11/7/2003: Newly discovered sea creature
 

http://cellar.org/2003/newseacreature.jpg

Such a little cutie!

This sea creature lives 10,000 feet (6500 m) under the Pacific Ocean near Japan. The Japan Marine Science and Technology Center is apparently responsible for this picture of it.

There's still stuff we're finding out about this planet...

Wow thats cool!

Damn Tony I almost mailed you that but then I forgot about it. But, I figured you probably troll the Yahoo news most frequently emailed photos too! ;)

What struck me about it is that they give no info as to the scale of the picture. I assume it's not seven feet long (but who knows?), but is it an inch long? 4 inches? Is it microscopic? Yeah, I could probably find out. But I'm too lazy.

I just did a little reading, and it's about a meter long. So...

Re: 11/7/2003: Newly discovered sea creature
 

Was it the original story that said it was 6500m? 10 000ft works out to just more than 3000m.

looks a lot like stuff from that movie "the abyss" -

Are those Japanese harpoons sticking out all over?;)

I wonder if it boils up well...

Not sure if you'd wanna eat it... don't most creatures that glow emit radiation?

Nope, its bioluminescense (look ma, no spell checker!). Its a lot like the glow sticks people use for Halloween and concerts.

*Cliff Claven voice* - If I remember correctly, in WWII the Japanese used the glowing shell of a type of oyster or clam to read maps at night.


PS - found a linkphosphorescence

Have some short thin asian person deliver it to your home in a paper box. Smothered in MSG and some sweet sauce I'm thinking it tastes just like chinese food. :D

Now if only you'd remembered the apostrophe for the contraction "it's". :)

Punctuation Nazi. :p

:eek3:

Japanese food
 

Is it jello? Or is it sushi?

It's Jellushi!

Even comes with its own chopsticks, apparently.

On the serious side, I imagine the feelers are sensory organs. But of what type? Smell? Touch? Passive electric field bio-radar? As those depths, even with bioluminesence, I don't imagine Sight works for much, unless the feelers are the substitute for eyeballs.

It is certainly strange.

In other news, Japanese Researchers announced that this is the fifth such creature they have attempted to photograph. It took three years to develop photographic film with enough sensititvity and speed in low light to capture this picture. Unfortunately, the previous four photographs were taken the Xenon flash *on*, during which the creature exploded like popcorn. :p