The Ocean Is Full of Worms and Gonads and Monsters
Lynne Elkins’ previous work for The Toast can be found here.
Today, I am not here to talk to you about science*. Instead, I would like to share a truth that you may not have fully realized, which is that the ocean is a horrifying place full of monsters.
You might be thinking, “But I always wanted to be a marine biologist! I love dolphins!” And to be fair, dolphins can blow coordinated hunting bubbles and have names for each other and probably are much less prone to sexual assault than folks like to say. But most of the ocean is not made of dolphins, or even mammals. It is mostly full of worms.
Okay, fine, maybe not “mostly.” or “full.” But there are a lot of worms. Here, again, you might be saying, “But I wanted to be a marine biologist and study things other than charismatic megafauna! Marine worms are beautiful!” Sure, some of the worms have pretty colors and crazy fringes, which they obviously use as a glamour to fool gullible humans. But you are forgetting the most important thing: THEY ARE GIANT WORMS. And some of them look like this:
Less beautiful.
Don’t get me wrong: marine worms are fascinating. This is because monsters are terrible and fascinating. Consider, for example, the very famous Giant Tube Worms that live around deep sea volcanic vents. This is a 7 foot-long worm that can grow 5 feet in under two years, with no digestive tract, with which is red because it contains hemoglobin. In other words, it is a worm that nearly has blood that is taller than you and uses its mouth as its anus.
(These monstrous properties, of course, are the true reason to celebrate the 1991 discovery of the Tubeworm Barbecue.)
You might now be asking, “But what about non-worm things?” Sure. Let’s talk about some other creatures, like, say, echinoderms. Everyone likes starfish, right? Everything that isn’t hunted by starfish, I guess. Have you ever seen the inside of a sea urchin? I have, and please let me tell you about it: These alien monsters are almost completely hollow, except for a skinny intestinal tube that floats around inside their body, and the whole “Aristotle’s Lantern” skeleton mouth thing, which contains rasping teeth so hard they might be able to grind through rock (debated! these are things you debate about monsters.) The little hole at the top of the spiny shell is, in fact, the anus. Marine animals probably could be classed as horrifying simply based on the positions of their anuses. I would also like to address the whole “five-sided skeleton” thing, which, while interesting, is wrong and should not exist. Also, crinoids (sea lilies and feather stars) were echinoderms that reached a meter tall or more in the geologic past; and now we know that they are, in fact, still around, floating about or walking on their fronds like legs. I have touched them and seen YouTube and can confirm this is true. Summary: echinoderms are monsters.
Moving along: cephalopods, once the enormous monster predators of the oceans, are terrifyingly intelligent, curious, capricious thieves that can squeeze themselves through tiny holes and instantaneously mimic random objects (and to be fair, they still include some enormous predators, such as giant squid.) The mimic octopus takes cephalopod mimicry skills to terrifying heights. Blue-ringed octopods are some of the most venomous creatures on the planet, and they do bite humans. And the extreme deep-sea vampire squid (whose full latin name literally means “vampire squid of Hell”) is blood-red with “limpid, globular eyes,” can release a bioluminescent mucus into the water from its “writhing arms” which blinds opponents in a crazy light show that lasts up to 10 minutes, and can, you know, turn its own body inside out. Of course.
We have not yet discussed isopods. That is mostly because I wanted to delay the horror for myself. They are horrifying for many reasons, such as, for instance, what they look like:
But those examples, while terrible in appearance, are not the worst isopods, which honor is reserved for the parasitic isopods. Those are the ones that attach themselves to the tongues of fish, causing the tongue to wither and fall off; they then take up permanent residence in their host fish’s mouth. Some live off whatever food the fish is eating, while others drink the fish’s own blood. Oh God. Why am I writing about this.
Tags: animals, lynne elkins, monsters, science, taking to the sea
About Author
by Lynne Elkins
Lynne explores how magma is made by studying the mineralogical, chemical, and isotopic makeup of igneous rocks. She also teaches geology, plays music, dances, and hangs out with her fabulous fluffy pets.
I always knew it was true and now I have confirmation that the ocean is full of terrible things.
