Fromscampering octopusestodisco kale , marine biologists have gotten pretty just at parsing all the absurdity the ocean has to offer . Which is why we ’re so delighted by the above TV from theNautilus Exploration Program , in which seasoned scientists greet the sight of a lucent empurpled blob with “ What isthat ? ! ”
The Ocean Exploration Trust’sNautilusresearch vesselhas just wind up a misstep to California ’s Channel Islands , an orbit unremarkably known as theGalapagos of the Northfor its removed location and ecological richness . The islands are part of a interior marine sanctuary , yet very small is know about the topography of the surrounding seafloor , how the realm is endure climate change , or the animate being who survive there .
event in spot : the purple matter . The vessel ’s cameras zoom along in on the unidentified object , which seemed to be made of two distinct pieces . But even at close scope , the blob was no more willing to reveal its secrets . The researchers aboard start to throw out guesses : “ It look like an egg pouch of some sort . ” “ I reckon its some variety of cnidarian ? ” “ It looks like a disco ball . ” “ I ’m stumped . I could n’t even hazard a guess . ”
While there was some spectacular tension when it seemed that a curious Cancer the Crab might kidnap the closed book orb before the squad could collect it with a vacancy tube on a machinelike arm , in the remainder they successfully hoovered it up . The crew turned the gluey candy – front matter over to expert at theHarvard Museum of Comparative Zoology . At the moment , their best guesswork is that it ’s a eccentric ofknobbly , globular ocean sluggard called apleurobranch , but they ’re still far from certain .
[ h / tSmithsonian ]
Header range of a function from YouTube //EVNautilus
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