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(#37) The Dumbo Octopus Swims with Elephant Ears
Those aren't ears on the dumbo octopus, but the fins sure do resemble a certain animated Disney elephant. The dumbo octopus uses its protruding ear-like fins to swim.
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(#35) The Frogfish Is a Master of Camouflage
The frogfish can change colors to blend into the coral reefs in which it lives. The fish have stripes, spots, warts, and other skin anomalies that help it impersonate rocks and plants on the reef.
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(#27) The Ugly Blobfish Is Squishy So It Floats at Extreme Depths
The blobfish will certainly not win any kind of oceanic beauty pageant, but the squishy, almost shapeless critter looks the way it does to enable itself to float more easily in the deep ocean where it lives. It's actually as sedentary as it looks: it remains almost entirely still, with no swim bladder, unlike most fish.
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(#26) The Christmas Tree Worm Decks the Halls All Year
The Christmas tree worm was discovered at the Great Barrier Reef's Lizard Island. The worm actually breathes and eats with those creepy "branches." True to the Christmas break spirit, the coral-like worms are almost entirely sedentary.
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(#20) The Yeti Crab Is the Hairy Hipster of Crustaceans
Unlike its smooth-shelled cousins, the yeti crab was discovered off Easter Island and has hairy claws. It's likely blind and might use bacteria in its furry claws to detoxify its food.
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(#41) Some Deep-Sea Fishes Have Ultra-Black Skin That Serves As Camouflage
At least 16 species of deep-sea fishes, including the Pacific blackdragon pictured here, have ultra-black skin that can absorb 99.5% of light, according to a study published in Current Biology in July 2020. Sunlight doesn't reach the depths of the sea, so bioluminescent organisms can reveal prey.
Researchers found that some fish have a layer of cells in their skin optimized to reflect light, thus shielding them from predators. "If you want to blend in with the infinite blackness of your surroundings, sucking up every photon that hits you is a great way to go," said Karen Osborne, a marine biologist with the the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
According to a news release from the Smithsonian, "ultra-black" means "blacker than black paper, blacker than electrical tape, blacker than a brand-new tire."
The discovery could apply to current technology, the study said, because "black surfaces have the potential to inspire the design of synthetic ultra-black materials."
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About This Tool
Do you have a deep-ocean phobia? On this huge and beautiful planet, some of the strangest and scariest creatures in the universe live in the ocean. There is no place on earth that is more fearful and dangerous than the ocean, and there are hunters lurking in the darkest depths at any time in the dark water. The number of terrorist creatures is incredible, with tens of thousands of known or unknown marine creatures.
This random tool introduces cool and scary facts about 41 sea creatures on earth, some of them are ancient marine species with a history of more than thousands of years. It is clear and blue, but there are too many secrets under the ocean.
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