I’m ignoring the disasters in the headlines and think you should too, so here is something super cool:
Anglerfish, with their menacing gape and dangling lure, are among the most curious inhabitants of the deep ocean. Scientists have hardly ever seen them alive in their natural environment. That’s why a new video, captured in the waters around Portugal’s Azores islands, has stunned deep-sea biologists. It shows a fist-size female anglerfish, resplendent with bioluminescent lights and elongated whiskerlike structures projecting outward from her body. And if you look closely, she’s got a mate: A dwarf male is fused to her underside, essentially acting as a permanent sperm provider.
Good work if you can get it.
Davebo
I am not a permanent sperm provider! I am a human being!
satby
Amazing.
Baud
@Davebo:
$50 a pop. You should reconsider.
different-church-lady
DO NOT CONGRATULATE!
TenguPhule
Is this our future then?
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady:
Thread won.
different-church-lady
@Baud: What did Trump say to McDougal?
raven
Meanwhile Lionfish are fucking up the gulf big time.
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-lionfish-gulf-mexico-threat-reef.html
batguano
Neat!
TenguPhule
@raven: They make good eating though. Or so I’ve heard.
raven
@TenguPhule: Yea I caught a nice one and we ate it raw on the dock.
SiubhanDuinne
Watched the video. Background music — hard to discern over the narration — kept tickling at me. Shortly before the end of the clip, thought: “Mussorgsky. Pictures at an Exhibition.” Watched through credits. Chuffed to learn I was right. Can still play “Classical Drop the Needle” and do well ?
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Gotta exercise care. What with the weight of the arms on those old Victrolas, dropping the needle would be enough to shatter the disc.
:)
Mnemosyne
That was cool. I didn’t know about their “whiskers,” and it sounds like nobody knew about the bioluminescence.
Adam K
H.P. Lovecraft would be okay with that.
Davebo
@Baud: Not at current Viagra prices.
Yutsano
@SiubhanDuinne: You know that’s stuck in my head now…
Davebo
@raven: Snapper limit is down to two here. Not even worth gassing up the boat anymore.
Davebo
Betty Cracker has replied to one of my Tweets.
I have arrived!
SiubhanDuinne
@Yutsano:
There are worse earworms.
schrodingers_cat
Totally cheesy but cool..
Afghan Jalebi
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Yeah, but “Drop the Needle” sounds edgier and riskier than “Carefully and Gently Place the Needle.” And much more fun ?
oatler.
Cool fishy!
sukabi
Thank you John. Totally cool respite.☺
oatler.
I never understood why those deep-sea monsters could float ethereally in the water while we need special vehicles to avoid being crushed by kilotons of water.
Amir Khalid
@oatler.:
Their bodies exert an outward pressure that balances the inward pressure. If you took these deep-sea creatures to the surface of the ocean, there’d be no inward pressure to balance the outward pressure, and their bodies might explode.
MoCA Ace
@Amir Khalid:
Sort of… actually all the gasses in their bodies are compressed by the weight of the water and at equilibrium. If the fish is brought to the surface all the gas in its cells would expand greatly and kill the fish.
If my diving knowledge is correct for every 30 feet of depth you add an additional atmosphere of pressure. When humans are in a submarine at that depth the sub is physically resisting all that force since above anything 5 atmospheres for any duration does bad things to the human body. If we didn’t have the submarine all the gasses in our body would compress to such a degree it would kill us.
And yeah… way cool video
pat
Amazing video.
Makes me wonder what “He” was smoking when “He” “designed” that.
////
amorphous
Gross af
Hunter
Sorry to burst your bubble, but this is old news. I saw video of a male deep sea angler fish actually attaching himself to a female on a BBC nature series — I forget which one, but it might have been Planet Earth (which is better than ten years old) or Planet Earth II, both of which have segments on life in the deep sea.
Still, it’s a nice break from what’s passing for “news” these days (i.e., the Trump Eternal Unreality Show).