Siphonophore. A deep sea superorganism.

Hey ATS I came across this video of a Siphonophore. These things are pretty amazing and the ocean continues to make me not want to swim in it.

Siphonophores are especially scientifically interesting because they are composed of medusoid and polypoid zooids that are morphologically and functionally specialized. Siphonophores have been known to grow up to 130 feet in length.[1] Each zooid is an individual, but their integration with each other is so strong that the colony attains the character of one large organism. Indeed, most of the zooids are so specialized that they lack the ability to survive on their own. Siphonophorae thus exist at the boundary between colonial and complex multicellular organisms. Also, because multicellular organisms have cells which, like zooids, are specialized and interdependent, siphonophores may provide clues regarding their evolution

en.wikipedia.org...:



Here are a few other videos I thought were interesting.

Tripod Fish


Macropinna microstoma

The Macropinna microstoma doesn't scare me.

The tripod fish is awesome and doesn't scare me either.

But the Siphonophore scares the crap outta me, can grow to 130 feet long?

Yeah, I will not be swimming in the ocean at anytime, unless I am forced to and then I will put up a fight.

Amazing looking creature. What I don't understand about this deep sea stuff is the technology time line. This vid has a date of 1991 and it looks like it could have been made yesterday.

Originally posted by realeyes
Amazing looking creature. What I don't understand about this deep sea stuff is the technology time line. This vid has a date of 1991 and it looks like it could have been made yesterday.

I was thinking about the same..lol.
If this is from 1991, just imagine the extreme high quality of deep see movies and pics we could have this days...!