A few of us were talking at work today about all sorts of nasty things. Started because someone found a big hobo spider, which makes me want to run in fear in all directions. Spiders are bad for me. Give me snakes, no problems. But spiders hootch me out.
So we got to wondering, what creepy creatures give you the willies? Not a fan of bees? Beatles? (Gotta love Sgt. Peppers) Or how about flying cockroaches? Love to hear your thoughts. Comment ahoy!
At the end of Moby-Dick, Captain Ahab finally encounters his White Whale. In the years before and since, marine biologists have pursued the same species, and usually with better luck. Sperm whales have been photographed and filmed, and they’ve even had cameras attached to their heads to gain a “whale’s-eye view.” This research has been conducted for years, and with greater and greater success. The true prize for marine biologists has been to observe a living specimen of the sperm whale’s great antagonist and rival: the giant squid.
Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, a book that did for the giant squid what Melville had done for the sperm whale. Sailors had reported sightings of the great beast, but scientists had never been able to photograph or film a living specimen. The filmmaker Errol Morris devoted an episode of his series First Person to Clyde Roper, an invertebrate zoologist who has has sought, with Ahab’s tenacity, to be the first person to see a living giant squid. Unfortunately for Clyde, he didn’t achieve that goal. But, fortunately for us, the Japanese scientists who did finally see a giant squid caught it on film.
The first photographs of a giant squid were captured in September 2004. It wasn’t until late last year, though, that a living giant squid was captured on film by the same team of researchers. You can watch the video, not yet a year old, right here:
Indeed, some creatures of the sea can seem more alien than anything you can imagine.
But even worse, some of them can seem more frightening than your worst nightmare.Below we have collected pictures of 24 CREATURES FROM THE DEEP!
Chimaeras are cartilaginous fish related to the sharks and rays, and are sometimes called ghost
sharks or rabbitfishes. For defense, most chimaeras have a venomous spine located
in front of the dorsal fin.
snout to scan over the sea floor for the electrical impulses of its prey that bury
in the muddy sea floor, just like a metal detector. Like other chimaeras (such as
ghost and elephant sharks), these animals lay horny egg cases in which their young
are left to develop, potentially for up to one year.
is a deepwater fish with long, needle-like teeth and hinged lower jaws.
sometimes called the Antarctic or Giant Cranch Squid, is believed to be the largest
squid species.
The ocean sunfish
or common mola is the heaviest bony fish in the world, with an average weight of
1000 kilograms.
have eyes on top of their heads (thus the name). They are venomous; they have two
large poison spines situated behind the opercle and above
the pectoral fins. They can also cause electric shocks.
Typified by large heads with large mouths and eyes, grenadiers (rattails) have slender bodies that taper greatly to a very thin caudal peduncle or tail.
This large species has a rounded head and a mouth
which faces forward to catch squid and fish that swim up off the seafloor. As in
most other rattails, the males of this species have a special drum machine on their
swim bladder that is used to attract females. They have to be careful though, as
other fish like morid cods have hydrophones on their swim bladders to hunt down
the sources of such noises.
greatly elongated, pelagic Lampriform fish.
The megamouth shark
is an extremely rare and unusual species of deepwater shark. Discovered in 1976,
only a few have ever been seen, with 39 specimens known to have been caught or sighted
as of 2007 and three recordings on film.
also known as ogrefishes, are deep-sea, ferocious-looking beryciform fish.
are bottom-feeding scorpaeniform fishes.
The Firefly squid.
The aptly-named Handfish.
Coffinfish are flabby bottom-dwelling
fishes that occur in deep waters around the world. They can walk along the sea floor
on short leg-like fins. These fish often come up in the nets swollen into a ball.
Like the pufferfishes, they can swallow large amounts of water to inflate themselves,
presumably making it harder for predators to bite into them.
The blue-ringed octopus is the size of a golf ball, but its venom is powerful enough to
kill humans. There is no known antidote.
level, which would likely make gas bladders inefficient. To remain buoyant, the
flesh of the blobfish is primarily a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less
than water; this allows the fish to float above the sea floor without expending
energy on swimming. The relative lack of muscle is not a disadvantage as it primarily
swallows edible matter that floats by in front it.
