Posted on 02/04/2022 9:13:08 AM PST by Red Badger
Image credit: Science Photo Library / Alamy Stock Photo Look at this lanky orange hellspawn. I’m going to go ahead and say that we are not buying whatever it’s selling. We’ve got enough problems without having to contemplate the motivations of this faceless alien baby.
Meet the giant Antarctic sea spider (Decolopoda australis), seen here absolutely dwarfing a European sea spider.
An example of gigantism, wherein an animal grows unusually large due to a lack of predators and other factors that would limit their size, the Antarctic sea spider can grow to more than 30cm in diameter (about the length of a chihuahua). The European sea spider, by comparison, is just a few centimetres long.
Antarctic sea spiders are found all the way along the coast of Antarctica, at depths of more than 1800 metres. While they certainly look like a spider, Antarctic sea spiders are no spiders at all. They’re not crustaceans, either. Rather, they’re marine arthropods that belong to the sea spiders family Pycnogonida.
Sometimes referred to as pantopoda, meaning “all legs”, sea spiders can have between four to six pairs of legs, depending on the species. Antarctic sea spiders have five pairs, as you can see here:
Decolopoda australis, one of the few species of pycnogonids with 5 pairs of legs. See our 2012 book, Chpts 5 and 6. #pycnogonids #seaspiders pic.twitter.com/ohrUwQAINl
— John Nudds (@LagerstatteJohn) September 3, 2017 Is anyone else getting serious huntsman energy from these things?
Those legs are absolutely everything to the Antarctic sea spider – they’re where its vital organs are kept, because it doesn’t have much of a body to speak of. Its proboscis is also important, because that’s what it uses to suck the insides out of worms, jellyfish, sponges and other soft-bodied prey.
As this blog by the Australian Marine Biodiversity Hub explains, sea siders have no specific organs for respiration or digestion.
“Respiration is by gaseous exchange through the cuticle wall, digestion is intracellular and blood circulation is primarily activated by movement or pumping of the legs,” the blog describes. “They are little more than a tube within a tube.”
The good news for us is that sea spiders are completely harmless. They don’t contain venom, and they don’t bite. They simply swim around (they’re actually quite good swimmers) and wander the ocean floor, looking for a meal or a mate.
Here’s a different species, called Colossendeis Megalonyx, which is also large and found in Antarctic waters, nosing around for a snack in the substrate:
(Image credit: Minden Pictures / Alamy Stock Photo) Scientists are absolutely fascinated by sea spiders. It’s thought that they’ve been around for a whopping 500 million years, and they’ve diversified so many times over the millennia, they now boast an incredible array of colours, body shapes and sizes:
Here’s a researcher talking about why they’re such an interesting creature to study:
VIDEO AT LINK.............
LOL!...............
mutant alien
Coolest cartoon music intro ever.
L
“PACKERS WON THE SUPER BOWL!!! WOOO HOOOO!!!!!”
Sorry for the double post.....I got excited
Sure does. Thanks for bringing up some pleasant memories.
Best,
L
Its a “crab”.
And Australia says “Pffitt Hold ‘m beer”
A prime time cartoon, IIRC. Pretty violent for a kid’s show, but all of us first graders watched it!
Dangerous only to Squidward if I recall the episode correctly.
Not gay, just poorly animated.
“That’s an oval, it has to be a circle!”
That GIF resonates with me. I am an arachnophobe from way back.
When I was seven, I tried to crawl through a drainpipe under a road, and I got stuck halfway through. As I was trying to back out, I saw there were cobwebs all over my hair and shoulders, and there was a Daddy Longlegs staring at me.
Well, today I know that Daddy Longlegs aren’t dangerous now, but back then...I didn’t know that, and I was terrified! I began screaming and thrashing about, and my older brother crawled in, grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me out.
I jumped up and began beating my head and shoulders to get it off, but...there it was, still entangled in the cobwebs like Ahab pinioned to Moby Dick by the ropes of harpoons that had been thrown at him.
And just like that, I became a frantic muslim Whirling Dervish, running down the road, leaping in the air, pirouetting around, all the while beating my head and shoulders frantically with my hands screaming bloody murder all the while.
It must have been an impressive sight, because like me, my brother remembers it vividly to this day.
For him, it was theater.
For me, it was psychic damage!
violent cartoons, monkey bars and the like only helped to prep kids for the real world and kids these days areal the weaker for not being exposed to things like that IMO. Because after all....the real grown up world isn’t exactly full of teletubbies and participation trophies now is it?
God, is there anything He can’t do?
I got a skinned 4 ft.
Rattler on my wall that
Was pretty sedate.
Looks like a DADDY LONG LEGS ON STEROIDS!
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