What a beautiful phenomenon
See the rest of the photos taken from a helicopter at http://tinyurl.com/7shpfoo
Archive for February, 2012
Mmmmm — tasty. Just kidding.
An expedition to one of the deepest places in the ocean has discovered one of the most enigmatic creatures in the deep sea – the ‘supergiant’ amphipod. Amphipods are a type of crustacean which are particularly common in the deep sea and are found in greater numbers the deeper you explore. Typically deep sea amphipods are 2 to 3 centimetres long with the exception of the slightly larger ‘giant’ amphipod found in Antarctica which grows to 10cm. But scientists have discovered a ‘supergiant’ amphipod in waters north of New Zealand which dwarfs the Antarctic ‘giant’. The newly captured specimen measures 28 cm – nearly ten times that of ‘normal’ amphipods. A ‘supergiant’ estimated at 34cm was also caught on film.
‘Supergiant’ is a term coined by American scientists in the early 1980s after a few large specimens were caught off the Hawaiian Islands. Despite a few infrequent findings in the 1970s, the supergiant amphipod has not been reported since and has faded into the realms of rare and mysterious deep sea creatures, until now. These new sightings and specimens captured represent both the biggest whole specimen of supergiant ever caught and the deepest point these have ever been found.
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