This is why 6 year old me couldn't touch half the pages in the Childcraft book about the ocean. If they're monsters under the ocean, maybe they can also leap out of pictures and be monsters at me in my living room. You NEVER KNOW.
I had that book too, and I'm still scarred.
I'd go on about how swimming in lakes is better than swimming in the ocean because No Monster Gonads, but lakes are full of beaver poop and giardia. *sob*
Oh, don't worry, there are plenty of fresh water invertebrates and fish!
Don't forget about the brain-eating amoebas!
My parents spent months trying to figure out what stonefish were and why I was petrified of them during our vacation to Florida that year. All because of that book! Sure, the book said they were in Australia, but what's geography compared to the potential of stepping on what looked like a rock and dying painfully because it was actually a poisonous fish?
I swim in the nice chlorinated indoor pool in town and that's it! No oceans, no lakes, no ponds, nothing!
OK. How big is that isopod in that picture? Cos I can read the text on the blue thing it's standing on. And it looks about the size of a small dog. Please tell me that it is actually the size of a speck of dust.
Once when teaching in Japan one of my Japanese colleagues turned to me and asked me, "Do you find bivalves delicious?" as he'd looked up scallops in his dictionary and that is what came up, and now although I still eat and like scallops, I'm sure they taste a bit different in my mouth. Bivalves.
OK. I googled them and it is the size of a small dog. brb. *cancels the triathlon I was supposed to be doing in August*. Never going in open water again!
But it looks like a nit, you know like lice, those enlarged pictures of headlice, or fleas, catfleas. AAAARGH.
Whatever size it is, is wrong.
my question immediately as well
I think my upper lip is going to remain curled up in disgust for the next 2-3 years after looking at that penisy "legless amphibian" (which, yes, I am putting in quotes instead of penisy, because THAT is the part that seems a little made up).
noooo
YES YES LET'S LEARN ABOUT ALL THE HORRIFYINGLY CREEPY THINGS IN THE OCEAN FOREVER
YES
TAKE TO THE SEA WITH ME EVERYONE (safely, in large boats, where we can see but never ever touch these creatures, and also have many drinks).
Yes! It's totally fascinating.
Case in point: the vampire squid from hell that "can release a bioluminescent mucus into the water from its 'writhing arms' which blinds opponents in a crazy light show that lasts up to 10 minutes, and can, you know, turn its own body inside out"? Come on! Amazing!
I think it's all pretty cool, too!
It may not have been clear that I totally LOVE how the ocean is full of monsters! And I love going to sea! Even though I'm sick the whole time! Let's go!
What's even better is that you get drunk much faster on water than on land! So, you can save some of that booze money for therapy!
YEEESSSS
I live in eternal hope that my parents will someday act on the wealth of WAY PAST HINTS, GUYS I have died over the years and digitize the old VHS of the Nova episode on cephalopods so that I may have it always. It was called Incredible Suckers and it was perfect.
There was never anything visibly horrible in the sea in Dover other than discarded coke cans. I think I must venture further asea (asea is the aquatic equivalent to afield, right?) to encounter misandrist fish and isopods but most importantly the king of the ocean the southern right whale dolphins who eat myctophidae and I like to think of their round white tummies lighting up all green as they leap.
Even dolphins are gross as hell, guys. I went swimming with dolphins once, which was great except for the part where I saw a dolphin poop and remembered I was basically paddling around in its toilet.
TBF, they might think the same thing about our farts.
I live two miles from the ocean, and now those are two miles that I shall never cross again.
Is this the right place for an extruded starfish stomach picture? I got this at the Biodome in Montreal.
<img src="https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2284/1589154975_a961f72cc9.jpg" width="500" height="375" alt="Extruded starfish stomach">
Yes. Yes, it is.
My Marine Biology professor said "When you swim in the ocean, you enter the food chain."
Teacher of The Year.
At first I was like, "Oh wow, that's clever!"
But then I thought , Um, aren't we in a food chain right here, on land?
Unless bears, bacteria and brown recluse spiders have all gone aquatic, all of a sudden.
