Archive for the ‘Deep Ocean’ Category

Nightmare Shark Caught Off Coast of Australia – Has Been Terrifying World for 80 Million Years

Saturday, January 24th, 2015

That nightmarish thing in the photo above isn’t a screen-used graboid prop from Tremors.

Nope.

That’s an actual creature that lives in our oceans…you know…that giant mass of water that you swim in when you vacation?

Caught off the coast of Australia by a fishing trawler, that thing is a six-foot long monster known as a frilled shark.

Frilled sharks haven’t evolved in almost 80 million years simply because a nightmare is always going to be a nightmare. On very rare occasions frilled sharks are found close to the surface because they’re dying. “Close to the surface” is around 4,000 feet below the surface.

Simon Boag of the trawling company that caught the creature:

“It does look 80 million years old. It looks prehistoric. It looks like it’s from another time! It has 300 teeth over 25 rows, so once you’re in that mouth, you’re not coming out.”

According to a marine conservation society in California there is a report of a frilled shark from 1880 measuring in at 25 feet.

Next time you go splashing around in the ocean for fun just remember…

These live there.

[NatGeo]

Giant Squid Caught on Camera in the Wild For the First Time!

Tuesday, January 8th, 2013

Giant squids are legendary.

They’ve taken on Moby Dick, Captain Nemo’s Nautilus and even a bunch of Goonies.

While giant squids have been captured in the past and alleged parts of them have surfaced here and there…seeing one in the wild has been something of a Holy Grail moment that misty-eyed scientists and cryptozoologists have dreamt about forever.

Everyone can prepare to drop your jaws because there is now video of one of these mysterious monsters going about its business deep in the Pacific Ocean.

A team of three Japanese scientists spent over 400 hours crammed in a 31 foot submersible over the course of 100 missions about 150 miles north of Iwo Jima.

At a depth of 2,066 feet, the lights from the submersible reflected onto the creature’s silver skin as it eyeballed the sub curiously before it swam off.

The Discovery Channel’s new branch, Curiosity, is keeping the footage secret until the season finale later this month when they’ll unveil it to the world for the first time…

Up until then? A lot of “Release the Kraken!” headlines.

[Discovery.com]

Deep Sea Trawler Pulls Up Weird, New Sharks!

Wednesday, August 15th, 2012

Paul Clerkin, a shark ecology graduate student at California’s Moss Landing Marine Laboratories, has been spending the last couple of months on a deep-sea trawling vessel in the Indian Ocean to see if the ship’s nets might pull up anything interesting in the way of sharks.

The trawler’s nets have been dropping to a depth of 6,500 feet off the coast of an island called Mauritius. What’s come up have been hundreds of strange-looking sharks. Several are species known to be very rare while others may be absolutely unseen before now.

“I tell people I have a ton of sharks, and they keep thinking I’m joking,” Clerkin said. “It was an actual ton. I brought back 350 sharks.”

What’s even cooler is that if any of the strange sharks are entirely new species? Clerkin gets to name them. He’s said that he’ll name a few after his mentors and possibly one after his mom and maybe himself.

We can hear his intro now…”I’m Paul Clerkin. You may not know me. A species of shark bears my name.”
Awesome.
[See a photo gallery of these weird sharks via OurAmazingPlanet.Com]
[MSNBC]

Pictures! Horrifying New Critters Found Deep in New Zealand Oceans!

Monday, June 18th, 2012

New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research recently led an exploration of the Kermadec Ridge. Reaching depths of up to 4,100 feet and spanning 3,800 square miles that included everything from continental slopes and canyons to hydrothermal volcanic-vents.

Setting out to prove that, based on underwater terrain, undersea biological communities would be different, the expedition came back with not only new imagery of known species but new imagery of things not yet seen.

The polychaete worm pictured above is not only new but also a ferocious predator featuring a jaw set-up just like everyone’s favorite HR Giger-designed aliens.

Other species include the demonic-looking Black Dragonfish and a very hairy-looking crab.

Oh…and I think someone snapped a pic of James Cameron waving as he drove by in his privately owned submersible…he’d already been there for weeks.
[National Geographic]

Dumbo Octopus… The Weirdest Thing In The Sea

Friday, July 24th, 2009

133878.jpgThank you to everyone (including Brett “Amtrekker” Rounsaville) who visited our Weird Things deliberation chamber today to hash out our first ever Weirdest Thing In The World competition. Arising victorious was the Dumbo Octopus, who captured our imaginations and stole our hearts with his Peep-like demeanor and what looks to be a tiny nubbin for a nose.

Please subscribe to WeirdThingsCom on Twitter for more fun events as well as the announcement for next week’s Weirdest Thing In The World.

A Medley of Bizarre Deap Sea Creatures

Monday, March 30th, 2009


Strangest Sea CreaturesFor more amazing video clips, click here

For those of you who enjoy gawking at some of the more bizarre denizens of the deep. Is that a lobster or an alien?