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How Aquarium Collects Amazing Creatures From Deep

There are two the types of people in the research vessel Rachel Carson: I’m here, I’m very sick and I spend a lot of time in the yard trying to look where it’s coming from, and there are scientists watching a car driven from a distance that hangs beneath us. Seated in a reclining chair in a lounge area, surrounded by bright lights in another dark room, the pilot steers a SUV-type robot across a living galaxy – small fish, swimming crabs, jellyfish, and more. getting out of the way — often stopping to cross something from the color shopping list.

Scientists with the Monterey Bay Aquarium, and its affiliated Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, are in the process of searching for models for the new exhibition, To try, opening in the spring. It will be full of fragile, rarely healthy animals that are healthy in life-sustaining machines that aquarists have taken years to perfect. Biologist Wyatt Patry states: “We call some of these ‘wet paper.’ “Just touch it with your finger and it will tear. Some animals are extremely fragile. ”

Video: Matt Simon

We are about an hour from the California city of Moss Landing, located on the California coast, where the sea level slows down, opening up much of the water below us. As soon as we stopped at the spot, the train was carrying crew members, who used the crane to unload slowly. remote-controlled vehicle Ventana in water. Using a connector that prevented the robot from escaping and causing the pilot to steer clear of real time, the machine swerved and disappeared.

Now under 1,600 feet, the ROV begins to collect the animals in two ways: through tubes and suckers. To use the tubes, the pilot enters one arm in two machines directly on the model. Each has clear, straight tubes. When the meat enters the tube, the doors on both sides are closed, and they are locked inside.

Video: © 2021 MBARI

In the video above, a robot uses a tube to pick up honeycomb combs, Flexible Thalassocalyx. The cosmetics are made of gelatinous, so care is taken here, but they are not really jellyfish. They have tentacles, but instead of being covered with biting cells, the bindings remain stickers for holding meat.

Video: © 2021 MBARI

Here is another group of nested, bright and vibrant colors, perhaps of a new color (the above group of colors) that has not been well described by researchers. “We do not know the facts,” Patry stated. “We do not know what they are eating; we do not know who ate. That is a real mystery. ”

Video: © 2021 MBARI

Jelly on this railway makes a light show. But flashing is not what you think. Bioluminescence is anywhere in depth-Animals are exposed to symbiotic bacteria, for example, by attracting animals or pets. Instead, the jelly-type color of the nest is made up of tiny hairy cells, called cilia, that run the organism. die you can see: The bright ROV light shows the cilia hit. In the darkness similar to this side of the ocean, there would be no visible color.

Video: © 2021 MBARI

The video above shows a second ROV collection method, which uses a file with slow-sucking power for animals that can withstand more aggression than immature jellies. The pilot just has to carry the fan until he gets to the golf jellyfish, and the sucking does everything else. After passing through the cage, the animal is trapped in a container inside the robot’s belly.

Video: © 2021 MBARI

Here is a Christmas tree. Like jellies, siphonophores are gelatinous but not jellyfish. They are hydrozoans, made up of units with a variety of functions that combine to form a colonial animal. They have made themselves many times, with other types of stretching 100 feet tall.

Video: Matt Simon

When these models are secured, the driver brings the ROV to the top of the side Rachel Carson, and workers are catching it with a crane. Patry and other scientists run and unload the collection tubes, rushing them to a small cabin on the ship. They carefully transfer the samples into plastic bags, which go into the cold.

Video: Matt Simon

Two hours later, we are building on a stable, running back the animals into a waiting truck to be transported to the waterfront, where the models will be very interesting on the proper life support systems.

Video: Matt Simon

You may wonder: ‘If swimmers swerve from a distance of about a hundred yards at a very high speed, is there any harm in lifting these animals from a height of 1,600 feet? The good news is, he is well. And when they get to the aquarium, their displays are similar to the water pressure, temperature, and salt that the animals are accustomed to. Aquarists also pass water through specialized ducts, which absorb all the oxygen-deprived habitats that living organisms call home.

It is a place where scientists are eager to understand, as the oceans change as a result of climate change. As vegetation does on land, photosynthetic algae called phytoplankton absorb carbon dioxide and are eaten by animals, releasing carbon dioxide down into the sea. So the air is removed from the atmosphere and trapped inside, but scientists do not know how it can change like the sea heat and acidify.

“Obviously, disrupting that carbon sink could be dangerous,” says Patry. “One of the things we are showing on this show is deepsea mines, which is more dangerous in various ways. ” Mining equipment can damage the bottom of the ocean floor, creating huge rivers that rise above the water. Patry states: “It will remove everything that is bad and affected by this.

Video: © 2021 MBARI

This video shows ROV in clear-water water filled with tiny particles of white detritus, sure, but these are the opponents who are busy turning the carbon into dry pellets. They have never been changed to survive the muddy clouds that replace them. “Just as killing carbon dioxide is not bad, then you are blocking light from shallow areas,” Patry said. This makes photosynthetic algae less profitable. “It is now affecting the atmosphere in the oceans, especially the industrial areas.”

Such a trip is a way to get people to observe and understand these creatures — to learn “who live in the depths, what they are doing deep, and what role they have in nature,” he says. Patry. “Every opportunity you can have is important to science.”


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