theyre so cuteeeee and bioluminescent too 😍🫶
The mushroom soft coral (Heteropolypus ritteri) is one of the most common animals we see in the depths off the central coast of California. They are abundant on the jagged walls of Monterey Canyon and the rocky slopes of local seamounts. Fast currents running along the bottom can carry an abundance of plankton and other tiny bits of food. Heteropolypus extends delicate tentacles into the currents to snag a feast. When their tentacles are extended, they resemble a beautiful flower. When the tentacles are pulled in, they look more like their namesake—mushrooms.
A resident of rocky environments, the mushroom soft coral offers safe haven for small animals seeking protection. A snailfish may hide near the umbrellas of stinging tentacles. A shrimp might hang on to weather the storm of strong currents. A mother catshark may secure her egg cases to the coral’s sturdy trunk.
Unlike their close cousins in shallower waters, the mushroom soft coral spawns year round. Their larvae are large and have robust energy reserves to ensure their survival as the currents running along the seafloor carry them to new environments. But some of the larvae stay close to home—we sometimes see clusters of smaller corals alongside a big parent. Growth studies suggest this coral can live at least 25 years, perhaps even longer.
Some of our observations have sparked intriguing questions. For example, we have learned that when disturbed, the mushroom soft coral glows with a steady blue light, but we still do not know why Heteropolypus produces brilliant bioluminescence or how this light show affects their neighbors.
The abundance of mushroom soft corals and their diverse relationships with other bottom-dwelling animals tell us they are an important part of the seafloor community. But the intimate interactions among deep-sea animals only become apparent when we conduct regular surveys. We cannot protect what we do not understand. Our research is helping improve our baseline understanding of the largest environment on Earth, even if our encounters sometimes yield more questions than answers.
idk, my little sister named my dog Ziggy and i don’t think she knows anything about David Bowie… she listens to brainrot songs and nothing else 😭😭
but the other Ziggy i know irl im pretty sure is named after ziggy stardust
There’s a “cat checkpoint” post going around, so this is a
i got distracted trying to clean my room
again
i found my oil pastels and some random drawings from a while ago
the 3rd one is a fairly abstract quick sketch of the view from my window bc today it’s raining so it looks pretty ☺️
yayyy tysm!!!! 😊 i think ur really really cool too! and thanks for letting me yap to u about bioluminescence, it made my dayy ✨
Yayy new moot! And she's a marine biologist!!
( @ang3l-ocean i think you're immeasurably cool )
i’ve started watching arcane and my friend told me ‘don’t trust the ginger’ so i googled her
why does she have such a preppy name and the EXACT SAME HAIR i had when i was 13???
my opinions on each arcane episode as i watch them part 2!! here is part 1
season 1 episode 3:
starting off strong i’m jumpscared by a guy drowning in piss yellow water???
‘our hextech dream’ ahhh such cutiessssss
viktor’s little smile omg
im crying already vi was enough BUT LITTLE EKKO CRYING TOO?!!!
I AM DEAD I AM CRYING I WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN OH MY GOSH
THE REGRET ON VI’S FACE AND HOW SHE LOOKS AT HER HAND IM GONNA BE SICK IM CRYING
VI DIDNT MEAN TO LEAVE YOU PLEASE OMG
also what happened to vi????
i’m dead
if you can’t tell i cried like a lot during this episode…
season 1 episode 4:
where is viktor’s credit bro
who is the owl mask dude with a hoverboard
caitlyn what is that hat
the police guy with the aussie accent is lowkey an icon. i loved his ten seconds of screen time. love the aussie representation
UM EXCUSE ME WHERE IS VIKTOR’S CREDIT
EXCUSE ME MR JAYCE UGLY JAWLINE CHAD FACE DID YOU JUST LISTEN TO THE DOBBY LORAX FURRY THING OVER YOUR TWINK WITH AN ACCENT?!!!!!!!!
vi omg hello where were u
so far my favourite characters are viktor and vi and i have cried 3 times!!!
also the music in the show is really good :)
i’m so sorry i don’t have any of the magpies or spinifex pigeons but i have some other quirky australian bird photos i have taken…
one time a kookaburra swooped my friend and stole her food, and another time my friend fed a seagull some chicken. also the black swans sometimes attack people
hiiiii u seem rly cool!! :) birds are awesome, my grandmother always leaves out food for the magpies that come to her garden and now they come to her house every single day. there is also a random crow nest in a tree at her house and it’s so cool bc it’s made out of all sorts of trinkets and wire and stuff they’ve taken from her garden. the coolest birds i’ve ever seen are spinifex pigeons tho.
anyway i hope u have a good day/evening/night!!!!
THATS SO COOL OMGGGGGG
Pls get a photo for me if you can babes that would be sick omgg
Thank you for reaching out!! I just got to work so we're gonna see how it goes
I've been on a hiatus from bird photos in the blog but theyre coming back soon dont worry!
i hate how my science teacher is simplifying concepts so much to the point where it’s incorrect information
like no thanks i actually want to learn everything i can about science and i want to collect knowledge like a little gremlin with shiny rocks instead of just ‘you’ll learn about that more if you do chem for uni!! for now let’s just go with this.’
i’ve finshed my crochet cat alien!!!! 🐈⬛🌟💚🛸💫🎀
she’s so cute i love her so much 🫶 idk what to name her tho
the free pattern i used is Gato alien by por machape (it’s in spanish so i kinda had to guess what it was saying 😅🥲). the yarn i used is Moda Vera Blankie yarn with a 9mm hook
watching caitvi edits and i genuinely can’t get over how they look at each other. you can feel EVERY emotion they feel in their eyes. all the anger, pain, love, happiness, the LONGINGGGGG!!!!! two sexy ppl staring at each other… i think i might faint
Hiya! I just found Ur account cos Ur silly lil shark drawings came up on my dash and omg U seem super cool! If U want to yap, I adore jellyfish so would love to hear anything abt them! Alternatively tho you could yap about literally anything to do with marine bio and I will absolutely read lol. Anyways omg I'm sure this account is gonna be such a slay, from one ocean-obsessed INFP to another🌊💙
hiiiiii!! nice to meet u! 😊 ur account is literally so cool omg 😍🌊
jellyfish are soooo cool!! do u have a favourite type of jelly?? i think i like the atolla jellyfish or helmet jellyfish. there are a lot of jellyfish in the river where i do rowing training, they’re these brown ones, i think they’re called australian spotted jellyfish.
the cute little brown jellies and the sunrise at the rowing shed 😊
atolla jellyfishh (or deep-sea crown jellies i think) look like tiny little UFOs. they’re about 15 cm wide. they have a bioluminescent bulb that they use to disorientate and confuse predators that are threatening them, and allowing them to swim away. also they eat plankton.
there is also a type of jellyfish which is called an immortal jellyfish that can revert back to a polyp when it is physically injured as an adult, and then regrow to be genetically the same as an adult again. they do this through transdifferentiation, a process where cells that are specialised for a specific tissue can turn into a different type of cell that is specialised for another tissue. they are also reallllyyyy small, less than half a centimetre big fully grown.
anywayyy tysm for ur message!! i hope u learned something!!!
also i hope u liked my shark drawings 🙃🦈
hi! i'm Ella 🌊 she/her 🐚 infp 🪸 pansexual 🪼 professional yapper (especially about marine biology) 🫶
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