The post The Sports Cars of Worms first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In case you live under a rock…Amelia Earhart, the pioneering aviator, disappeared on July 2, 1937, during her attempt to circumnavigate the globe. She and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were flying from Lae, Papua New Guinea, to Howland Island when they vanished over the Pacific Ocean. Despite extensive search efforts, no trace of Earhart, Noonan, or their aircraft, a Lockheed Electra, was ever found. The disappearance sparked numerous theories, ranging from crash-and-sink scenarios to theories of Earhart being captured by the Japanese. Despite decades of speculation and search missions, the fate of Amelia Earhart remains one of aviation’s greatest mysteries.

On Saturday, Deep Sea Vision, an oceanic exploration firm headquartered in South Carolina, sonar imagery potentially depicting Earhart’s aircraft resting on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Utilizing advanced unmanned underwater drones and a 16-member expeditionary team, the company surveyed over 5,200 square miles of seabed between September and December. Deep Sea Vision’s founder, Tony Romeo. is former U.S. Air Force intelligence officer and aviator and divested his real estate business in 2022 to embark on oceanic exploration, driven by a desire to contribute to the search for answers surrounding Earhart’s disappearance.

The identified plane-shaped entity lies approximately 100 miles off Howland Island, where Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, were scheduled to refuel before their untimely disappearance.

But not everyone is convinced, including Dr. Andrew Thaler of Southern Fried Science

I am also skeptical and I think the Lizard above sum’s it up quite nicely. Granted it is in plausible location. Sure it looks like plane. However sonar is notoriously difficult to deduce meaningful shape from at this level of resolution. This could just as easily be another misshapen bit of wreckage that in sonar looks like an airplane. Second, the big old World War II deposited a lot of airplanes and other vessels on the seafloor in South Pacific.

Also the swept wings of this “plane” do not really match that of Earhart’s Lockheed Model 10 Electra. Of course both could be broken and bent into exactly same angle…

Clearly, better sonar imagery and ROV/HOV dives are needed before this could even be considered plausibly Earhart’s plane.

The post Has Amelia Earhart’s Plane Been Found? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

In 1964, the Antarctic oceanographic research ship USNS Eltanin made the above photograph of the sea bottom west of Cape Horn. The Poles: the final frontier. These were the voyages of the USNS Eltanin. Its 10-year mission: to explore strange new polar worlds. To seek out new life and survey new sealfoors. To boldly go where no man has gone before! Between July 5, 1962, and December 29, 1972, Eltanin conducted 52 Antarctic research voyages, covering approximately 80% of the Southern Ocean and traversing a cumulative distance of 400,000 miles. During these missions, Eltanin gathered magnetic profiles of the seabed, which played a crucial role in substantiating the theory of continental drift by confirming the phenomenon of sea floor spreading.

But back to the aliens. When the above image was published, due to its regular antenna-like structure and upright position led many to postulate was of extraterrestrial origins…an alien antenna

The initial public reveal of this intriguing image occurred when it grabbed attention in the New Zealand Herald on December 5, 1964, under the headline “Puzzle Picture From Sea Bed.” However, the enigma only deepened as additional layers unfolded. In 1968, Brad Steiger contributed to the intrigue with an article in Saga Magazine, suggesting that the Eltanin had captured something truly baffling—a curious apparatus resembling a fusion of a TV antenna and a telemetry antenna at with the height of 1.6 meters. Note there is no idea of scale in the original image so the height was pure conjecture. Various theories continue to circulate during that period, ranging from suggestions that it was a mere fragment that had accidentally dislodged from a vessel to more speculative notions, including the belief that it might be a clandestine endeavor of the Russians, or even more far-fetched hypotheses involving extraterrestrial involvement.

