Photo/Charles Fisher, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 License. Click for link.

The New York Times just published a wonderful look at the thinking of scientists about the fate of the many cold seeps in the Gulf of Mexico, something I’ve been pondering myself a fair bit over recent weeks. I’ve explored the venerable tube worms of cold-seeps before here before, but never in regard to rogue petrochemicals. The communities at these seeps live on oil and other hydrocarbons naturally seeping from the ocean floor, so whether a larger dose will harm them is an interesting question. The consensus for now seems to be probably yes, but we really don’t know.

Whatever you do, don’t miss the beautiful slide show of this fascinating and under-publicized ecosystem. Watch for the orange bacteria, a spectacular black coral, and for brittle stars that put the Lacoön to shame.

And to celebrate this milestone, I now present you the fabulous solution to a mystery we all pondered last year. Remember the Unidentified Feathery Object (aka the Ninja Seaweed)? Well, I just saw a video post on the Echinoblog today (which also includes video of the infamous sea pig!) that explains everything. Though it be still ninja, that’s no seaweed. It’s a space station! Wait. . . let me check my notes . . .

Ahem. For your viewing pleasure, I present . . . the hairy sea cucumber!

Hmmm. . . hairy sea cucumbers. I see nothing suggestive in that name at all. Nope.

It’s also quite apparent no one taught these sea cucumbers table manners. I mean, come on: shoving your whole tentacle into your mouth at once and slowly licking it clean? Sakes alive!

Sea cucumbers (even hairy ones) are echinoderms, which means they’re most closely related to sea stars, brittle stars, basket stars, and sea urchins. This sea cucumber is clearly a filter feeder, catching tiny animals and plants on its tentacles, though I can’t seem to find out if it uses glue, or stinging cells, or poison, or dumb luck. For the sea cucumber (aka holothurian) family . . . er, . . tree, see here. Follow “Holothuroidea” down to see the different sorts. And just for the record, I’d never heard of hairy sea cucumbers either.