics which are particularly violent in the Pacific.

  • Haven't we come a long way! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Chocolate Teapot ( 639869 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:30AM (#6383118) Homepage Journal
    At risk of sounding like a tree hugger, I have to say that the cool factor of the pictures is somewhat diminished by the fact that these creatures are .... well .... dead. I was kind of expecting to see some nice photos of the animals in there natural habitat where they would generally look a lot better. It would be ironic if one or more of the specimens turned out to be extremely rare, consequently making these the first and last photos of a potentially endagered species.

    "To seek out new life and new civilisations...and grill them with a knob of butter and a sprig of parsley. Mmmmmm."

    • Actaully, photos in their native habitat would be really lousy since there is generally no light down there. Also, it is hard to say just how rare or common each of these species is, as there is very very little data on them, the mere fact that a random sampling from a single boat managed to catch these guys suggests that they might not be all that rare after all.
    • I was kind of expecting to see some nice photos of the animals in there natural habitat where they would generally look a lot better.

      Yeah, me too.

      But of course, then I remember the possibility that the use of floodlights that far down can also be damaging: any light-sensing organs on any creatures down there are going to be extremely sensitive, and will likely be fried by the amount of light needed to take a picture (with standard equipment).

      So yes, a picture of one of these critters swimming/floating

  • Be Careful (Score:3, Funny)

    by Stargoat ( 658863 ) <stargoat@gmail.com> on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:31AM (#6383126) Journal
    You just never know... [cthulhu.org]

  • Wonky eyes? (Score:5, Funny)

    by burgburgburg ( 574866 ) <splisken06@nospAm.email.com> on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:33AM (#6383139)
    In the description of the Jewel Squid:
    Firstly they have wonky eyes, the left eye is always much larger than the right.

    If they're going to throw technical jargon like that at us, I'll be completely lost.

  • Dude...that's just crazy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jvmatthe ( 116058 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:36AM (#6383156) Homepage
    Read up on fishes here: http://www.oceans.gov.au/norfanz/CreatureFeature.h tm

    Especially the last one, known as the Jewel Squid. This just boggles my mind. And I quote:
    The common name comes from the scattering of small iridescent spots over the undersides of the body, head and arms. These are tiny directional light organs like tiny car headlights. When the squid is hanging at a 45 angle, all the light organs aim down and produce just enough light to cancel out the silhouette of the squid against the weak light from the surface above. They can even adjust the lights for different depths or time of day.

    It's almost difficult to believe that such a creature exists, much less was the product of random gene bit-flips over millions of years. Not that evolution isn't a reasonable theory (one which I happen to believe) but this is one of those crazy outcomes that seems so difficult to accept.
    • I'll wholeheartedly concur. That is one of the most amazing feats of evolution I've ever seen. I'd love to see this one on film...
    • much less was the product of random gene bit-flips over millions of years.

      try billions... then maybe it becomes a bit more believable... what's even more amazing is us humans and these weird ass glowing fishies have common ancestors...

    • Re:Dude...that's just crazy. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mediahacker ( 566995 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:09AM (#6383373) Homepage
      Wanna go really cazy??? :-)

      Photophores originated from colonies of phosphorent bacteria that were living in the fish. This eventually evolved into a differentiated tissue that was light-emitting.

      The optical mechanism of these photophores can be quite complex too - it is expensive (metabolically) to turn the light on and off so iris-like shutters have evolved for some species...

    • Just like the Babel Fish [bbc.co.uk]? Anyone care to use this to prove the non-existence of God?
    • The same passage popped out at me too, but it's far from being an argument for a creator. Nature has a bajillion ways of making camouflage for different environments, and many of them dynamically adjustable. This one is cool only because the environment is so extreme and alien to us. If we were deep sea creatures, we'd probably think a chameleon was bizarre and otherworldy.

