Sea Stars

December 1, 2009 4:46 PM

Timelapse of swarming monster worms and sea stars (via)
posted by vronsky (59 comments total)

I am continually floored by how awesome our planet is.
posted by brundlefly at 4:51 PM on December 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

(and I mean awesome in the original sense)
posted by brundlefly at 4:52 PM on December 1, 2009

I am SO looking forward to this being released on blu-ray (anyone know when that is?)! When it does I am going to plant my ass on the couch and watch the entire thing straight through.

On further searching, it looks like it comes out on Earth Day next year. AARGH!
posted by dolface at 4:53 PM on December 1, 2009

One of the tags on that YouTube page is for "digestive juices," a phrase apparently also used to tag this one.

Suffice it to say that I will NOT be asking Ms. Watson for her smoothie recipes.
posted by Dr. Wu at 4:56 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Beautiful.

That said, I am somewhat relieved I don't have to squeeze my stomach out of my mouth to digest my lunch.
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:59 PM on December 1, 2009

... I...

Oh gods, so glad I'm on dry land.
posted by strixus at 5:02 PM on December 1, 2009 [5 favorites]

What I enjoy so much about time lapse photography is that it reveals many so-called 'inanimate' or 'simple' living things on our planet to be active and responsive, but just a bit slower moving. I remember one BBC video of plants that, when sped up, looked more like an orgy of monster violence than a rainforest floor. Down with time chauvinism!
posted by farishta at 5:03 PM on December 1, 2009 [17 favorites]

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH...
Who feeds on a seal carcass under the sea?
NE! MER! TE! AN!
Slimy and yellow and pointed is he!
NE! MER! TE! AN!
If nautical munchin' be makin' you squirms
NE! MER! TE! AN!
Don't sink to the bottom or else you'll get worms!
NE! MER! TE! AN!
Ready?
NE! MER! TE! AN!
NE! MER! TE! AN!
NE! MERRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! TE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!
posted by Sys Rq at 5:07 PM on December 1, 2009 [18 favorites]

Amazing - certainly a side of the ocean I've never seen before. The starfish running all over the place, ridiculously cool.

Oh, what? No, I'm good, I'm just going to be over here calling my lawyer and having him cancel my burial at sea.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 5:15 PM on December 1, 2009

That is some pre-Cambrian shit right there.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:18 PM on December 1, 2009 [8 favorites]

Next time out to sea
Bring enough soil to bury me
For I don't want my final jig
In the belly of a squid
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:21 PM on December 1, 2009

They are coming for me. I can feel it.
posted by ColdChef at 5:21 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I have a recurring dream where I have to walk across a floor covered with squirming snakes and slugs... so, yeah, a little a bit like that.
posted by codacorolla at 5:24 PM on December 1, 2009

The description lists the worms as 3 feet long...it is actually 3 meters. I was night diving in Cozumel once and we saw what looked like a cable of some sort, extending about 15-20 feet. The dive master touched it with his finger, and is shrank to about 5 feet, then he did it again and the worm completely receded into its hole. Those things are awesome.
posted by Chuffy at 5:26 PM on December 1, 2009

MRRRROOOAAAWW. MMRRRROOOOOOAAAAAAWWW.
posted by Rhaomi at 5:35 PM on December 1, 2009 [5 favorites]

So much cooler than turning to compost and being eaten by landworms.
posted by Silentgoldfish at 5:46 PM on December 1, 2009

Man, I grew up with my mom and teachers calling them "starfish." I know they're technically not fish, but is calling them sea stars a new thing? Was starfish a regional term?
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:57 PM on December 1, 2009

I imagine that once footage starts coming out of dead polar bears being eaten by these things, the CATO institute and the CEI will start anthropomorphizing sea stars and nematodes as the cutesy little guys who just love global warming, and who are much better than any dumb ol' bear. Cutifiy jellyfish (which, IIRC, are the biggest beneficiaries of climate change), and it all comes together.
posted by mccarty.tim at 5:59 PM on December 1, 2009

So, now I have a new buried alive nightmare scenario. Great.
posted by oddman at 6:03 PM on December 1, 2009

And that, kids, is what happens to you when you die.

Sweet dreams!
posted by klanawa at 6:04 PM on December 1, 2009

Can't sleep. Starfish will eat me.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:07 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

The Seattle Aquarium has a sea star display with a timelapse video of the last N hours. I was completely freaked out by that when I saw it (as an adult!). This is 100x worse. (Also, did they really have to specify that it was a pup?)
posted by DU at 6:08 PM on December 1, 2009

is calling them sea stars a new thing?

