possible millions of new species

Part of a decade long survey has turned up a vast plethora of new sea creatures from the deepest parts of the sea.

The deep sea is teeming with thousands of species that have never known sunlight, explorers now say.

Revealed via cameras towed deep in the sea, sonar and other technologies, a stunning 17,650 species are now known to thrive in an eternal watery darkness. This menagerie of weird creatures, ranging from crabs to shrimp to worms, somehow manage a living in a frigid black world down to roughly 3 miles (5 km) below the ocean waves.

source

They were talking about it on the radio and claimed that a new octopus has been discovered that uses tools as weapons. Apparently there is video of it using a coconut as a missile. I am looking for that still. There are some interesting pictures within the article and I hope I can embed them later.

From the article-

OIL WORM: After a robotic arm lifted a solitary worm from a hole in the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in what looked like ordinary surroundings, crude oil streamed from both the animal and the open hole. The "wildcat" tubeworm had hit a gusher and was dining on chemicals from decomposing oil, a find made at 3,250 feet (990 meters) at a 2007 voyage.

I would really like to know, if oil is still so RARE, why is it we keep finding it everywhere we look.

Anyway, very cool, I like to read up on rare animals.

edit to add-Okay, went through all of the links and other articles pretty cool. But, why do they have to ruin the article with that last paragraph. I believe we need to stop the polluters. But another Climate Change hack.

The last paragraph

Climate change, changes in ocean acidity, and "evidence of pollutants creeping deeper and deeper into the ocean" are all ways in which the newfound deep-sea creatures could be vulnerable to human-induced changes, Snelgrove and other researchers said.

[edit on 12/15/2009 by endisnighe]

reply to post by endisnighe


Me too. New species fascinate me and this stuff they find in the sea is insane. I am not positive every pic is from this same study but here are a bunch I found when searching on this topic.




































hmmm. some of these are not showing up for some reason.

[edit on 12/15/09 by Lillydale]

I found the tool using octopus.

Coconut-Carrying Octopus: Tool Use in an Invertebrate ScienceDaily (Dec. 15, 2009) — Scientists once thought of tool use as a defining feature of humans. That's until examples of tool use came in from other primates, along with birds and an array of other mammals. Now, a report in the December 14th issue of Current Biology, a Cell Press publication, adds an octopus to the growing list of tool users.

source

It is not as exciting as it sounded on the radio but it is still pretty interesting. Octopi can do some crazy things. If they were not stuck in the water, they would make awesome pets as they seem to be smarter than most dogs.

Mod Edit: Enormous quote from above photo post removed.

wow! they are some interesting pictures! Although It's going to be exciting see and hear about more of these creepy creatures it did not help my fear about being in water that i can't see the bottom of! and i'm not even going to say what that second one reminds me of! haha ;p

[edit on 12/15/2009 by AshleyD]

I am not sure how to embed this video. If anyone can help, that would be awesome. They look pretty cool in motion.

November 22, 2009—Oil-eating tubeworms and 15-tentacled sea cucumbers are among the 5,000 deep-dwelling species identified by the Census of Marine Life, a ten-year effort to chronicle life in the deep ocean

video

Yeah, I always wanted to get about a 1000 gal tank and get an octopi. I cannot remember where I read about them, but they are thought to be almost if not as smart as dogs.

They also can get themselves out of almost anything. That is probably why I decided not to get one.

I could just imagine it getting out and freaking the # out of me.

Wow, that first photo looks weird. Is that a fish and an octopi, or is it some kind of mixture. Or a type of sqid, I am thinking squid now that I think about it. Weird.

reply to post by endisnighe


Sorry, the ones I labeled did not show up and I was too lazy to label the other ones. My bad. The first one, in the upper right hand corner is a man. You can just see his hands and part of his right forarm. That leads me to believe it is a giant squid. I was just going through an image search of any of the new creatures found this year. One of the articles I linked to says they discovered about 5000 new species.

