Fun Stuff > CHATTER
Sea Creatures That You Should Probably Be Aware Of
Lummer:
Them there shrimps be METAL!!!
Gryff:
It's threads like these where I wish Duchess Tapioca were still around.
redglasscurls:
Ronburgundy, those shrimp are fucking amazing! I can't believe I'd never heard of them until now, my education seems to have been woefully incomplete!
Verergoca:
This TED thingsy is all about them mantis shrimp. Tis cool!
The extra letter:
(lifted wholesale from a similar post I made at another site)
Polychaete worms (-chaetae because they’ve got little bristles of chitin called “Chaetae” and –poly because there’s lots of them) are in the phylum Annelida, along with leeches and earthworms. While they’re almost exclusively restricted to marine environments they make up about 8000 of 9000 annelid species and are some of the most abundant marine organisms. Probably the most famous polychaetes are the “tube worms” one sees in just about every documentary that features deep-sea geothermal vents.
Many of the species found around the geothermal vents are also notable as they are capable of surviving constant temperatures of up to 80°C. Tubeworms are filter feeders, using those weird feathery appendages they stick out of their tubes to gather nutrients from the surrounding ocean. Just as notable but not quite as awesome looking are the smaller relatives of the ocean vent tubeworms. It’s these tubeworms that are responsible for the weird bone-like squiggles you see on some rocks from the ocean (just in case you ever wondered).
Also worth mentioning are the sandworms (unfortunately not those of Dune fame). These live in U-shaped burrows in sandy areas such as beaches. The end of the burrow where the sandworm’s tail is located is marked by a big coiled pile of sand, where the worm hass been constantly pooping out sand and waste products. This big sandy coiled turd the worm leaves is due to the sandworm’s method of gaining nutrients. Unlike its pickier tubeworm relatives, the sandworm gets all its food by just swallowing a big mouthful of sand and allowing its digestive system to sort out the nutrients from all the sand.
As well as the stay-at-home tubeworms and lugworms, polychaetes are also represented by some far more mobile groups. These active polychaetes can be herbivores, omnivores, carnivores or quite specific parasites on other sea critters. Quite a few polychaetes can look pretty damn awesome, thanks to those chitin chaetae I mentioned. In some cases the chaetae can get a weird rainbow sheen to them that looks a bit like the rainbow reflections you get off CDs.
Like this “sea mouse”.
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