If by "new" you include anything since around 1995, yes.
posted by DU at 6:09 PM on December 1, 2009

To be honest, I'd be totally okay with my corpse being hug-nibbled by a zillion Froot-Loop-coloured starfish. The worms...well...I guess they look enough like poops that I might not mind them squishing their way through me.
posted by Sys Rq at 6:11 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Main Entry: cognitive dissonance
Function: noun
Date: 1957
: psychological conflict resulting from incongruous beliefs and attitudes held simultaneously. For example, the belief that starfish are the most cutest and annerable creatures in the sea, esp. in stop-motion film, vs. the belief that anything munching on a corpse is revolting.
posted by drlith at 6:20 PM on December 1, 2009 [4 favorites]

Squick.
posted by signal at 6:26 PM on December 1, 2009

That totally creeped me out.
posted by empath at 6:29 PM on December 1, 2009

You have to hand it to youtube comments, sometimes they're funny:

gangreneousdicks (2 hours ago)
THlS MAKES ME HARD

posted by Rhomboid at 6:37 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

im totally down to let these dudes eat me up

come and get it suckers!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 6:42 PM on December 1, 2009

Totally do not watch this in the nude.
posted by griphus at 6:55 PM on December 1, 2009

...I'd be totally okay with my corpse being hug-nibbled by a zillion Froot-Loop-coloured starfish....

I slightly misread your sentence and suddenly had a mildly traumatic flashback of being about three years old, and having a nightmare that I was being eaten by Froot Loops that flew down and attacked me.

Now my subconscious knows there is one less place to hide.

Thanks, partially-learned speed reading skills. I really should have finished that instruction book years ago. But nooooooo; I thought that Tom Baker Dr. Who marathon was more important in Jr. High School.

Still, that video was astounding adn beautiful. I want an entire channel to just have time-lapse nature footage. No narration, or maybe just as a secondary audio track, but you'll watch it for hours, because some creature is going to get eaten by some other creature, and it will be amazing.
posted by chambers at 6:57 PM on December 1, 2009

makes me want to leave instructions to throw my reusable-organs-removed body on the ocean floor. way cooler than being eaten by maggots/fungi. (not being sarcastic)
posted by Neekee at 7:35 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

Equal parts "cool!" and "ewwww."
posted by Monsters at 7:43 PM on December 1, 2009

Nekee, you have two kidneys. You really only need one to live. You could just get one taken out, throw it out there and see it while you're still alive. Even a gall bladder is optional in this day and age.

At least you get a good show out of it. It would kind of suck to go to all that funeral preparation and miss out on all the fun.
posted by chambers at 7:51 PM on December 1, 2009

HOLY FUCK THIS IS INCREDIBLE
posted by Greg Nog at 7:57 PM on December 1, 2009

That is some pre-Cambrian shit right there.

My finger hovered over the favorite button for so long, but I just couldn't, because these guys are Ordovician and later. Not that 90+ million years is all that much in context. Does this make me weird?
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 8:10 PM on December 1, 2009 [10 favorites]

...and things have learnt to walk which ought to crawl...
posted by Scattercat at 8:31 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

I can't get it to play in 1080 for some reason, but even in 720 it looks amazing. This is what hi def was made for.

And yes, I would be happy for starfish to nibble on me, even the occasional urchin, but no giant worms through my eye sockets please.
posted by vronsky at 8:41 PM on December 1, 2009

Man, I grew up with my mom and teachers calling them "starfish." I know they're technically not fish, but is calling them sea stars a new thing? Was starfish a regional term? -- mccarty.tim a

If by "new" you include anything since around 1995, yes. -- DU

They started doing it back when I was a kid, gees, way back in the early 1960s. The theory was that kids would get confused and think it was a fish so we better call it a sea star instead.

As usual, the Kindergardners are smarter than the clueless Ivory Tower scientists. I didn't know a single kid who thought a star fish was a fish, but every one of us got confused when they changed the name on us.

It's just like that thing I've complained about before: "The American Buffalo is not a buffalo, it's a bison. Therefore you are no longer allowed to name it The American Buffalo even though it has been called by that name since the 1500s."

You know, kindergardners, just like the rest of us, can figure these things out, sometimes better than the anal scientists.

