Okeanos Deep Sea Sightings August 29th, 2022

Here are some videos from the Okeanos Explorer's D2 ROV dive today. This is an irritated squid, going reef to reef preaching the teachings of the Cthulhu as one of his star spawn.

Dives have been cancelled for several days due to excessive sargassum. This is a cat swimming against the current.

A Brisingida starfish, know for playing Sheldor on the sitcom The Large Boom Hypothesis. BRISINGIDA!

Most giant isopods have never filed taxes.

Grumpy. Gib hugs.

I haven't been posting enough sea cucumbers lately.

Imagine the bunny kicks from petting that belly.

A black coral, obviously.

A holopus, a new favorite of mine. They are somewhat of a living fossil for the crinoid group.

A lone large venus fly trap anemone. They always remind me of underwear for some reason, probably because I'm fucked up.

A sea urchin, upside down because he is a fool. You can see how urchins and sea stars are both related as echinoderms if you imagine a sea star raising its arms above its central body and merging them together, to form a ball.

"Anemone Fisting" was a tag option suggested before, but when I searched for similar posts nothing came up. I really want to know what that first post was...

Only a few pieces of trash today, here is a jar with a huge gathering of hermit crabs, inside and out.

The same squid from the header image. Last year there were battalions of squids doing similar behavior of disturbing the sediment. I'm really hoping for more of that.

Why must you be so damn tasty.

Spooky fish yoga class performing the downward-facing fish pose.

Daddy long spines.

@OnlyCrabs

Squidward trying to blow a bubble.

Steady, gentlemen...

Fellas can move fast when they want. In a few seconds it had its arms fully outstretched and was headed off into the sunset to make fake charity registries. Sea stars are assholes.

A stalked crinoid, these can actually walk around.

The dive team had no clue what these were, and I almost didn't even include a video because it's hard to see the small tentacles. Using the jets from the second ROV they turned it over and it's actually a type of Terebellida polychaete worm, not my first guess at all. That's Latin for "terrible buttplug."

The science team didn't really care but this was a treat for me, seeing one of these stalked boi's on the go.

Queen snapper at 499 meters. Or maybe a cardinal snapper. Snapper unit 2. A management unit for fishery purposes.

It's good that deep sea stuff is literally out of reach, because I would hurt myself touching everything.

A sea urchin parade would be fun. That sounds like some weird sexual thing.

Yes, more holopuses! One is slowly opening.

A neat rock formation with lots of life around it.

Fish whirlpool. Quite a lot of fish for a deep sea location.

A nice community.

A fire worm, because touching those bristles feels like burning.

Deep sea cookies are TERRIBLE.

Unmute for "What IS that crinoid doing?! Yoga?"

Another good unmute. The fish is just taking a cozy nap in its weighted anemone blanket, don't worry.

Cat Tax, with little hermit crab.

You can watch live during the day at: https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/livestreams/welcome.html

FP Edit: Check on your friends.