<img src="http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/-/m/images/animal-guide/fishes/deep-sea-anglerfish.jpg?bc=white&h=697&mh=738&mw=1312&w=1234&usecustomfunctions=1&cropx=0&cropy=76">
WELCOME TO THE OCEAN, JERKWADS
OH YOU THOUGHT THE ANIMATORS OF FINDING NEMO MADE ME UP
THAT'S CUTE
I'M TOTALLY REAL
I'M DOWN HERE WAITING FOR YOU
THAT WASN'T SEAWEED THAT BRUSHED YOUR FOOT JUST NOW
WE ALL FLOAT DOWN HERE GEORGIE
I mean, LOOK at that creature! It just makes me giggle uncontrollably that it exists.
Me too!
I can't help but hear that fish grating WHAZZAAAAAAAAAP
yeah I love this little guy, in no small part because I suspect he's a complete dudebro.
No no, that's a female! I can't see any males, but if there are any in this picture, she has absorbed them!
WHAT that's even better! She and the other one who eats human testicles are the new site mascots, presumably.
HEY MAN-FISH
BRING ME YOUR GONADS FOR A MINUTE
My dad once told me that if you really wanted to find alien life you should look in the deepest depths of the sea.
He was right.
Yup — there's a good argument to be made that we know more about the moon than the bottom of the ocean.
Oh, we know MUCH more about space than the oceans. They've barely even been mapped! Give us money to study oceans more, please, governments!
*nods* NASA's budget is almost four times larger than NOAA's, from the quick googling I just did, and I'd wager there's waaaay more private contractors and firms who do space stuff than ocean stuff. We know nothing about it! And it regulates our climate to degrees we're only just starting to figure out! WHY ARE WE NOT THROWING ALL OUR MONIES AT RESEARCHING IT?! /former astrophysics student who now does physical oceanography
(There is also an NSF division for ocean sciences! But yes, overall small. NASA's budget for funding _research_ is also quite tiny, though!)
And it's probably huge compared to the Canadian federal ocean science research budgets. Border three oceans, longest marine coastline in the world, and we do SQUAT ALL to figure out what's going on with it other than to gawk for oil and occasionally marketable fish >:( >:( >:(
(sorry I know that's not the point of this delightful list of marine biology but UGH IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY.)
Me too! The Canadian government is laying off marine biologists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans as fast as it can – whole departments are being laid off here on the West Coast; it seems the rationale is to build plausible deniability through ignorance.
Why are the older female orcas along the coast dying off in unprecedented numbers? Your guess is as good as mine! Why have the orca pods gone silent, when they're usually quite chatty? No idea – because the people who study that sort of thing no longer work for DFO!
How will the humpback whales who give birth near Prince Rupert fare if Enbridge starts sending oil tankers through their habitat? Best guess – badly. They will fare badly, but the government ain't paying to find out.
We should be rioting in the streets over this, but we're Canadian, so…
UH HUNH. It's not just the biology end of DFO that's being decimated — it's across the board. Everyone from biologists to physicists, turfed/shut up/unfunded/shuffled. Enviro Canada, too — you're absolutely right that it's a campaign of deniability through wilful ignorance.
(I assume you know about these people? http://www.evidencefordemocracy.ca )
I was going to study sharks. I got an English degree instead and have had to deal with exactly 0 monsters in my professional life
I'd've thought you'd come across at least some Dickens or Hemingway in the course of an English degree.
Correction: I have had to deal with exactly 0 monsters *in person* in my professional life
I got an English degree instead and have had to deal with exactly 0 monsters in my professional life
Congratulations on finding a magical academic department.
In retrospect it was actually weirdly lovely.
I didn't stay in academia though and now work in an office, so ymmv on this as a sustainable life plan. While I do have to deal with some annoying people none of them have turned inside out (to my knowledge), tried to eat me, or thrown gonads at me.
I would almost prefer that to the standard passive aggression. At least you know what that protruding stomach means: something wants to eat you.
Oh man, this might be one of my favorite things on The Toast ever. Thank you (and DAMN YOU) for this. It encapsulates my lifelong terror of the sea, and reinforces my unconscious, limbic-system level of sea-avoidance. THE SEA. JUST DON'T DO IT.
