Holidays 2: Wetter and Wilder

Tired of boring old christmas and valentine's and halloween? Wanna try something new? You're in the right place! Here we celebrate a new generation of holidays, with a marine twist. It's new but it's not fresh (it's salty).

[montereybayaquarium]

🎬 Lights, camera, SHRIMP!

Pass the popcorn, we’re sea-ing stars! 🤩 The shrimp have taken over the sea-nema and become shellebrities in these re-imagined movie posters… Which one do you think would be a hit film?

[marinella-ela]

[typhlonectes]

Southern sand octopus

[jumpintothewaves]

Weirdo Wednesday

Hello!! Welcome back to weirdo Wednesday! This week I am happy to talk about one of my favorite weirdos….

The Greenland Shark: Somniosus microcephalus

Everything you will read about this weirdo sounds like it could be fake, including the way he looks. They are a member of the sleeper shark family, who are known for being incredibly slow and non-aggressive. They live at depths of about 8,000 feet, making them another weirdo with deep sea gigantism! These weirdos can grow to 23ft long, and weigh a whopping 2,260 pounds! Their skin is made of an incredibly tough material called dermal denticles. The small thing protruding from its eye is a parasitic copepod (Ommatokoita elongata) that feeds on the Greenland Sharks corneas. This crustacean is a common occurrence with this weirdo, and unfortunately leads to their blindness. Lucky, this isn’t a huge problem for organisms in the deep sea where sunlight doesn’t penetrate.

An Ancient Weirdo

The Greenland Shark has no verified attacks on humans. Scavenging is more their style! Studies on stomach contents of dead sharks have found traces of fish, marine mammals, and shockingly even reindeer and horses! Because they don’t move fast, all of these meals were acquired after they died! Even though they are virtually blind, tissue is added to their eyes as they age. After finding this out, scientists were able to determine the age of 2 dead Greenland Sharks and determined that they were between the ages of 335-392 years old!! And these aren’t even the oldest sharks! There are living ones that are believed to be just under 500 years old! They were roaming the seas with some of the first European explorers. They are the longest-living vertebrates known to us. 

Other weird facts

While I said the Greenland shark doesn’t attack humans, divers have reported being ‘stalked’ by this weirdo. Their meat is also toxic! Untreated, it contains high levels of trimethylamine, a compound found in many bony fish that stabilizes their ability to exist in high pressure zones. The Greenland sharks’ levels of trimethylamine is much higher, and has similar effects to alcohol poisoning on humans. As humans do, the people of Greenland and Iceland have found ways to dry, ferment, and consume it. It’s a delicacy known at as Hákarl! The only other known organism to hunt this weirdo is a sperm whale. I would imagine hunting an animal with tough skin, poisonous blood, and 500 years worth of survival skills would not be an easy feat. 

Want to learn more about Hákarl? check out this video!!!

[bogleech]

REMINDER: the part of a comb jelly that looks like a mouth is in fact a mouth

[bogleech]

Turns out I do need to clarify that these particular comb jellies are actually not filter feeders :)

these are also the true actual first animal group that’s ever thought to have existed; comb jellies or ctenophores are survivors from the *ediacaran,* the point in time where we can’t even guess what kind of animal most of the fossils are. But, maybe all of them were just wacky shaped comb jellies???? we will never know. this one ate them all.

[montereybayaquarium]

[bogleech]

precisely the correct music for this wet animal creature

[midwest-merman-deactivated20210]

This feels like a video game animal interaction

[teathattast]

Wake up babe new fish dropped

[noaasanctuaries]

Fun fact: Did you know whale sharks are actually whales? 

April fools! These gentle behemoths are actually the largest fish in the ocean! Whale sharks eat mostly small organisms like plankton, schooling fish, and squid, which they strain from the water as they swim with their meter-long mouths and specialized teeth. Give us your best ocean joke below! (Photo: Sam Farkas. Image description: Close up on the head of a whale shark swimming by.)

[babyfoxcollectionthings]

[seatrench]

Poralia rufescens

(source)

[seatrench]

Rare footage of a Greenland Shark (Somniosus microcephalus)

Greenland Sharks are the longest lived vertebrate, with lifespans of 400+ years, and are the largest arctic fish. The majority of Greenland Sharks are blind due to parasitic copepods that attach themselves to the eye. They are generalist scavengers, eating carcasses of animals that have fallen to the seafloor. They are rarely seen by humans due to their deep habitat.

(source)

[nanalineni]

NEW WHALE ??!!?

[nanalineni]

NEW WHALE DROPPED

[shan-and-therapy]

"HAIL TO THE WHALE 🐋"

[mooonjellies]

Newport Oregon Aquarium jellies by fockalyn

[oceansoftheworld]

(Photo by Joao Bruges)

Whale shark in the Azores

[somosefimeroscomorayos-deactiva]

[worldofwhales]

Majestic humpback whale || by Scott Slawinski

[vpandav]

colorjellyfish

[noaasanctuaries]

Celebrate Manatee Awareness Month with us by showing this gentle friend some love. In the winter months, these mammals can be found grazing in the shallow waters of Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Unfortunately, they are endangered largely due to human activity. Manatees are slow-moving and therefore unable to swim quickly away from boats, resulting in collisions. In areas that are known manatee habitats, be sure to slow down and keep an eye out! (Photo: Bob Bonde/USGS. Image description: Close up of a manatee.)

[montereybayaquarium]

A quiz for the deep-sea expert or budding investig-otter: Can you name all 15 of these mysteries of the deep?