When a whale dies and its corpse falls to the bottom of the ocean, entire ecosystems rapidly develop around eating every part of it due to how scarce resources are in the deep ocean. This phenomenon is called a “whale fall” and it’s a major source of energy for deep ocean ecosystems.
Give us your craziest ocean facts. 🦑
Submitted 1 month ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Comments
markovs_gun@lemmy.world 1 month ago
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Whale whale whale, what do we have here? - deep ocean crabs
Bunnylux@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Life is worth living today thanks to this comment
Agent641@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Sometimes I wonder if a shipping container full of billionaires would have a similar effect.
lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
We have to find out. We need to try it immediately to see what happens. That’s just basic science
Zron@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That seems like a waste of a perfectly good shipping container.
Why don’t we just use environmentally friendly hemp ropes and locally sourced boulders?
trueheresy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Or a submarine.
Baguette@lemm.ee 1 month ago
There are lakes in the ocean called brine lakes/pools. Brine is essentially concentrated saltwater; its high salinity means it’s denser than water. On rare occasions, brine doesn’t mix enough with the existing saltwater around it, sinking to the bottom of the ocean and forming these lakes. The lake itself is usually devoid of life; brine itself is so salty that animals go into toxic shock if exposed for too long. However, the edges usually are full of life, where usually things like mussels and other extremophile organisms thrive.
Side note, subnautica’s lost river is based off of this. No big leviathans in real life though, at least none observed yet…
Video for fun: youtu.be/ZwuVpNYrKPY
FooBarrington@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Similarly, SpongeBobs Goo Lagoon is a brine pool.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It was never actually stated but I always assumed Goo Lagoon was industrial waste (“goo”). But SpongeBob creator Steve Hillenburg was a marine biologist who would have known all about brine pools, so that speculation is probably right.
XiaCobolt@hexbear.net 1 month ago
It’s the explanation for the beach Spongebob visits too
LanguageIsCool@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Amazing
5too@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Wow, I had no idea these were a thing… and it’s so funky how the surface of the brine pool interacts with the surrounding seawater!
HobbitFoot@thelemmy.club 1 month ago
There are entire levels of the ocean where ecosystem is fed on the slow sinking of dying animals.
Lucky_777@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Cycle of life is pretty badass.
whotookkarl@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Greenland sharks are pretty amazing
They can grow up to 24 feet putting them at the same giant scale as great whites and basking sharks, but most are usually closer to 5 meters long
They can live for hundreds of years due to extremely slow metabolism and ambush feeding, some individuals found around 400 years old are as old as the Jamestown colony, Don Quixote, and the discovery of logarithms.
They are opportunistic feeders and have been found with polar bear and reindeer in their digestive systems, and can pull/vacuum in water to catch their primary prey of fish, eels, and other sharks.
Devadander@lemmy.world 1 month ago
24 feet ~ 7.3m
5m ~ 16’5”
myrrh@ttrpg.network 1 month ago
…i was going to say 16 ⅔ feet based on 1 ½ meters being about 5 feet, pretty close…
MeatPilot@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They also commonly have eye parasites that severely impairs their vision or blinds them called Ommatokoita elongata.
So they get to live long with multiple generations of parasites stuck in their eyes they can’t get out.
Artyom@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Be me young shark, ready to make my mark on the world Find a book falling from the sky called Don Quixote eh_mid.jpg Ignore humans for a few hundred years, eat some fish instead Find out it’s become a core component of their identity and everyone knows about it Even had a ballet about it wtf
lagoon8622@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Don Quixote is actually an awesome book, you should definitely read or listen to it. Give it a bit to get rolling, and you will absolutely be doubled over with laughter
notabot@lemm.ee 1 month ago
So 5 meter long sharks with 24 feet? That sounds terrifying. How far up the beach can they run?
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
feet … meters
Oh, please.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
Are they the ones where you have to ferment the flesh or it is toxic? Or wasn’t that a shark?
Thorry84@feddit.nl 1 month ago
While this is funny and all, this isn’t really true for a couple of reasons:
- We know a hell of a lot about the oceans, we’ve studied them for hundreds years. There has been extensive mapping of the seafloor. All of the areas close to land have been thoroughly studied. And where we’ve spotted interesting stuff, we’ve investigated for sure.
- We haven’t thoroughly explored the moon. Sure we’ve had nice pictures for a long time. But we’ve only recently seen the rear side of the moon, as we more or less always see the same side from Earth. Not till recent orbiters we’ve had a high resolution map of the moon, comparable to maps we have of the oceans.