I hear you about the Octopus. I watched a discovery channel special and they kept setting up traps and puzzles and they could figure out either how to escape or get food, whichever the goal was - no matter how crazy the setup was. I can imagine it crawling into bed with you at night. Ewww.

There is the mimic octopus, i think that is what it is called and it can make itself look like a whole bunch of other things like zebra fish and stuff. It was crazy. They are fascinating disgusting little things.

Starred and flagged!

Simply because our own planet is one of the least understood (relatively speaking) aspects of the universe.

reply to post by Lillydale


Here's a video of that mimic octopus, crazy stuff!
MIMIC OCTOPUS

Here's a video of it.
I cant find anything about the animal using coconuts as weapons though.

www.youtube.com...


(I cant embed a YT video, nor use the menu,somehow adding the "You Tube Video Number" from the URL(?) wont work)

Originally posted by SerialLurker
Starred and flagged!

Simply because our own planet is one of the least understood (relatively speaking) aspects of the universe.

Hey thanks. It kills me that we can know so much about other planets and even things beyond our solar system and yet here...They discover 5000 new sea creatures in the last decade and estimate millions more. It feels like a video game where you beat the level and move on but did not bother to gather all the hidden items or solve all the puzzles. I am glad people are still looking.

Barbaricfellow: Thanks for the video. They are neat little critters.

alien lookin critters!

S&F

its crazy what they find where they dont expect life to be

i can imagine where else life could be where we wouldn't expect it.

reply to post by Barbaricfellow



Let me try.

Cool, I got lucky. Thanks for supplying it. I don't know about the weapons either. It is what they said on the radio so I was hoping an article would shed some light on it. They said they used them as missiles but they could have been mistaken. It was just a local haaaaaaaaaard rightwing morning show that is not known for its accuracy in reporting. Still cool to see them utilizing the coconuts anyhow.


[edit on 12/15/09 by Lillydale]

Thats it.
Thank you.

Originally posted by bkaust
reply to post by Lillydale

 

Here's a video of that mimic octopus, crazy stuff!
MIMIC OCTOPUS

Thanks for this too. I know it is not one of the things they just found but it is just too cool to call all that off topic. Right? Who's with me?



Here is another cool video



[edit on 12/15/09 by Lillydale]

I've often thought that creatures like the one below could possibly be the life forms responsible for many ufo sightings.

Other than the general look of these creatures , the ability of this genus of creatures to create light and change colour , to morph , to inflate (like the portugese man o war ) to possibly travel vast distances via air currents the way spiders do via "ballooning".





[edit on 15-12-2009 by Did you see them]

Originally posted by Lillydale

Originally posted by SerialLurker
Starred and flagged!

Simply because our own planet is one of the least understood (relatively speaking) aspects of the universe.

Hey thanks. It kills me that we can know so much about other planets and even things beyond our solar system and yet here...They discover 5000 new sea creatures in the last decade and estimate millions more. It feels like a video game where you beat the level and move on but did not bother to gather all the hidden items or solve all the puzzles. I am glad people are still looking.

Barbaricfellow: Thanks for the video. They are neat little critters.

I agree! I used to play a certain MMORPG, and the amount of websites dedicated to every single aspect of it was astonishing.. hundreds of thousands in about 10 languages... and still, our own planet is a mystery!! I think more importance needs to be placed on how other species can survive and even flourish in extreme environments.. with the emphasis on the environment changes, manmade or not, we could learn a few things from the survival mechanisms of these creatures.

reply to post by SerialLurker


One of the articles mentioned too that scientists were very interested in new fauna being discovered down there because they form new and interesting compounds that could be very useful in medicine. It is a shame that it seems like there may be cures for things in the bottom of the ocean where we cannot get and in the rain forest where we are not looking hard enough. I find it neat though that deep sea plants interest scientist for medicinal reasons. I hate to knock astronomy but it just seems like it might be more useful to explore that than to find out exactly how many rings Saturn has. I am sure that is just me though.