Deepsea - Blog Posts

When MBARI’s exploration meets @MontereyBayAquarium’s innovation 🤩✨️⁠ ⁠

Bloody-belly comb jellies, Lampocteis cruentiventer, are ctenophores, not true jellies. Like other comb jellies, they navigate through the water by beating their shimmering, hair-like cilia. These crimson beauties are found in the twilight zone, using their blood-red stomachs to hide a belly full of glowing (bioluminescent) prey. At these depths, red is nearly invisible, turning their vibrant color into the perfect camouflage.⁠ ⁠

This species was first observed off the coast of San Diego in 1979, but MBARI researchers, including Senior Research and Education Specialist George Matsumoto, officially named and described it in 2001.⁠ ⁠ The Aquarium’s husbandry team worked for years to decode the mystery of caring for these jellies, becoming the first to display them. Aquarium experts like Senior Aquarist Evan Firl have been able to extend the captive longevity of this species by reducing oxygen concentrations and mimicking the bloody belly’s deep-sea habitat. ⁠ ⁠ By combining our deep-sea and animal care expertise, the Aquarium and MBARI have made it possible for everyone to see these tiny translucent treasures in person and learn more about these captivating denizens of the deep.⁠

Wake up, babe. New MBARI species just dropped. 🤩 

MBARI researchers have discovered a remarkable new species of sea slug that lives in the deep sea. Bathydevius caudactylus swims through the ocean’s midnight zone and lights up with brilliant bioluminescence.

With a voluminous hooded structure at one end, a flat tail fringed with numerous finger-like projections at the other, and colorful internal organs in between, the team initially struggled to place this animal in a group. Because the animal also had a foot like a snail, they nicknamed this the “mystery mollusc.”

The team first observed the mystery mollusc in February 2000 during a dive with the institute’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Tiburon offshore of Monterey Bay at 2,614 meters (8,576 feet) deep.

They leveraged MBARI’s advanced and innovative underwater technology to gather extensive natural history information about the mystery mollusc. After reviewing more than 150 sightings from MBARI’s ROVs over the past 20 years, they published a detailed description of this animal.

Learn more more about this dazzling new denizen of the deep on our website.

Pyrosome passing through #ClearAPathPeople⁠

Pyrosomes are colonial tunicates made up of thousands of individuals known as zooids. Each zooid is housed in the common gelatinous tunic that makes up the larger cylindrical “body” of the pyrosome. Zooids filter phytoplankton through branchial baskets by creating feeding currents through the tunic. Although each zooid is only a couple of millimeters in size, pyrosomes can reach up to several meters in length. While alive, these organisms spend the majority of their time in the upper water column, but their remains have been found as deep as 4,000 meters (13,120 feet), where they provide food for a variety of deep-sea animals. ⁠ ⁠

Pyrosomes are bioluminescent, producing brilliant blue-green light. Each zooid can detect light and emit light in response, creating waves of bioluminescence up and down the organism’s body. The bioluminescence of one pyrosome can trigger others in surrounding waters, producing beautiful light shows. The name Pyrosoma comes from the Greek term meaning “fire body.”

Anyone else love squids as much as we do? (Qeue slow-motion tentacle-raise) 🙋🏻

Galiteuthis phyllura, also known as the cockatoo squid, lives in the North Pacific from 200 to over 1,000 meters (660 to 3,280 feet) deep. This species has a transparent body and photophores, or light organs, under their eyes. We often encounter them hanging horizontally in the water column with their arms raised above their heads.

so

you see a lot of movies about how dangerous space is and aliens attacking the planet and being really hostile or attacking our spaceships and what not but

you know what’s really terrifying?

the ocean.

i’m not talking about sharks or jellyfish or even the creepy anglerfish

i’m talking about what we can’t see, like why are there not more movies about the deep ocean? “oh, because we don’t know what’s down ther—“

you don’t know what’s out there either and there are four alien movies, two AVP movies and at least two predator movies!

you want horror? let’s leave the sharks alone and have a submarine crash at the bottom of the ocean floor, let’s have scuba divers trying to catch a rare fish and finder a monster

like

the ocean