- Only a dozen or so people have ever been to the moon and the amount of research they did was very low. They also haven’t brought back many samples. And the amount we can do from orbit and with rovers is very limited. At this point I would say we know more about Mars than we do about the moon, depending on how to count. The moon isn’t that interesting, so we haven’t done much with it. It’s made of the same stuff as the Earth and without an atmosphere and biosphere, it’s kinda dull.
- This is basically impossible to measure. What is knowledge? How is it quantified? We could say it’s relative. But since there isn’t a way to know how much total knowledge there is available to learn, I’d say that’s not possible. What does it mean to “explore”? Do people need to go there? Because a hell of a lot of people have been to the seafloor than to the moon. Hell going to the seafloor is a basic tourist activity these days. I’ve been to the Maldives and did some crazy dives looking at life on the bottom of the sea.
- People might argue the Moon is basically all the same, so once you’ve seen one spot you’ve seen them all. I’d argue that’s not true, we’ve only recently learned the moon’s poles are very interesting and we know very little about that. And I’d counter that argument with the fact the same goes for the deep oceans. A whole lot of it is just barren wasteland, an under water desert. We haven’t explored because there is nothing to see. We select interesting locations and study them thoroughly, instead of studying a lot of it a little bit and wasting huge amounts of time.
- Another argument often repeated is new species are discovered every day in the ocean. Whilst this is true, we are also destroying a lot of species, so the total number might actually go down instead of up. And a lot of species are variants of already known species. Only expert biologists can differentiate between the species and know what to look for. And I’d argue they don’t change the big picture or understanding at all. Still interesting, but not an indication there is so much more to find out there.
- But what about something huge living down there? Like a Kraken or dinosaurs? Well no, we don’t have to have studied every square inch to know about big life. Big life is messy, requires a lot of resources and is part of a food chain. You don’t need to see the dinosaur if you can see their giant mountain of crap amidst broken trees. There might be some kind of large squid or something down there, but they will probably be extremely similar to other large squid we already know about. So a new species, but not changing the overall picture. If there were any big monsters down there, we would know about them by now.
So this is one of those things that might feel true, but in reality it really isn’t.
Uli@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
Well, now that we know what’s out there, I think we should focus our efforts on putting a big sea monster into the ocean.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Too easy. We need to put a sea monster on the moon.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
The moon isn’t that interesting, so we haven’t done much with it.
It’s a ball full of sharp and toxic shards that get everywhere.
On the other hand, there’s immortal jellyfish.
Tlaloc_Temporal@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
It might be more accurate to say the average person knows more about what we don’t know about the ocean than what we don’t know about the moon.
We have a decent idea about what can and may exist in and about Earth’s oceans, but less about the moon; and most people assume it’s just a dusty rock too.
keepcarrot@hexbear.net 1 month ago
Everything outside of my immediate experience is densely packed squid atlanteans. (I feel like some people seem to genuinely think like this, which is distressing)
Taiatari@lemmynsfw.com 1 month ago
The blue planet 1 BBC documentary states that we know about the moons surface than ocean floor. The BBC’s Blue Planet 2 changed that to: we know more about the surface of mars than we know about the ocean floor.
So make of that what you want.
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 month ago
fun fact: we kill 3 TRILLION animals a year, most of which are sea animals.
dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
fun fact: animals, exluding humans, kill about 1 MILLION of us humans a year, most of which are not sea animals.
barf@vegantheoryclub.org 1 month ago
Wow that’s 0.0000003% as much, which is conveniently exactly the same ratio as my balls to your mom.
thebardingreen@lemmy.starlightkel.xyz 1 month ago
Weird mathematical fact about that,
That works out to almost exactly every person on Earth killing exactly one animal every day.
BussyCat@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Isn’t like more than half that number diseases like malaria spread through mosquitoes
Botunda@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Fun Fact: I found the hunter
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 1 month ago
Next fun fact: Its more likely to get killed by a coconut dropping onto your head than to die in a shark attack.
huppakee@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Does it include bugs? I can’t imagine we kill more fish than bugs
NewSocialWhoDis@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Shrimp, lobsters, and crabs are kinds of bugs.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Not a fact but a question:
How do whales keep water out of their anuses when they are deep diving?
Whales have been known to dive almost 2 miles deep and at that depth you’re looking at almost 300 atmospheres of pressure and a whale’s sphincter has to be strong enough to resist that.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I had to look it up out of curiosity. The rib cage and lungs of sperm whales are adapted to collapse under pressure, squeezing all the air the lungs contain into a small space and increasing internal cavity pressure.
kamenlady@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I think that also happens to humans, but without being adapted to it, it’s a one way squeeze.
thenextguy@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They don’t. That’s their kink.
