Click to enlarge
"Some creatures make humans look like feeble also-rans. Thriving in the harshest habitats on the
planet, organisms like these may have been the first on Earth and others may live elsewhere in
the Solar System. BEING boiled alive, baked under a desert sun, chilled to the bone or bathed in
acid-it's our idea of hell. But thousands of oddball creatures like nothing better.
They've been
found in the most unlikely places: around seething volcanic vents at the bottom of the oceans,
in caves that have been cut off from the outside world for millions of years, and in deserts
where it hardly ever rains. If organisms can thrive under such hostile conditions, the reasoning
goes, then maybe life exists elsewhere in the Universe. As Dr McCoy of the USS Enterprise might
have said of these tough little critters:
"They're life, Jim, but not as we know it."
Some of the most surprising finds come from the Earth's own final frontier-the deep sea, a
place we know less about than the dark side of the Moon..."
- "Extreme Organisms", M.Gross -
|
Enormous Spider Web Found In Texas
When I first saw it,” said Park Superintendent Donna Garde, “I was totally amazed.
What ran through my mind was that this looked like something out of a low-budget horror movie, but I was looking at
something five times as big as what you’d see on a Hollywood set... (with images)
Ancient Tough Spider Survived Earth Largest Cataclysms
"Recently an important discovery of an ancient species of trapdoor spider was made in the SW of Western
Australia. The Trapdoor Spider (Moggridgea tingle) is a primitive organism that in fact occurs in western part of
Australia. Its primary habitat is located in Tingle Forest (old-growth forest) areas in the far south-west of the
country. The spider dates back at least 140 million years
..."
Exploring deep sea of Antarctica
"Until now, a very rich marine life was hidden in the dark, cold ocean beneath Antarctica's
ice. Researchers were only able to speculate about the secrets of deep sea life in this remote
region of our planet. For the first time due to the more recent ..."
Click to enlarge
"The deep ocean floor is a dark, cold, remote, and seemingly lifeless place that until
recently lay largely below the radar of science and exploration. But with advances in technology,
scientists are accessing the deep and finding life everywhere they look. Above, a large brisingid
sea star..."(Photograph by Jon Moore, courtesy NOAA)
VIDEO - The Blue Planet - Deep Sea Pt.1
An immensely fascinating
BBC documentary about
the creatures
that live thousands of feet beneath the...
VIDEO - The Blue Planet - Deep Sea Pt.2
VIDEO - The Blue Planet - Deep Sea Pt.3
VIDEO - The Blue Planet - Deep Sea Pt.4
VIDEO- The Blue Planet - Deep Sea Pt.5
A mysterious gelatinous ball
"A mysterious gelatinous ball has puzzled and fascinated researchers after undersea photographer Rudolf Svensen
spotted it while diving at the mouth of the Matre fjord in Hordaland, western Norway.
It was 50-70 centimeters (19.5-27.5 inches) in diameter and looked like a huge beach ball.
It was transparent but had a kind of thick, red cord in the middle. It was a
bit science-fiction," Svensen told newspaper Bergens Tidende's web site..."
Beast in sediment
"A picture that took nine years to obtain...Goran Ehlme's shot of a walrus feeding on clams
on the sea floor is a whirl of grey; the animal's face is seen poking through a cloud of disturbed
sediment...Weighing 1.5 tonnes, these beasts can be extremely dangerous if they feel threatened, and
their big tusks have been known to kill even the great Arctic predator, the polar bear.. "
Snake displays changing colours
"A snake with the ability to change its colour has been found in the rainforested heart of Borneo.
Researchers from Germany and the US discovered the water snake's chameleon-like behaviour by
accident when they put it into a dark bucket... "
Hunt for Gambia's mythical dragon
"Believed to live in swamps, the ninki-nanka appears in the folklore of many parts of West
Africa. It is described as having a horse-like face, a long body with mirror-like scales and a crest
of skin on its head... "
Hidden Ecosystem - Beneath Cement Quarry
"At a cement quarry in Israel, researchers have discovered eight previously unknown species of small creatures in a newfound underground cave.
The limestone cave has long been sealed off from it surroundings—even outside water cannot seep
through an overlying layer of chalk—and it contains an entire ecosystem unlike... "
Bizarre deep-sea creatures imaged off New Zealand
"Animals living around methane seeps off Chile and Japan have been observed
before, but not near New Zealand.tube worms between 30 cm and 40 cm in length as they emerged from
beneath limestone boulders. They also recorded corals, sponges and shell beds covered with various
types of clam and mussel.."
27 Unknown Creatures Found in California Caves
"Twenty-seven previously unknown species of spiders, centipedes, scorpion-like creatures
and other animals have been discovered in the dark, damp caves beneath two national parks in the
Sierra NevadaThe discoveries include a relative of the pill bug so translucent that its internal
organs are visible. There is a daddy long legs spider with jaws bigger than its body, a tiny
flourescent orange spider and an eyeless silverfish..."
VIDEO - Life around deep sea methane seeps
Organisms at a site on the Hikurangi Margin off the east coast
of New Zealand at a depth of about 1000 metres.
|
|
Protection for 'weirdest' species
"The slender loris (Loris tardigradus), found in southern Sri Lanka, is another to benefit.
...the fossil record of the lorids extends back to the Early Miocene (20 million years ago).
Populations of this small primate are declining because of deforestation, and conservationists plan
to restore its habitat and establish corridors between fragmented areas of forest..."
Jan Vermeer's picture of a coconut crab climbing a tree on Aldabra,
in the Indian Ocean, wins the Animals in Their Environment section.
Seven new species found in Bolivia
"At least seven species new to science have been found in the mountains of Bolivia by a university expedition.
