Science is Fun Fridays!

 

"The ocean holds wonders and promises we haven't even imagined, much less discovered."
Wendy Schmidt, co-founder of the Schmidt Ocean Institute.

A recent expedition around the Phoenix Islands resulted in a sighing of the above Glass Octopus, which is rare indeed.  Prior to this, the animal had only been studied from remains found in the stomachs of predators.

The team's ROV, named Subastian, obtained footage of a whale shark diving beyond 40 feet.  Scientists still don't know where these giants give birth, but this may be a clue that it happens in the deep.

"How can you have an informed conservation plan for an animal if you don't know how, when, or where it breeds?" asks Alistair Dove, VP of Research and Conservation at the Georgia Aquarium.

There has been video of a male engaging in some mating behavior, but the female was too young to breed.

They also caught some interesting footage of a sea star eating live coral at a depth of 2004m.  This is an example of corallivory - a predator eating the mucus, tissue, even skeleton of a coral.

Finally, they were amazed to see this behavior - it appears one crab was hiding a fish in the coral but another one decided to steal it.

For some reason, it is not starting where I want it to, so jump to 3:32 for the crabs, (there is another video in the source link below).  The whole video is a summary of the dive with some awesome deep-sea coral.

IFLScience