The biologist Dr. Thomas Hopkins, would say of “I wouldn’t like to say the thing is man-made because this brings up the problem of how one would get it there … But it’s fairly symmetrical and the offshoots are all 90 degrees apart”

But apparently all these UFO enthusiasts had missed the 1971 book The Face of the Deep by Bruce C. Heezen and Charles D. Hollister. Hollister who had already identified the mysterious object as Cladorhiza concrescens, a carnivorous sponge. As pointed out by Heezen and Hollister, in 1888, Alexander Agassiz drew the odd creature in Three Cruises of the Blake. From 1877 to 1880, the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey dispatched the steamer Blake on three cruises of discovery—two expeditions to Florida, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean and one off the eastern Atlantic coast as far north as the Gulf of Maine. These cruises were designed to increase knowledge of the depths of the oceans and the animals and plants living on or near the bottom and to pioneer technological advances in oceanography You can access the entire Agassiz’s Three Cruises of the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey steamer “Blake”, in the Gulf of Mexico, in the Caribbean Sea, and along the Atlantic coast of the United States, from 1877 to 1880 online. Agassiz described the strange sponge as having a long stem with ramifying roots deeply embedded in the mud, adorned with nodes bearing four to six club-like appendages, covering extensive portions of the seabed like bushes.

Below is screen grab from remote operated vehicles from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute from one of my dives of Cladorhiza concrescens on the seafloor. Indeed the Cladorhizid carnivorous sponges often have these very spectacular forms with 90 degree angles and intricate structures. I always refer to C. conscescens as the lollipop tree sponge.

However, this identification by Heezen and Hollister remained large ignored. In 2003, a discussion on email list prompted marine biologist Tom DeMary to reach out to A. F. Amos, an oceanographer who had been aboard the USNS Eltanin in the 1960s. Amos had know of the identification of the antenna as sponge and direct DeMary to the book by Heezen and Hollister. DeMary then shared this more broadly.

The post Alien Antenna on Deep-Sea Floor first appeared on Deep Sea News.

One species of anglerfish was filmed off the coast of Monterey, California, revealed drifting and tumbling along, humming Taylor Swift songs.  One of these may not be true.

While it was conventionally thought that anglerfish females swim upright with their lure positioned ahead, a case of inverted swimming emerged about two decades ago—a surprising deviation from the expected norm. Cue original Top Gun reference here. 

Recent research, adding eight new observations to the pool, proposes that this inverted swimming might actually be the norm for these fish. In these instances, the anglerfish maintained a rigidly straight body, with their unpaired fins erect and the lure held downwards when inverted. The tendency of these fish to swim closer to the seabed suggests a potential focus on bottom-dwelling prey. This inverted orientation likely aids in swiftly luring prey away and clearing the path for a well-aimed strike—a tactical advantage in their hunting strategy within the depths.

Stewart, Andrew L., et al. “Upside‐down swimming: in‐situ observations of inverted orientation in Gigantactis, with a new depth record for the Ceratioidei.” Journal of Fish Biology (2023).

The post The Upside Down Feeding Fish of the Deep first appeared on Deep Sea News.

User u/Karzdan posted the above image** of Nereis sandersi  to the Reddit forum. The polychaete worm is known from hydrothermal vents and described relatively recently by Blake in 1985.   Interestingly, N. sandersi is eyeless.

Furthermore, the presence of sunken depressions in places where eyes usually occur in N. sandersi is unique for the genus. The occurrence of such depressions is reminiscent of blind cave-dwelling vertebrates which have only vestigial, non-functional eye rudiments remaining from ancestral progenitors which had sight. The very large peristomial ring and enormous palps would appear to be appropriate sensory replacements for a sightless animal in the deep sea. -Blake (1985)

And so begins the Photoshops

**note I am trying to track down the original photographer of the image to credit them here. UPDATE: credit goes to Nicolas Gayet from Paulo Bonifacio lab.

The post Photoshop Battles with this Image of a Hydrothermal Vent Polychaete Worm first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Cassidy was photographed throughout his run on The Partridge Family as well as on his international concert tours wearing white puka shell chokers. It actually became somewhat of his calling card. While not alone in sporting the puka necklace (rat packer Frank Sinatra had even been photographed with a puka choker), David Cassidy was certainly the most frequent ambassador for this style. Even in first grade, I remember boys and girls wearing puka shells. Which, for a bunch of land-locked Northeast Pennsylvania kids, is amazing. Also, this was decades before cultural appropriation would become part of our everyday discourse.

