Bigfin squid (Magnapinna) Is the most insidious animal we know.
It lives in the permanently dark depths of the ocean and is an extremely rare sight, confirmed by only a dozen worldwide.
Now, for the first time, Bigfin Squids Australia has been spotted off the coast of Australia not once, but five times – and everyone watching was a different person. That’s not enough to tell the region that Magnapinna Hotspot, but new observations have revealed new behaviors, highlighting the importance of capturing images of deep sea life in its natural habitat.
“This view, the first of Australian Australian waters, has strengthened the hypothesis of the distribution of the universe, and indicated a locally clustered distribution in which squid are found in close spatial and temporal proximity to each other.”
Bigfin squids are a fantastic and aging beauty. Their bodies look quite typical for a squid, albeit with much larger fins than usual. But their arms and tentacles are really curious, remarked to be surprisingly long with filaments, allowing the limbs to reach a length of 8 meters (26 feet), which is many times longer than the body of a squid. Hands held at vertical angles to the body, the limbs also give it a peculiar ‘elbow’ appearance.
Because they live in the bathiplagic zone, at depths of 1,000 to 4,000 meters (3,280 and 13,120 feet), it is not easy for us to study these squids. At the depths of this ocean, sunlight never enters, and the water pressure is crushing.
However, remotely operated vehicles can go where humans are afraid to walk, and over the past few decades, vision has slowly improved.
These were just some of the tools that marine scientists used to explore the deep waters off the south coast of Australia. In an area known as the Great Australian Strail Bay, where almost nothing was known about deep-sea fauna, scientists set up remote-controlled vehicles and cameras from a Marine National Facility research vessel. Investigator To list life under the waves as part of an intensive research program.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRWd3oDlUrM
On five different occasions, Bigfin squids were shown in images obtained by playing.
The camera captured two squids, filmed at 2,110 and 2,178 meters every four seconds, at one site in November 2015.
ROV March 2017 saw three squid at another site 3,002, 3,056 and 3,060 meters below the surface. ROV Being more flexible, he was able to follow the squids, capturing everyone’s long video; The longest was just under three minutes. All three scenarios occurred within a 25-hour period.
Morphological measurements with paired lasers indicate that each of the five squid views is a different individual.
Magnapinna filmed at 3,056 meters. (Osterhage et al., Plus One, 2020)
“This represents the first record of sightseeing Magnapinna Australian squid in Australian waters, and they are more than double the known record in the Southern Hemisphere, ”the researcher wrote in his paper.
Nonetheless, the sights were spot on: the survey extended 350,350 kilometers of the Australian Australian Great and recorded 75 hours of video. Beasties were only seen in those two places during those two periods.
“All Magnapinna sp. The researchers wrote that the observations in the Great Australian Stirling Byte were made mainly in the soft silt area, lower-operative drainage channels and in the upper part of the submarine valley.
“Submarine valleys and similar shift facilities often support high productivity and diversity in the produc ocean, and these locations can reflect the choice of habitat. Magnapinna sp“
Although the sight was short, they observed some behavior of squids. There was, of course, the characteristic ‘elbow’ pose with tentacles, then bent at about 90-degree angles. Previously, this was mostly observed when the squid was frowning, but the new footage showed this pose in a horizontal position.
Because the Tentlex looks so sticky, this could be a feeding behavior, waiting for some unruly animal to penetrate the long limbs like a bug in the flypaper, but we don’t have enough information yet to confirm this.
The other behavior the team noticed was a squid that has one hand perpendicular to its body when it is moved from the horizontal to the upright position. This is similar to the dorsal arm curl movement seen in squid numbers, but why Bigfin squid does is still a mystery.
In a completely new behavior, the researchers saw one of the skids close its filaments close to its body. Previously, the only cephalopod that looked something like this was remotely related Vampirothyus infernalis, Another bathiplagic animal that uses its filaments to feed.
“While there is a clear difference in the fibrous connections V.Arfanalis And Magnapinna Squid .. It may be that the coiling behavior represents an efficient biomechanical solution to the retraction of such long, thin fibers, ”the researchers wrote.
It’s interesting, boring stuff – new information that highlights how little we know about these strange, quiet creatures and their deep, dark underwater world.
Research has been published in Plus One.
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