D_C@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Same.
tino@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Norwegian fjords are freaking deep. When you’re on the shore of Sognefjord, you’re standing in front of a 1300m deep canyon filled with ocean water.
Merritt@lemm.ee 1 month ago
New anxiety unlocked.
supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
What I like to think about is that fjords were carved out by glaciers and the sea level has certainly been lower that it was now in the past… but 1300m deep what???
…so how did Glaciers cut rock BELOW sea level? Like wayyyyyy below sea level?
It is the weight of the entire glacier bearing down and carving wayyyyyy below a depth that a chunk of ice would make sense being at, the entire glacier basically serves as a trench digging machine and as you pointed out these fjords are REALLY deep.
_core@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
They were carved by Slartibartfast, not glaciers.
Dvixen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Fun Fact: Dolphins fart.
Botunda@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I mean everything farts, right? What about a snail?
MintyFresh@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s a delicacy in France. Escargot de poopoo
Sphks@jlai.lu 1 month ago
Due to their plant-based diet, I can imagine that snails fart a lot.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
tube worms don’t have digestive systems of their own. it is possible they don’t fart. The bacteria they symbiose with might fart on their behalf though.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
And so do fish.
CitizenKong@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Sharks are older than trees and the north star.
Troz@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
And Saturn’s rings!
whoisearth@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
We are killing the ocean by increasingly acidifying it. This has been known by scientists for decades.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Thalassaphobia is a real thing
MisanthropiCynic@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Whales suffocate to death; they don’t drown.
Human breathing is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. We have to hold our breath on purpose to stop ourselves from automatically breathing. This makes us passive breathers. Whales, however, are active breathers. They must choose to inhale which is why they can sleep without sucking in air. When they get too old, sick, or weak to surface, they suffocate.
Bonus fact: whales can’t breathe through their mouths; it goes straight to the stomach. The blowhole is the only respiratory tract.
Bonus bonus: a blue whale’s throat is so small it could choke to death on a grapefruit.
rumba@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
A teaspoon of seawater typically contains about fifty million viruses
NigelFrobisher@aussie.zone 1 month ago
The ocean has killed more billionaires than the Moon has.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 month ago
goes to moon
Sea of Tranquility
Nooooooo!
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Global warming has a slower effect on the oceans than in air temperatures, yet we’ve passed a tipping point where many sea regions are consistently 3C warmer than pre-industrial era, and they are helping air temperatures set records too. Even since 2016, summer tropical North Atlantic ocean has been over 2C warmer than 2016. This region is also called “hurricane alley”, and ocean heat has an exponential effect on hurricane strength.
affiliate@lemmy.world 1 month ago
what if we finally get to the moon and there’s another ocean there waiting for us
pageflight@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Octopus Lady is 100% crazy ocean creature facts. Also on Nebula.
ryedaft@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Metal nodules on the ocean floor produce oxygen
But_my_mom_says_im_cool@lemmy.world 1 month ago
I have thalassophobia, im from a beach country and im like “nah I’ll stick to the pool”
Fuck no. You can’t Breathe underwater. The ocean is essentially space but with actual monsters in it. And if you can’t see the bottom, fuck no I’m not going in there
ArtemisimetrA@lemm.ee 1 month ago
Earth’s atmosphere is an ocean of gas. The ocean is an atmosphere of liquid. Words are made up.
WhatSay@slrpnk.net 1 month ago
Homefry@infosec.pub 1 month ago
The Blue Whale is so large, that if you laid one out on a standard NBA basketball court, the game would be postponed.
ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 1 month ago
isn’t space just like, an inverse ocean?
Zwiebel@feddit.org 1 month ago
Andrew wouldn’t like Solaris me thinks
TheCelticPirate@lemmy.world 1 month ago
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
It’s not about not knowing about the sea. It’s about the sea not knowing about us.
I don’t want periphylla periphylla to know where I live.
DarkCloud@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s almost entirely located on land.
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Lobsters have urine nozzles under their eyes, and pee in each other’s faces to communicate.
very_well_lost@lemmy.world 1 month ago
subscribe
disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Lobsters have olfactory sensory neurons, located in the aesthetasc sensilla on their antennules, which allow them to detect the pheromones in the urine of other lobsters.
A dominant male lobster will pee to signal his dominance and deter other males from his territory. Females may also pee to signal their readiness for mating, and the urine of a dominant male can attract females.
Lobsters also communicate through touch and by using their claws, but no one gives a fuck after reading about the pee thing.
HugeNerd@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
I’ve seen them on the bus I think.
spirinolas@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Is there any other way to communicate? Peeing in someone’s face is a very effective way to send a message.