  • For those so inclined (Score:5, Informative)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:37AM (#6383162) Homepage Journal
    to own a "coffinfish", a species very close in look and character can be had easily. The marine fish is known as a "frogfish" and are highly interesting creatures to keep in a dedicated reef-tank.

    Just FYI

  • underwater habitats (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TWX ( 665546 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:47AM (#6383239)
    It really surprises me how many people think of the world's water simply as "The Ocean", like it's one homogeneous thing that has the same contents everywhere. I'd expect that it would be even more varied than surface life, since different pressures, temperatures, currents, light levels, seafloor materials, salinity, and other fluid contents would vary greatly from location to location, and since depth allows for many ranges of habitats (and life forms can float at a certain depth easier than they can equivalently in air) we'd have more to look at than we could possibly ever figure out entirely. I'd think that we'd be tripping over new life forms every time we looked anywhere intently or anywhere we hadn't gone before.

    • Re:underwater habitats (Score:5, Interesting)

      by 3Bees ( 568320 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @02:08PM (#6384720)
      I'd think that we'd be tripping over new life forms every time we looked anywhere intently or anywhere we hadn't gone before.

      Not just the oceans, either. Biologists are only able to identify something on the order of 70% of the fish sold in markets near the mouth of the Amazon.

  • For you lynx users... (Score:5, Funny)

    by mofochickamo ( 658514 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @10:49AM (#6383248) Homepage Journal
    I used aalib to convert some images to ASCII. Here they are:

    >===@ (Angler)

    |==\=> (Glowing Antenna Thingy)

    8==============> (errrr...)

  • sea spiders that are half a metre wide??


    i'm staying a land lubber!! :D

    • Worse, they sometimes have ten or even twelve legs instead of the already scary eight. The picture didn't look that scary though, the thing is literally all legs, there doesn't even appear to be anything resembling a body in the middle to hold it all together, just a bunch of legs stuck end to end.
  • of reading this article while eating my lunch

  • In honor of Jacques Cousteau... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Alien Being ( 18488 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:14AM (#6383421)
    I'm reading every post with a french accent.

  • Fangtooth pic (Score:4, Informative)

    by hether ( 101201 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:17AM (#6383443)
    The BBC had this story a week or two ago: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3017078.stm and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3034520.stm

    I didn't see the picture of the fangtooth on the link provided in the story above so wanted to share. Perhaps I just missed it? A couple of the other pics are different too I think.
  • Spongebob Squarepants
  • I know I've seen him somewhere... Isn't PHOTO 10 [oceans.gov.au] a spokesman for SCO?

    I want to die in my sleep, like my dear old great-grandad... not like all the screaming wusses in the car he hit!

  • So Giger was abusing nature's copyright (Score:5, Interesting)

    by theolein ( 316044 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:40AM (#6383598) Journal
    Take a look at this [oceans.gov.au] friendly little sample and ask yourself where H.R.Giger really got his inspiration for our friends, the aliens, in the Aliens movies series.
    • Actually this isn't his inspiration - although he may have drawn from that one too.
      The real model was a kind of predatory shrimp.
      That shrimp catches jelly-fish empties out everthing it doesn't need and anchores itself in the remainder which it uses to hatch its eggs.

  • New tape of squid (Score:5, Informative)

    by singularity ( 2031 ) * <nowalmart@NOSPam.gmail.com> on Monday July 07, 2003 @11:41AM (#6383605) Homepage Journal
    No, this is not about the large piece of blubber that they found on the beach.

    This article [msnbc.com] has pictures and a video of a very cool new large species of squid. It seems to fly through the water with wings, and has cool alien-like arms coming off the rear of it.

    Amazing that is has been spotted in four different oceans, but no one has seen it before. It says a lot about how much we do not know about the oceans.

