I seriously figured this had to be a hoax when I saw it:
Really, nature?
This mother effer looks like the lost aqueous cousin from Puppet Master’s horror collection.
And the diving scientists who were submerged for research (not really them, but their Nautilus Live expedition ROV) were about as surprised as I was to see this swimming machete meandering along through the watery depths too, according to the video (below). I remember thinking that one enchanting see-through tunicate that was found by a fisherman and photographed last winter, was pretty much the tits of fish news. Part its wonder (aside from being all jelly-like and invisible until it wiggles around and catches your eye) was this thing that it did: it has the capacity to communicate with other members of its own species by merely holding hands with one another as they collectively navigate the oceans together. (Also, I think they can change sexes halfway through their lives which makes me super jelly #badpuninteded).
Similarly, this guy recently captured on film does the synch-link action as well.
“Wow. Okay, that’s awesome,” one ROV operator says (on the video you’re about to watch if you’ll just be patient. Or scroll to the end. Who cares.) adding, “I can’t believe that’s a living thing!”
And that’s right.
Because it’s not just one living thing.
It’s a ton of them, all joined together until they form that ladder you see – imparting the illusion of one long knife-nosed fish just scurrying along the ocean floor, daring any predators to approach its daunting blade of a proboscis – which is actually just a troll prop of multitudinous micro creatures. People who are smarter than I am about oceanic matters (marine biologists, I think they’re called), refer to this sort of phenomenon as a “roving colony”. And the reason we all mistake it for a single creature is because it’s comprised of thousands of individuals they call “zooids”.
Each plays their part.
And in so doing we get this amazing and mystical looking purple seaweed eater.
(Wait – they found this while exploring the Titanic? What if those are a buncha reincarnated lost souls of the sunken ship? Still holding hands – like Jack and Rose?)
That’s all.
You can now return to living your lives.
Which don’t include Nemo waiting to Leatherface you on your next diving excursion.