I already knew the sea was a horrifying place thanks to, of all things, the NYT Review of Books and its terrifying elucidation of the dangers of THE PERFIDIOUS JELLYFISH.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep…
"if just six yards of tentacle contact your skin, you have, on average, four minutes to live—though you might die in just two."
"Victims are often gripped with a sense of “impending doom” and in their despair beg their doctors to put them out of their misery."
" Tens of thousands of salmon can be stung to death in minutes"
" Even cutting these prolific breeders into pieces doesn’t slow them down. If quartered, the bits will regenerate and resume normal life as whole adults in two to three days."
"One kind of jellyfish, which might be termed the zombie jelly, is quite literally immortal."
This post was going great for me because I love the ocean, but you just had to bring up jellyfish. I forgot all about those terrifying death blobs! EEP!
I'm rather sorry that I basically summed them up with "some invertebrates sting," but jellies probably deserve a whole post of their own!
This article spawned a new reason for my existence. I, along with Donald Sutherland and others, truly believe in the jellyapocalypse. The fate of humans has been sealed for many, many years, but who knew the jellies would take our place?!
Jellies are doing really well in response to global climate change! Whee!
Yep! Between that and the fact that we've fished out their competition in a lot of places, the oceans are basically going to be heaving masses of jellyfish any day now. Good thing they're delicious! Oh wait, no they're not.
Actually, jellyfish can be delicious – it's just a matter of knowing what to do with it. Freeze-dried and reconstituted jellyfish shreds are pretty good!
I am actually really glad to know that, because sarcasm and hyperbole aside, it looks like there's a decent chance they'll become our main ocean protein source.
"Jellyfish Tank Installed in an Abandoned Building in Liverpool by Walter Hugo & Zoniel"
Don't know how to link it, but jellyfish as art is the best kind of jellyfish!
I understand that the Portuguese man o' war is not legally a jellyfish, but this still seems like the right thread to say: YOU KNOW WHAT'S IN THE OCEAN? PORTUGUESE MAN O' WARS, THAT'S WHAT'S IN THE OCEAN. DON'T GO IN IT. OR NEAR IT.
NEEDS MOAR PIX!
Haha I know, but I really didn't want to steal all the internet's pictures! So I just linked to a lot of them instead!
Agree!
Pacu smiling at you:
<img src="http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2013/08/13/pacu_custom-726e20164468ed5cc19160a415c9edb22c6119aa-s6-c30.jpg">
HUMAN TEETH, I mean really, why
Pacus a). are freshwater fish and b). are known to eat people's balls, and thus should be honored as our misandrist allies.
These are excellent points.
I love how the fish in the far left in the first picture seems to have just wandered into the shot: "Hey, Barry, I was thinking about what you said earli- GAH WHAT THE HELL TURN THE FLASH OFF"
But seriously, if I ever take to the sea, I will take to the sea in a boat. Or a zeppelin, so that I don't have to get remotely close to the water.
<img src="http://d2tq98mqfjyz2l.cloudfront.net/image_cache/1394220096856662.jpg">
it made me very sad, hearing all the mean things you said about the ocean
i came all the way up to the surface to make you feel guilty
don't i look freakishly like your grandpa by the way
you know, the one you never call anymore
what
you're too busy to talk to the man who taught you how to ride a bike
i am so disappointed in you
Poooor blobfish, so sad and blobby out of the ocean depths!
Oh my fucking god
Why is this never on the nature channel
Needs a big snarf and a couple of errant farts. Otherwise, perfect granddad.
THAT GUY, tho'.
My beloved wanted to study marine biology, attracted to the weird and gross such as we have in this post, not to the sleek and attractive such as at Sea World. When he could not get a big enough scholarship to get to the sea, far from his home in the US Midwest, he ended up studying … a slime mold. Yep, my beloved is sooo smart that he can find something even more disgusting than the critters in this post. And the most horrifying part, to me, is that he chose a slime mold that is *present in every handful of dirt* on every continent except at the poles. Yeah, I edited that dissertation. ::shivers::
I LOVE SLIME MOLDS
They're SO WEIRD and COOL
I feel like Ruining Things is its own genre on the Toast. Possibly my favorite, though.