  • Blue Planet - Seas of Life (Score:4, Informative)

    by phildog ( 650210 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @12:02PM (#6383737) Homepage
    If you find this stuff at all interesting, I urge you to check out the 8 part miniseries Blue Planet - Seas of Life. These originally aired in the US on the Discovery channel (I believe the BBC was the first), but you can still get the DVDs from the merchant of your choice. I'm not sure the 2nd four episodes are on DVD yet.

    The Discovery Channel Website [discovery.com] doesn't indicate that these will air again anytime in the near future. You will also note that the Discovery Channel's web strategy is severely lacking because there is no way to have them notify you when it is coming on again. Or are they just being obscure because they reap more profits from DVD sales?

    But I digress, this series kicks ass. It doesn't focus solely on the deep-sea critters, but rather casts a wide net. If you saw this show and were not completely freaked out by the presence of crazy brine pools at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico, you aren't very curious about the world you live on.

  • Alien Face Hugger (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Nova Express ( 100383 ) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [nosrepecnerwal]> on Monday July 07, 2003 @12:04PM (#6383746) Homepage Journal
    Is it just me, or does the Anemone Hermit Crab shown in the second picture on this page [oceans.gov.au] look rather like an immature form of the Alien Face Hugger? Obviously H. R. Giger is a Tasmanian marine biologist in his spare time...

  • Regarding the fact that collected fish are *dead* (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NeoSkandranon ( 515696 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @12:04PM (#6383748)
    --I would love to see photographs of these animals underwater as much as the next fellow, but it doesnt sound as if they are equipped with anything but trawling equipment. From what I gathered of the article their camera merely rides on a trawl line and records what is more or less beneath it. Also consider that with collected specimens you are able to obtain much data, including a clear idea of how the creature looks, that isn't reasonably possible taking photographs in pitch blackness at 1500 meters

  • Light based cloaking device (Score:5, Interesting)

    by anagama ( 611277 ) <obamaisaneocon@nothingchanged.org> on Monday July 07, 2003 @12:12PM (#6383803) Homepage
    "When the squid is hanging at a 45 angle, all the light organs aim down and produce just enough light to cancel out the silhouette of the squid against the weak light from the surface above. They can even adjust the lights for different depths or time of day."

    Scroll down for the picture of a Jewel Squid [oceans.gov.au].

  • The Sea is one scary place (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Punk Walrus ( 582794 ) on Monday July 07, 2003 @12:19PM (#6383845) Journal
    ... about three quarters of the planet is covered by water
    ... most of it is unexplored
    ... we're not aquatic

    I'd say the odds are against us.

    I used to know a guy who lived in Guam who told me about some of the scary stuff locals would find in trawlers. Most were tiny fish, but a few were big enough to give a trout a run for its money. One of the stories he used to tell me:

    I was sitting up high on some hills, overlooking the deeper waters. I was watching some sport fishermen who were in the process of catching a huge great white shark. It must have been almost a ton in weight. After an hour, they managed to subdue it, and since it was almost the size of their tiny sport boat, they couldn't haul it onboard, and so they dragged it behind them, and had a beer. While it was dragging behind their boat, some huge, dark shape started to follow them. Then the carcass of the shark was yanked down sharply, and then only the head of the shark bobbed back up. You also saw part of its tail drifiting away. I don't know what the hell it was, but in ONE BITE it ripped oout most of the middle of the shark, which meant its jaws must have been over five meters across. I will never swim in the open ocean as long as I live after seeing that shit.
    And now, neither will I. He also said some people he grew up with caught a deep sea ribbon fish (oarfish [thejump.net]?) that was over 40 feet long. He said he didn't care what anyone said, that thing was a sea serpent if he ever saw one.
  • I especially liked the description of the large deep-sea crab:
    In low light levels, red looks black, so it would blend in well in the darkness.

    In other news, scientists have discovered that, with low enough light levels, green, blue, pink, white, and mauve all look black! The scientists involved are currently waiting for a government grant to test such properties on the elusive plaid.
  • I'm getting a lot of press today!

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