So, what’s a puka shell?

For us haole kids (I’d learn the word “haole” a couple of years later in 1972 during the Brady Bunch Hawaii vacation episode), Puka just meant “shell necklace.” In 1970, if you found any string of shells, that was a puka shell necklace.

The work “puka” is Hawaiian in origin and means “hole.” Traditionally, puka shell necklaces were constructed from scavenged shell fragments that already had a naturally-occurring hole in them. A genuine puka shell necklace is sourced from the terminal helix of a cone snail. When the snail dies, the shell may eventually erode until the terminal helix breaks off. If the tip of the helix erodes further, it will leave a ring-shaped fragment of shell as a remnant. This natural bead was collected to create the original puka shell necklaces.

Thanks in large part to David Cassidy, demand for puka shell necklaces would skyrocket around the world throughout the 1970’s. To meet demand, any shells were sourced as raw material, and shells and shell fragments from snails and bivalves were cut and drilled to create “puka” beads. This high-volume puka production continues to this day, with the majority of these puka knock-offs coming from the Philippines.  Obviously, there are a plethora of conservation concerns related to the shell jewelry trade, but that’s another post.

Puka shells today remain a mainstay for tourists from Santa Cruz, to Daytona Beach, to Point Pleasant, to Ipanema, to Bondi Beach, to back home in Waikiki. They are part of the surfer phenotype.  A quick rummage through my cabinet of embarrassing and dated jewelry found a motley collection of assorted puka necklaces (from fake to authentic) that I once proudly wore.

But puka shell interest has also evolved. Today, the most prized shell lei and necklace demand is still found in Hawaii, but now its centralized on the small island of Ni‘ihau. There, traditional artists work with tiny ocean snail shells sourced only from the island and meticulously crafted (sometimes over the course of years) to produce exquisite shell necklace designs that can fetch tens-of-thousands of dollars. The traditional craft is so important to Hawaii that in 2004, the Hawaii State Legislature unanimously approved H.B. No. 2569 which prohibits the sale of “seashell items” with a description or label using the term “Ni‘ihau” or “Niihau” unless 100% of the shells are from the island of Ni‘ihau and the item is made entirely in Hawai‘i.

The Ni‘ihau shell-work is astonishingly intricate and beautiful. But shells are still assembled by punching a minuscule hole, a “puka,” in the micro-thin shell in order to pass a thread thread through.

A shell necklace or lei remains an expression of Aloha. “Aloha” can have rather broad definitions. But my time spent working in Hawaii over the years has taught me that it certainly can be used to express a “joyous affection.” It’s in that spirit that I extend my sincere “Aloha” to the memory of David Cassidy for his music and introducing this marine biologist to puka shells.

The post How David Cassidy Introduced A Hawaiian Shell To The World first appeared on Deep Sea News.

With lyrics like

Cries of trout in your sleep
That you lure there with krill
There’s a taste in your mouth
of shrimp cocktail swilled

I know you will enjoy!

h/t Laura Brueckner

The post Koi Division first appeared on Deep Sea News.

On July 20th, 1963, three scientists sat on a research ship 200 miles south of Woods Hole, MA, waiting for something remarkable. They were nearly 4000m above the seafloor, and using a sounder (similar to sonar), they could ‘see’ a line of creatures resting in the deep. By this time, biologists were beginning to unravel the mystery of this ‘false bottom’–a layer in the ocean that looks the the sea floor on the sounder but isn’t–which covered much of the ocean. This false bottom rises in up at night and sinks down during the day. This rising and falling is in fact caused by the largest migration of animal on Earth–everything from fish, shrimp and jellyfish, moving hundreds of meters in unison up and down each day. But how and why these animals rose in fell in the ocean wasn’t clear. As the scientists watched their instruments, the light began to fade. Not from the setting sun, but from something else.