David Attenborough, even your dulcet tones cannot make whale penises any less terrifying.
I think the contrast of his calm narration adds even more than usual to that clip, though!
There is nothing in the world so delightful as David Attenborough talking about "polychaete worms" (which you'll find everywhere in the ocean.) He makes that phrase sound as lovely and beguiling as the proverbial "cellar door".
Or their ONE TON GONADS. Jesus.
AAAAAAAH THE OCEAN IS THE BEST AND THIS IS PART OF THE REASON WHY. :D:D:D
(Other parts include, but are not limited to, the giant carbon sink, ridiculous fluid dynamics, hard-for-me-to-bend-my-head-around geology, and seaweed.)
Ok but my favorite cephalopod is the flamboyant cuttlefish. 1. HI AWESOME NAME 2. Tiny, colorful things are irresistible & 3. Cuttlefish are cool.
<img src="http://www.diverosa.com/categories/Cephalopods,%20cuttlefish/IAM-105%20juvenile%20Flamboyant%20cuttlefish,%20Metasepia%20pfefferi.jpg" alt="cool">
Cephalopods are the undisputable best.
For perspective: http://kreejay.tumblr.com/post/48747839982/cupand…
And finally, one of my favorite videos of marine life: http://youtu.be/PmDTtkZlMwM
DID YOU KNOW Cephalopods can change the appearance of the texture of their skin?
It probably says something about me that I knew exactly what video that was going to be
One of my favourite fish is this guy because his scientific name is BOOPS BOOPS, what's not to love?
Meanwhile, Pomadasys incisus is a fish more commonly known as "Bastard grunt" which is also delightfully evocative.
I want to know why 5-point skeletal symmetry is a thing that is interesting, but shouldn't exist.
Well. Mostly because this is a very serious post where all the things I say are definitely true!
But also, natural minerals don't have five-fold symmetry. 1-, 2- and 3- fold and their multiples, sure, but not 5. Organisms obviously do their own things beyond inorganic crystal growth, but this one group of animals has clearly decided (consciously, obvs) to break the rules of Nature. Which is a thing I am very serious about.*
* You don't know me, so you may not know that this is NOT a thing I am actually serious about! Except, of course, when I must argue with people who are overly invested in the natural/unnatural false binary.
I'd eat an isopod.
Right?! I'd steam it with butter and garlic and dip it into freshly made Thai seafood sauce. I mean, how bad could it be…
Someone has a recipe for giant isopod soup. SEEMS LEGIT:
http://voices.yahoo.com/giant-isopod-soup-5758086…
This is amazing and I want to be in the ocean right this very minute looking at all these wonderful monsters. Thank you!!!
ECHINODERMS **SHUDDER**
Especially crinoids. My husband is a geologist and has some random crinoid stalk fossils floating around the backs of drawers in our house and I HATE them. Stop trying to be plants, crinoids, you are not plants.
Aw, I love them, but they are very freakish!
For Happy-Fun-Time isopod horror movies (because why not), The Bay is fricking awesome. And terrifying. And on the Netflix and Amazon Prime last I checked.
Ooh, has anyone mentioned Greenland Sharks and their parasites yet? Greenland sharks are one of the biggest sharks, so big they can eat polar bears. And almost all of them have little dangly fishhooks living off their eyeballs! http://seapics.com/assets/pictures/009760-200-gre…
Speaking of, orca are much scarier than sharks. Sharks just have that cultural cachet. There's at least one horror movie that stars genetically engineered super sharks: they're bigger and stronger and they hunt tactically in packs and they can even chase you right out of the water! In other words, they're ordinary orca.
YESSSS eyeball parasites, so awesome
There are no reports of wild orcas ever killing anyone. That is what I tell myself when I go for my daily swim, because transient orcas, (not, like, hobo orcas – they just like to travel up and down the coast as opposed to resident orca pods, which stay in one place) sometimes come into the harbour to eat seals.
