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Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
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« Living At Sea Under Self Rule | Main | One day course in reef ecology »
Brittlestar City: The Video
Posted on: May 19, 2008 3:55 PM, by CR McClain
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Comments
Pretty amazing. Was that a remote sub or human operated? I wonder if the lasers are used to determine proximity to the sea floor?
Posted by: Bryan White | May 19, 2008 4:51 PM
These aggregations of brittle stars are fairly common. I've seen them once or twice before. How about you, CM and KZ?
I'm inclined to think this is a towed camera because the up and down motion of the camera is enough to make you ill.
Bryan, the lasers are used as a scale to estimate many things, distance from the seafloor among them. Also the size of organisms, area swept, etc for purposes of analysis.
Posted by: Peter Etnoyer | May 20, 2008 8:56 AM
Definitely towed camera. I've seen dense aggregations of brittle stars. But probably not anything that dense or widespread.
Posted by: CR McClain | May 20, 2008 9:02 AM
In deep Gulf of Mexico methane seeps, there are bucket loads of brittle stars associated with tubeworm aggregations (I think, I'll double check).
Posted by: kevin z | May 20, 2008 1:47 PM
I forget, is there anything remotely interesting about brittlestars? ;)
Posted by: Peter | May 20, 2008 5:15 PM
OK, double-checked and a grad student in the Fisher lab says brittle stars covered the mussel beds (not tubeworms) in the Deep Gulf of Mexico. Oodles of them I say!
Peter, food for molluscs?
Posted by: kevin z | May 20, 2008 6:41 PM
I hear from my advisor they're hardly good for that, mate, tooo crunchy, but they show up in fish stomachs so maybe they good for somethin' after all!
I have some nice video of the GoMx ophiuroids on deep gorgonian corals Callogorgia sp. at ~530 m from 2003. They appeared fleshy. I wonder if they are the same species or genus. These can be abundant.
Posted by: Peter | May 21, 2008 9:35 AM
I should make a video of it and call it "Brittlestar Village".
Posted by: Peter | May 21, 2008 9:40 AM
Perhaps fish need calcium supplements just like people do?
Some of the Deep Gulf of Mex brittle stars we collect from Lophelia and seep include Ophienigma spinilimbatum, Amphioplus sp., and Ophiotreta valenciennesi rufescens.
Posted by: kevin z | May 21, 2008 5:23 PM