The scientists were trying to answer a question that could be answered literally no other way. Some experts suggested that this massive migration was due to each animal’s own biological rhythm; the same rhythm that causes you to feel jet lag after a long trip. But others thought that the sun itself was driving this massive shift from shallow to deep and back again: as the sun set, animals saw the dimming light and rose to the surface. As the sun rose, they sank again into the deep. How could the scientists test between these two different hypotheses? They can’t exactly alter the sunrise…

Luckily, Earth’s view of the sun is altered once a year thanks to a cosmic twist–when the moon blocks it from view. A solar eclipse on land can be an eerie phenomenon. Nighttime crickets and frogs begin to sing, birds fall silent, even bees return to their hives. But until recently, what happened in the ocean depths was a mystery.

Back on the research ship in 1963, the moon moved into its place in front of the sun, daylight rapidly faded, and the scientists solved the migration mystery: the deep layer of animals began to rise. Bioluminescent creatures started to shine, and nocturnal creatures started a frantic upward thrust. As the world grew darker, they swam upward nearly 80 meters. But this frantic migration didn’t last long. As the moon receded and the sun revealed itself, the massive animal layer did an about-face, scrambling back into the safety of the darkness. One can only imagine the frenzy as millions upon millions of creatures clambered towards the surface and then, just as quickly, rushed back to the deep.

On the boat the scientists could only observe this massive movement with sounder. But it was enough to answer their question. Thanks to the solar eclipse, we now know that animals hiding in the deep are governed in part by the external ebb and flow of light from the sun.

Ancient humans considered eclipses ominous signs. Now, modern humans adopt a more spectator role in this celestial occurrence. There’s even a citizen scientist initiative to understand how creatures on land responds during the upcoming eclipse. But for millions of creatures living in the open ocean, a solar eclipse, at least for a short time, may really spell calamity.

Work cited

RH Backus, RC Clark, AS Wing. (1965) Behaviour of certain marine organisms during the solar eclipse of July 20, 1963. Nature. 4975. pp 989-991

The post What happens in the sea during a solar eclipse? first appeared on Deep Sea News.

Which is why those visiting the California coast for summer vacation might be slightly confused on who dropped the Ramen in the ocean? Why would anyone waste their 10 for $10 special in the briny blue? It’s preposterous.

Well my friends, that’s because only one of these is Ramen noodles. Can you tell which?

Just in case you need a close up…
Yes, only one is Ramen…the other, Sea Hare egg masses. You heard me right.

Now put away your flavor packets and listen up cause we are gonna have “the talk.” When one mommy sea hare loves a daddy sea hare…just kidding they are hermaphrodites so we can throw all of that basically out the window. During their breeding season, sea hares form large aggregations in which they chain together to make the cutest sea hare babies you ever saw. Being hermaphrodites, the adult hares have both lady bits and man bits too and can choose which to use depending on who is where in the love chain.

Once the deed is did, they lay long “Ramen-like” ribbons of about 80 million eggs that attach to the benthos, turn a pinkish-brown, and take about 10-12 days to hatch. Sea Hares live in the plankton for roughly 30 days till they make their way back to the ocean floor and begin to chow down and start the cycle all over again.

So there you have it, no Ramen wasted here. Keep Calm and Noodle on.

The post Only One of These is Ramen Noodles first appeared on Deep Sea News.

While this misconception or inaccuracy may seem harmless, it could pose problems for future conservation efforts, as people are more likely to support conservation of cute rather than creepy-looking animals. While the angler fish is easily turned into a scary monster, the similar-sized tiny Pac-Man looking octopus is cute and popular with the public…If images are posted on social media by laypeople in a way that appears sensational and even heartless, and without any accurate information about the animals, then there is no resulting respect for these sea creatures or educational value. Simply viewing these creatures as freaks, ignores the importance of their role in keeping our oceans healthy.

More recently, DSN republished a very tongue-and-cheek rant about the uselessness of ocean sunfish.  This drew criticism in the comments. “We are in no position to dis other species.” “Agree with…other pelagic researchers…molas are awesome, fast, predators that given their numbers and chosen prey must play an integral role in the open ocean ecosystem. Please stop spreading this rant.”  Let’s not also forget the post where we railed against the cute, cuddly view of dolphins and received a backlash of comments.