I look like a seal when I swim – same shape, dark bathing suit, same propensity to bob up and down while hanging out in deep water. I know that a shark would be biting my legs off in a second before deciding I'm not its favourite prey, but those smart orcas – they'd spot those dangling legs and just swim away. Right? Right?!?!
The thing is though there's no difference between 'no reported attacks' and 'no bodies recovered'
I mean I'm not saying, but I'm saying.
Don't worry, unlike sharks the orcas would flip you around out of the water and play with your first, probably figuring out that you weren't a seal somewhere in there. That's comforting, right?
Pretty happy with Lake Michigan right now, nothing scarier there than maybe a fish that might jump out at a boat I don't have.
Given everything we have tossed into Lake Michigan, I am not convinced it hasn't mutated something just as terrifying by now.
There was a whole video on octopus that mimics the things they hid on and it's FLAWLESS how they mimic. Also, terrifying. I worked for a summer at the New England Aquarium, and while I was there our resident octopus got out of her own tank one night, crossed over to the tank next to it (adjoining, but STILL), OPENED THE LID, entered, ate all of her neighbors, exited the tank, CLOSED THE LID AFTER HER, and returned to her own tank.
Yup. We're all doomed.
I really have to stop eating octopus.
Gods no, eat them before they eat us!
WHY DOES THIS ONLY FILL ME WITH DELIGHT
The pacu is a fish best known for eating human testicles
TOAST MASCOT
My partner and I have this thing we talk about called the Nightmare Threshold. The Nightmare Threshold is a measure of how many of a particular creature (e.g. cats, dogs, bees, straight white dudes) can surround you before you are living in a nightmare. For me, cats have a high Nightmare Threshold, like it would take maybe 100 cats or more before I got uncomfortable. At the other end of the spectrum are slugs, which, for me, have a Nightmare Threshold of 1 because I hate them and never want them anywhere near me.
We have frequently discussed whether there are creatures in the world that have a Nightmare Threshold of 0, which is to say that the mere knowledge of their existence is nightmarishly unsettling.
I think this article answers that question.
I am adopting this into my life.
Yes this is a very useful concept.
I like how the fish in that first photo also looks grossed out by the intestine worm thing.
Am I the only one who still hasn't worked up the nerve to read page two of this nightmare-scape?
I don't blame you, but I promise it has some more funny jokes!
I'm not sure what it says about me that this post just makes me want to take to the sea, but here we are.
You and I are united in this.
Oh geez, you guys, I've been informed that the ocean is actually full of GAMETES, not GONADS. This is not a surprise: I always mix those words up. But, it's still full of sperms and eggs! Which is what I meant!
I suppose this is excellent support for the statement that I am very, very far from being a biologist of any kind!
I am at once deeply horrified and delighted. Thank you for this piece!
Oh well! More fun times with lovable ocean monsters for the rest of us! *Hops into wetsuit, fits mask, dives in.*
Am going for a swim in the horrifying, magnificent ocean right now.
But you've forgotten one primal ingredient— love— that's right, love. If that thing that appears to be a pile of intestines was YOUR pile of intestines, you'd feel differently about it.
waiiiiit isopods are friends
see http://fuckyeahgenderstudiesisopod.tumblr.com to feel better about them
I have an endless capacity and limitless desire to read about the monsters of the deep. I would like many more articles on The Sea, The Toast. Possibly a sister website.
This is possibly the best article ever, I love this, I love all of it, especially this line "Marine animals probably could be classed as horrifying simply based on the positions of their anuses." because it is true and yet also 50% of the reason why I find marine animals so delightful. They're anus free-for-alls.
I am so, so happy to have grown up and once again be living in Kansas, because the only horrifying marine creatures around here are fossils.
I've mistrusted the ocean ever since my first dip in it at 17 on a family trip to Hawaii, where I kicked a coral reef by accident and required 13 stitches in my foot.
Well, now I know what to get you for xmas…
http://paganwandererlu.wordpress.com/2009/03/05/s…
<img src="http://paganwandererlu.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/isopodcover.jpg?w=300&h=299">