Field of Science

Thought-Crime: I Have Slandered the Gelatinous

The video at the end of this post comes via Miriam Goldstein. The beasty (or, technically speaking, colony of beasties) that it shows is a siphonophore not unlike the Physophora hydrostatica illustrated by Haeckel near the beginning of the 1900s:



Siphonophores were covered here back in August, and that post will (hopefully) help you understand just what you're looking at here. Nevertheless, the video above still stunned me. I had assumed that Haeckel had been employing a certain amount of (not entirely uncharacteristic) artistic licence in drawing those curly palpons (the fat tentacle-like structures) - the still photos of siphonophores I had seem looked as if they would be fairly stiff in real life. How wrong I was! Watch the video - those things are sinuous.



Need I remind you that siphonophores can be up to 30 m in length, and severely toxic? Pleasant dreams, kiddies.

5 comments:

  1. Hi Christopher.
    I had no idea they were anythin larger than regular jellyfish, (or similar).
    Scary indeed.
    Cheers
    Denis

    ReplyDelete
  2. Are the people in the corner of the screen supposed to be judging this thing on its scariness levels?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Are you sure that submarine didn't stumble upon R'lyeh?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Christopher,

    I also saw this on pink tentacle (one of my fav sites)

    I thought you might appreciate looking at my book when it comes out in April.

    http://brucemhood.wordpress.com/about-supersense/


    Best

    Bruce

    ReplyDelete
  5. Who knows where to download XRumer 5.0 Palladium?
    Help, please. All recommend this program to effectively advertise on the Internet, this is the best program!

    ReplyDelete

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