Evolution: deep sea extremophiles (Evolution)

by David Turell , Thursday, November 10, 2022, 23:50 (533 days ago) @ David Turell

A new discovery in the deep sea of extremely weird fish and other forms:

https://www.livescience.com/new-map-cocos-keeling-islands?utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A...

"Researchers recently completed a 35-day expedition around the Cocos Islands, an archipelago southwest of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The islands are now the center of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands Marine Park, a 180,330 square-mile (467,054 square kilometers) protected area that has never before been mapped in high resolution. According to the Museums Victoria Research Institute(opens in new tab), the mapping revealed underwater mountain peaks and weird marine life, such as a blind, gelatinous eel that was previously unknown to science.

"'The fish are the standout deep-sea fashionistas," expedition chief scientist Tim O'Hara(opens in new tab) of the Museums Victoria Research Institute told Live Science in an email. "They come in all shapes and sizes, with light organs, lures, rays modified into tripods or camouflage appendages, and huge (or missing) eyes. Each species superbly adapted to the extreme deep-sea environments."

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"The researchers collected footage and samples of the complex web of life around the atolls. They found the blind eels 3.1 miles (5 km) below the surface. In those depths, the scientists also found an array of bizarre fish, including tribute spiderfish (Bathypterois guentheri), which have weird, elongated fins that act like stilts, enabling the fish to perch above the ocean floor and capture small crustaceans as they drift by.

"The scientists also observed pelican eels (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), which have huge, loosely hinged jaws that enable them to swallow prey bigger than themselves, and toothy Sloane's viperfish (Chauliodus sloani), which have mouths bristling with needle-sharp teeth and light-up organs along their sides to attract prey. Also at home in the marine protected area are highfin lizardfish (Bathysaurus mollis), deepwater bottom-feeders whose reproductive organs combine ovaries and testes — both are reproductively active at the same time.

"'The sheer diversity of the invertebrate fauna was also spectacular," O'Hara said. "We collected every family of black corals, and hundreds of species of crustaceans and echinoderms. Many of these species will be new to science.'"

Comment: living forms are so adaptable they can take any form they wish to survive in specific environments. They may start out much more like other simple forms and then speciate into the permanent adaptation, remembering I think God speciates.