I really, really, really, wanted to finish up my posts on paleodicots tonight, but it isn’t going to happen as I’m leaving town early tomorrow morning for the weekend and still have to pack. So instead, I wanted to give you a taste of all that’s out there still waiting for us to stumble upon. The above beauty was apparently found in 2003. Judging by the scientists’ reactions, it’d probably never been seen before. What is that thing on its head? I have no idea. Sexually selected cephalopod plumage? A squid spoiler?An HD antenna?

Here’s a different, identified species (Magnapinna) captured on camera by an oil company (go to youtube for the details). Dear God. if I happened to be underwater and see this live . . . let’s just say it’d have a sphincter factor of 9.0. Note the depth in feet.

There is so much cool stuff left to discover right in our own back yard.

Two other pieces of good/bad biodiversity news today:

Biodiversity loss can increase infectious disease in humans

and

Elevated carbon dioxide may mitigate losses of biodiversity from nitrogen pollution

We’ll get back to your regularly scheduled programming next time. Happy weekend!