Oh, and the whole timescale shifting thing is so cool--bringing other being's worlds into our scale--star fish in time lapse and hummingbirds in slow motion.
posted by eye of newt at 10:32 PM on December 1, 2009 [1 favorite]

You know, kindergardners, just like the rest of us, can figure these things out, sometimes better than the anal scientists.

The preferred term is gastroenterologists.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:41 PM on December 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

Huh. When I saw a coral reef full of sea stars they just all laid there. I must have been doing it wrong.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:43 PM on December 1, 2009

The worms crawl in,
the worms crawl out.
They play pinochle
at your snout.
posted by shinyshiny at 11:03 PM on December 1, 2009 [3 favorites]

We once dissected starfish in high School. They're full of green goo.
posted by Skygazer at 12:21 AM on December 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Forget the Viking burial or the Tibetan sky burial...

This. This is how I want to go.
posted by Ouisch at 12:59 AM on December 2, 2009

The sea-star vs. starfish non-distinction always confuses me because it makes me think of brittle stars vs. starfish, which is an actual distinction (class Ophiuroidea vs. Asteroidea, according to wikipedia). Or maybe the brittle-star distinction confuses me because it makes me think of the sea-star non-distinction? Anyway, the point is, I am confused. It is very dark in here and I am likely to be eaten by an echinoderm.

I just couldn't, because these guys are Ordovician and later. […] Does this make me weird?

Maybe. But if so you're not the only one.
posted by hattifattener at 2:25 AM on December 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

This summer I scuba dived in a sea cave in Shetland. About 30m inside it, at about 25m deep, was a rabbit. I have no idea what it was doing there, but it was providing a meal for 3 starfish. A pretty cool sight to see, but it freaked me right out at the time.

This series (Life) has been excellent. Many of the sequences have been truly breathtaking, I particularly like the little bits at the end of each program explaining how they filmed some of the key bits. Here are some more amazing sequences that the BBC have put on YouTube. In my opinion they've kept the best ones to themselves though:
The bouncing toad, The water repellent gecko, The Jesus lizard, Monkey bashes nuts, Fruitbats.

Nature is truly wonderful!
posted by jonesor at 3:52 AM on December 2, 2009

Somehow chocolate sea star just doesn't have the same ring to it.
posted by CardinalRichelieuHandPuppet at 3:54 AM on December 2, 2009

..and I imagine each sea star screaming "heeeeeeeelp meeeeeeeee!"
posted by The Whelk at 6:05 AM on December 2, 2009

We once dissected starfish in high School. They're full of green goo.

You're doing it wrong. (the orange goo is gonads)
posted by lostburner at 6:28 AM on December 2, 2009

jonesor, when I click your links I get:
"This video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions. "

Considering how many times I hear people outside the US complaining about getting messages like this, it probably serves us right that it happens to us too.
posted by eye of newt at 7:27 AM on December 2, 2009

This video was pretty amazing, but the footage of Humboldt Squid hunting together really freaked me out. (Sorry, can't look for any right now. And it probably would only work in the UK.)
posted by wilberforce at 7:52 AM on December 2, 2009

Beautiful. I love the incongruity of seeing a corpse being nibbled while hearing a soothing voice and gentle music.
posted by binturong at 9:22 AM on December 2, 2009

... I...

Oh gods, so glad I'm on dry land.

Give it time. The stars will be right soon enough...
posted by FatherDagon at 12:29 PM on December 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

here is an amazing clip from a fantastic Nature episode on pbs called Superfish -- Baby Sailfish -- it's so tiny!

youtube
posted by vronsky at 1:54 PM on December 2, 2009

These stars, they're right?
posted by Smedleyman at 4:31 PM on December 2, 2009

"This video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions. "

Fortunately, my Yankee ass has discovered that the first four episodes are available as a torrent-file! Take THAT, King George!
posted by Greg Nog at 4:45 PM on December 2, 2009

jonesor, when I click your links I get:
"This video is not available in your country due to copyright restrictions. "

Sorry! That's really annoying.
posted by jonesor at 5:17 PM on December 2, 2009

My finger hovered over the favorite button for so long, but I just couldn't, because these guys are Ordovician and later. Not that 90+ million years is all that much in context. Does this make me weird?

Fair enough! I'm no expert on invertebrates, but this reminded me of accounts of the animals in the Burgess Shale. (Reasonably up to date accounts, anyway.) All squirming and soft and crawling over the mud to go predating on other squirming soft predating things . . . but even so perhaps that is too early.
posted by Countess Elena at 5:46 PM on December 2, 2009

see also
posted by Eideteker at 4:44 AM on December 3, 2009