Icy Death

For the final edition I am going to talk about a ocean killer that isn't a creature, but more of an anomaly. What I am talking about is known as brinciles, which look like a giant icicles going from the ocean floor to the frozen surface in the colder parts of the world.. They form in calm conditions when there is a big difference in the temperature in the water and the air above the frozen surface. The warmer water takes a convection current to the surface and freezes, and with the massive amount of salt in the water, the freezing forces the salt into channels that are focused downwards towards the ocean floor. The water freezes in the channels and continues to force the salt downwards until it reaches the ocean floor. Once it hits the floor it traps and freezes any living creature it touches in a case of ice. A brinciles can form and reach the ocean floor in a matter of hours, the one below only took 5-6 hours to reach the ocean floor.

Tremors Worm

The creature for this instalment is one called eunice aphroditois, or better known as the Bobbit worm, taking the name from the Bobbit couple where the wife (Lorena Bobbit) sliced off her husband's penis (John Bobbit). The bobbit worm makes its home in the beds of the ocean in the sediment, mud and corals.

It waits patiently in the pose from the figure above until a stimulus reaches one of its five antennae then attacking whatever it seems to have set it off. It has been known to attack at such speeds where it has sliced its prey in half. The bobbit worm is an incredibly voracious predator and is one animal that is not a good fit for any aquarium, as it will try to eat everything in the tank. One was discovered in a habitat at  the Blue Reef Aquarium in England. Workers were noticing that fish had disappeared or were injured and that parts of their coral reef was being sliced in half. They took the tank apart and found a 5 foot long bobbit worm, and believed that it had gotten into the exhibit when they had gotten bits of coral to put into the tank, and the worm was hiding in it when it was much smaller. 

Colourful Cop-Out

For this post I'm just going to use video and link to teach about this next creature, the Mantis Shrimp. The first is a link to a video where the habits, appearance and specifications of the Mantis Shrimp here. The next is a colourful short comic from The Oatmeal found explaining why the author finds the Mantis Shrimp to be his favourite animal, which can be found here. This may not be a long post, but there is lots of information to be found within.

Spike Weaver

This instalment will showcase a very unassuming predator of the deep, the cone snail. This carnivorous invertebrate does not grow very large (up to 6 inches) and is native to the Indo-Pacific reefs.

 The cone snail is identified by the intricate brown and white patterns sought after by shell collectors, similar to the image above. What makes this snail deadly is the venom that it stores, and is delivered with a harpoon like tooth propelled from its frontal proboscis. The venom is a mixture of hundreds of different toxins, making it incredibly complex, and does not have a cure as of yet, you just have to live long enough for the venom to wear off. Venom from the cone snail is not instant death for its prey, but it does work very quickly, getting the nickname of cigarette snail, meaning you have enough time to smoke a cigarette before you die. The amount of time it takes for the snail's prey to die does it no favours, as a fish would easily swim away then die, making it an incredibly long journey for the snail to make to get to its victim. What makes the snail even more deadly is what it couples with its deadly venom, it also causes instantaneous paralysis, which stops it prey from getting away before it dies. This slow, unassuming looking sea creature is one to be careful of, if ever in the Indo-Pacific region.