Every cloud has a silver lining, and some sub-ice seas have orange starfish February 26, 2007 1:29 PMSubscribe
After two big Antarctic ice shelves broke off several years ago, a world of new species was found underneath. Pictures and a press release came out yesterday, showing spindly orange starfish among other interesting creatures. Here is some more information on the expedition.
The fact that the shelves melted when they did is most likely a result of global warming, but having them out of the way gave researchers a golden opportunity to study what lives beneath the ice.
Other occassions where a disaster has simultaneously been a great research opportunity include radioactive fallouts: at Chernobyl the evacuated area has been monitored for the past decades to see which species move in and how they thrive (previously on Metafilter) posted by easternblot (21 comments total)
7 users marked this as a favorite
MetaFilter: herds of roving sea cucumbers. posted by jimmythefish at 1:42 PM on February 26, 2007
Yay! New squamous beasties! posted by lekvar at 1:47 PM on February 26, 2007
Not 24 hours ago, I specifically requested no follow-up postings of horrifying beasts of the deep! And what do we have here? BEASTS! Squamous beasts. I don't know what squamous means, but it sounds too much like 'squishy' and 'aqueous' to be anything other than freakish, whitish, and neurotoxic.
Oh, and see how the little critters are all facing the same way in this picture? Yeah, that scares the hell out of me. posted by Pastabagel at 2:42 PM on February 26, 2007
Well obviously they are muslim sea cucumbers
This was just on BBC News. Highlight for me was the new sea spider that is ALL legs. No body - just legs. Another one of God's little mysteries. posted by Flashman at 2:56 PM on February 26, 2007 [1 favorite]
I demand the squamous tag! posted by Richard Daly at 3:45 PM on February 26, 2007
I want a blue ice fish, it's so cute!
I also sent the Psychedelic octopus with the subject line 'Jesus appears on face of sea creature!' to a religious coworker who forwards anything and everything*.
Flashman, what's better, when those sea spiders are born they're just a head and they use little head mounted sense organs for locomotion until they get around to growing legs. posted by Kid Charlemagne at 3:59 PM on February 26, 2007
I love this planet. posted by Flashman at 4:40 PM on February 26, 2007
"...male pycnogonid..." (last photo in series)
Looks like the face huggers have finally arrived. posted by 517 at 5:58 PM on February 26, 2007
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn! posted by homunculus at 7:46 PM on February 26, 2007
I demand the squamous tag!
Well, alright, because you asked so nicely. posted by easternblot at 9:12 PM on February 26, 2007
How great to be able to actually see these things before they are killed off by the same temperaturee changes that broke the ice shelves! I hope they take lots of pictures... posted by hermitosis at 6:44 AM on February 27, 2007
From last link:
the benefits to wildlife of removing people from the zone, have far outweighed any harm from radiation.
I always suspected a global nuclear holocaust would have some winners. posted by stbalbach at 7:04 AM on February 27, 2007
The first thing I thought when looking at that orange starfish was "wonder what it tastes like fried." posted by dabitch at 8:44 AM on February 27, 2007
.+Credit%3A+E.+Jorgensen,+NOAA+2007){kind=link}
posted by jimmythefish at 1:42 PM on February 26, 2007