Image: NOAA Pelagothuria natatrix |
We've seen swimming sea cucumbers before - in fact, they're quite famous by now. However, they've all been what you might call "bottom bouncers". They lounge around on the sea floor, eat everything in sight, and then swim away to find greener (muddier) pastures to descend upon and eat some more.
Image: Freshwater and Marine Image Bank Top view |
The pictures above both show a top view of P. natatrix. You can see what might be called an umbrella, reaching up to 16 cm (6 in) across.
Apparently the oral tentacles can be extended and spread out |
Image: Freshwater and Marine Image Bank Side view |
This species belongs to the Pelagothuriidae family, which it shares only with our old friends in the Enypniastes genus. Have a look at Enypniastes! You'll notice that the big differences to be seen is that P. natatrix has a much bigger umbrella, a much smaller body and its mouth has shifted to face upwards.
There isn't much known about these gelatinous spectres with their vampiric capes. Apparently they live all over the world and have been spotted at depths from 600 to 6,000 metres (2,000 to 19,700 ft), but it can't be easy to learn about a creature that spends all its life in the middle of nowhere. And few creatures are closer to the very centre of nowhere than this one!
I would dearly love to see that umbrella at work. And given that it's a sea cucumber we're talking about, I imagine those oral tentacles opening up to catch marine snow, the succulent dollops of bacteria-infested muck that constantly drift down from higher regions of the sea.
Image: Freshwater and Marine Image Bank |
Video stills of Pelagothuria. Just about... |
That's the gut-wrenching thing about all this. What if there has been a youtube video of Pelagothuria out there this entire time? Maybe it's called "weird jellyfish" or "?" or "MN_0073" and it's been there for years accumulating ones of views.
Will we ever find it?
I'll ready up my best squeal of excitement, just in case.
Turns out there's actually color footage of it on YouTube. It's just buried about 7 minutes into the Funniest Fails Jan' 12 video.
ReplyDeleteAlso, what a weird thing. I know you pride yourself on showing us weird things, but this is probably in the top ten.
this thing is quite alien, isn't it?
ReplyDeletequite pretty! and ethereal.
ReplyDelete@Crunchy: Haha! I guess it bumped into the camera.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, this is definitely one of the weirdest out there. I hope I get to see some more of it soon!
@Porakiya Draekojin: Too right! I could well imagine it living in the thick, gaseous atmosphere of an alien world.
@TexWisGirl: Yes, I bet they'd look even more so in motion!