Awesome marine life videos from the web.
A STUNNING VIDEO OF PERMANENTLY MATED ANGLERFISHES has been captured by two marine biologists in the Azores, in the Atlantic Ocean off Portugal’s coast. As deep-sea denizens, anglerfishes are best known for the bioluminescent lures projected from their heads, positioned to attract prey in the dark surrounding waters. With long, sharp teeth, they appear quite fierce, but because of the depths at which they live, much about them is a mystery. REMARKABLE MATING PROCESS But
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THE ESTIMABLE FOLKS AT THE MONTERREY BAY AQUARIUM RESEARCH INSTITUTE are celebrating their success at breeding the comb jelly Leucothea pulchra with a video chowing off its otherworldly, pulsating beauty. As a comb jelly, L. pulchra (whose Latin name means “beautiful sea goddess”) is more properly known as a ctenophore, a gelatinous sea creature somewhat resembling a jellyfish. CTENOPHORES VERSUS JELLIES Unlike with your basic jelly, ctenophores don’t sting. Instead, they have sticky tentacles that trail
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YOU CAN FIND NUMEROUS VIDEOS OF OCTOPUSES HATCHING ON YOUTUBE (always fun to watch). Here’s a short one from the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center that shows something I’ve never noticed. Immediately after shooting into life, the little guy – a Caribbean reef octopus – turns dark brown as it swims rapidly away. In a followup comment, the aquarium staff notes that “Our team believes that there are two possible reasons for the immediate color change.
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ONCE THOUGHT TO BE A SPARSELY INHABITED ENVIRONMENT, the ocean’s deep waters – at least within the California Current off central California – are actually a highly active habitat of predators like squids, sea jellies and other creatures, according to a study by researchers at the Monteray Bay Aquarium Research Institute, based in Moss Landing, CA. They published their study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, described the work in a more reader-friendly
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WHO KNEW? DECORATOR CRABS use a sort of crustacean Velcro to attach stuff to their bodies, as explained in this video –“Decorator Crabs Make High Fashion at Low Tide” – by the terrific PBS project Deep Look.
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THIS FANTASTIC VIDEO, ENTITLED “Meanwhile…” is outside my own goal of explaining things, but it’s an awesome visualization of undersea life directed and shot by Italian filmmaker Sandro Bocci, with original music by Maurizio Morganti. I found it posted on the website of Aeon, a nonprofit site committed to the spread of knowledge and a cosmopolitan worldview. CLOSE UP, SPEEDED UP On Mr. Bocci’s website, the Julia Set Collection, he says: ” …Meanwhile… shows the world of marine animals like corals
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