It's almost as though a different species had evolved in each valley. The students found two frog
species, two snakes, two toads and a lizard. In a largely unexplored valley, they also found an owl
not recorded before in Bolivia..."
Claim made for new form of life
"Doctors claim to have uncovered new evidence that the tiny particles known as "nannobacteria"
are indeed alive and may cause a range of human illnesses. The existence of nannobacteria is one of the
most..."
The blind, white, crablike creature dubbed the "yeti crab" was just one of many new sea
creatures discovered this year by the international Census of Marine Life ocean survey.
The census is now in its sixth year and seeks to record all life, living and extinct, in
the oceans by 2010. (Photograph by Ifremer/A. Fifis © 2006, Courtesy of the Census of
Marine Life)
Creatures of the Wild: The Best of Your Amazing
Underwater images - 200m depth
Microscopic/specimen images of deep-sea species
Extreme seabed-survival boosts hope of aliens
"Microbes discovered by a lake of liquid carbon dioxide under the sea off Taiwan could help us
locate life on Mars, researchers say. Japanese and German researchers have found billions of
bacteria and other tiny organisms living in a layer of sediment which traps the CO2 under the
seabed. Their survival in such a hostile natural environment suggests that something similar
could be happening on other planets..."
click to enlarge
"living fossils", survivors of an entirely different group of shelled animals, most varieties
of which died off about 60 million years ago. they live in dense single-species aggregations, in
benthic habitats (on the bottom of a body of water) (Monterey Bay, California).
Large, black eyes of this shrimp have evolved to detect bioluminescence in the water.
VISIT Deeper Discovery
for more
Twelve new species found in deep sea
" Scientists have gotten a rare glimpse into the little-known world of marine sea bugs as part of a project
to identify and learn more about the tiniest creatures in the world's oceans..."
Living Ocean Gallery
Videos and images of ocean's Sponges/Jellyfish, sea anemones/Corals, Sea stars, brittle
stars, and sea urchins/Molluscs/Crabs and shrimp
Jellyfish have human-like eyes
"A set of special eyes, similar to our own, keeps venomous box jellyfish from bumping into
obstacles as they swim across the ocean floor, a new study finds.
Unlike normal jellyfish, which drift in the ocean current, box jellyfish are active swimmers
that can rapidly make 180-degree turns and deftly dart between objects. Scientists suspect
that box jellyfish are such agile because one set of their 24 eyes detects objects that get
in their way..."
|
"Scientists report of two cases where female Komodo dragons have produced offspring without male
contact. Tests revealed their eggs had developed without being fertilised by sperm - a process
called parthenogenesis..."
"..the extreme lifestyle of tonguefish that like to skip across pools of molten sulphur.
The animals - a type of flatfish - were filmed on three expeditions to undersea volcanoes in the
western Pacific... "
"Two of the crustaceans are adapted to seawater and two others live in fresh or brackish water,
suggesting they may be descended from ancient sea creatures. They have lost their eyes over the course
of evolution in the gloom of the cave. All of the species were found alive, except for one species
of blind scorpion..."
"Census of Marine Life scientists trawled rarely explored tropical ocean depths between the
southeast U.S. coast and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, revealing a newfound variety of zooplankton and
other small creatures..."
"Two new species of lemur have been found in Madagascar, bringing the number of known species
to 49...Microcebus lehilahytsara, or Goodman's mouse lemur, lives in eastern Madagascar's rainforest.
It is little bigger than a mouse, with short, rounded ears and a white stripe on its nose..."
Scientists exploring the remote highlands of eastern Suriname discovered 24 species believed
to be new to science, including a frog with florescent purple markings and other amphibians, fish and insects...
(with images)
"A remarkably well-preserved fossil of a two-headed reptile has been discovered in the Early Cretaceous Yixian rock formation in northeast China.
The tiny skeleton of a hatchling choristodere – a group of extinct aquatic reptiles with long
necks – has two heads and two necks, fused at their base. The 120-million-year-old specimen
is thought to be the oldest example of a developmental anomaly known as axial bifurcation..."
"She is all legs and after 27 years, she is showing not one but 666 of her rarely seen limbs.
...Illacme plenipes, a millipede that is the world's leggiest creature.
The males and females probably start out at the same size. Females grow larger and develop more body
segments, explained the report's co-author Paul Marek of East Carolina University. "They are also
wider..."
"A new species of black coral has been discovered off southern California... these spectacular
large colonies have managed to go unnoticed while living in the backyard of the largest urban area on
the West Coast."
"We are looking for life on other planets, and we have not even discovered what's on Earth.
Recently, European biologists have discovered an entirely new group of tiny and bizarre marine algae
in the Arctic Ocean, while analyzing DNA sequences in..."
"Methane is a greenhouse effect gas 25-times more powerful than carbon dioxide.
There are some specialized bacteria that feed on methane called methanotrophic. A German-French
team studied which methanotrophic bacteria could thrive in the ice-cold Arctic deep-sea, at -1°C..."
"Big deep-sea squid emit blinding flashes of light as they attack their prey...
The squid, which can measure over 2m (7ft) in length, deftly swim backwards and forwards by
flapping their large, muscular fins. They are able to alter their direction rapidly by bending
their flexible bodies..."
" have no head, no heart and no skeleton. Jellyfish don't have brains -
because their bodies are organized differently from ours.
Seventy of the 200 species of jellyfish are known to sting - causing a range of reactions
in humans: from mild skin irritation to death. The sting of the sea wasp, Chironex fleckeri, is so
toxic that it can cause death. Some even call this creature the "deadliest animal on earth..."
"The hottest and most vigorous of the vents are black smokers, so called because when the
fluids they emit hit the icy cold seawater, minerals in the fluids precipitate out and it looks just
like dark, billowing smoke..."