Deep Ocean Creatures


Transcript

RESEARCHERS:

Aloha and good morning, everyone. We’re looking at places that no one has looked before. And this is part of NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research.

This is pretty amazing. These are henricia, which feed on sponges.

This is the slime star hymenaster.

That is a pycnogonida, look at that.

That’s a beautiful bolosoma.

It’s a polychelid! They’re normally just sitting on the bottom and not swimming.

This is new for the Hawaiian region, this is a freyastera. They are among the deepest known sea stars to live.

And this is absolutely the biggest caulophacus I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’ve never seen this before either. He’s not sure which is bigger, the ROV or the sponge!

I think this is a python aster. There are maybe six of these. I don’t mean six species, I mean six specimens of these. There aren’t any of this animal known from Hawaii.

You’ve given us a real puzzle here with that fish. I think we’re gonna have to work on that for quite a while to figure that one out.

You know, I hope you don’t get offended by this but I am delighted that I’ve given you a puzzle.

Well, this is why it’s exploration, we live for this stuff. We live for the new and the puzzling.