So first thing is for everybody to take a breath and stop taking yourselves so damn seriously.

Nobody is going to protect and conserve what they do not know or understand.  These pieces use a whimsical and creative writing style and informal tone to draw the audiences in.  Quite simply these posts draw views, far more than other kinds of posts here at DSN.  The reason?  Because we tap into the human curiosity of the natural world and instill a sense of awe. Or maybe because most people have a sense of humor and like science with a helping of laughter. Humor, ick factor, bizarreness, oddities, and challenging the way we think about species allows us to deliver knowledge.  How many people actually knew about ocean sunfish before the viral rant?

More than once over the years DSN has been criticized for being “too informal”, “not being serious enough about science”, and by far my favorite to date “tarting up science.”

This “oh-so-hip” presentation of a very interesting phenomenon is regrettable. I stopped reading halway [sic] through it as I couldn’t take any more. Just present the science. Tarting it up for people to read is pointless. Such readers have no value. Too bad, I would have liked to learn the real scinece [sic] presented here.

I CAN NOT DISAGREE MORE WITH THESE COMMENTERS.  Our “tarting it up” is and will remain a core value for DSN.  We will continue to work diligently to make science accessible, relevant, current, and of course fun.  Now more than ever.  You know what happens to science writing that is not engaging?  Nobody engages with it.   Quite frankly, the old way of dry science communication and being serious about science did not work.  Science communication occurred within echo chamber and we all patted ourselves on the back for a job well done.  Now, look where we are at. We need new methods engaging new audiences—those audiences that some think have no value.  For Pete’s sake, let’s lighten up and get sense of humor.

More than once here at DSN, we have referred to ocean organisms as monsters.  From parasitic crustaceans to colossal squids, we have playfully applied the monster moniker.  Quite frankly, I believe it is completely acceptable to call deep-sea species monsters, freaks, and oddities.  Anything else would not acknowledge how other worldly, bizarre, fascinating, unique, and, indeed, special these deep-sea species actually are.  That otherness reflects a fascinating evolutionary trajectory these organisms to adapt to the environmental extremes of the deep sea.  They are nothing short of beautiful monsters full of adaptive solutions to the most unique place on earth.  If Monster’s Inc., Where the Wild Things Are, and Cookie Monster taught us anything is that monster’s are lovable and beautiful.

By the way did you know the spinal column of M. mola contains fewer vertebrae and is shorter in relation to the body than that of any other fish.  That’s weird.  Why and how did that happen?  Which brings me to my next point.  When we acknowledge oddity, everyone’s natural next questions are why and how? That’s a good thing…opening the door for some amazing science communication.  To borrow from the ever articulate Jamie Vernon, “Curiosity expands our worldview.”   This weirdness inspires awe and instead of harming them may ultimately lead to their protection.

There is also nothing wrong with acknowledging that some animals suck.  Evolution does not create perfect animals.  Evolution creates just good enough animals.  Anything changes—environment, competitors, predators—those species become not so good.  The history of life on Earth is riddled with story of story of species that just could not cut it; over five billion in fact or more than 99% of all species are now extinct.  The Mola mola, or the ocean sunfish, in many regards is a ridiculous animal with some very peculiar behaviors and evolutionarily good enough.  Of course, I love ocean sunfish because of these.  Also take pandas.  They kind of suck at being a species.

Female pandas can expect a solid 16 years of fertility, but they only ovulate once a year, and can only handle one set of offspring every two years. There’s no clearer recipe for extinction.

In 1940, geneticist Richard Goldschmidt suggested that new species may arise not by gradual change but by macromutations.  Of course, these major mutational changes may be disastrous and fatal.  He called these monsters.  But in very rare circumstances, one of these macromutations, by shear dumb luck, may produce a very well adapted animal ready to exploit a completely new way of life.  His term of these?  Hopeful monsters.

I choose to embrace those hopeful monsters for their oddity, their differences, and sometimes even their suckiness.

The post So yeah ocean sunfish are ridiculous, dolphins are @#$@&, and deep-sea anglerfish are monsters first appeared on Deep Sea News.