A bustling community! скачать в хорошем качестве

A bustling community!

This basket star is Gorgonocephalus chilensis, a type of brittle star or Ophiuroid distantly related to sea stars. Like the delicate, edible young shoots of a fiddlehead fern unfurling towards the sun on land, the basket star stretches its many arms up into the water to feed on food as it is carried past the coral on water currents. Chris Mah, the internet’s favorite Echinoderm expert, is a researcher at the Smithsonian National Natural History Museum. He provided the species identification for the animals on this coral and thinks the small shrimp-like critters, called amphipods, are associates that likely find some refuge or protection with the basket stars. Although he notes that they could also be "kleptoparasites" that steal food or resources from another animal. The animals that look like pretty pin cushions are Sterecchinus neumayeri, a type of urchin. “They could be feeding on the coral or whatever that stalk is,” Mah said. But he adds that they could be eating something on the surface of the coral or simply seeking shelter. This seafloor village was observed during the last dive of the #SouthSandwichIslands expedition with Ocean Census. The 35-day deep-sea expedition observed thriving polar ecosystems, discovered new hydrothermal vents, coral gardens, and many species that are likely new to science.