And there’s a coral on the right to take a look at, please.
Oh yeah.
Coming into view.
Looks like we might be able to see some associates on this guy, too.
There are a lot of brittle stars on that one.
This is definitely a condominium. This is a high rise right here.
High-rise hotel, high-rise apartment, here. With lots of brittle stars, hanging out on this black coral.
And you see a squat lobster in the lower field of view, kind of bouncing around a little bit.
Having all of these associates, does it affect the health at all?
Well, the associates play a role in keeping the coral clean and happy.
Given that there are so many associates, maybe this coral is able to sort of stay devoid of particles and getting clogged up.
Scratching a little itch there.
So they are called squat lobsters because that telson or tail kind of is tucked under, under the body.
And so right now you can see it’s kind of extended its telson and looks like it is scratching an itch, as Jenny says. That’s cute.
This is a type of octocoral. You can see the polyps have eight tentacles.
And we’re getting a really amazing view of the brittle star associates, these ophiuroids.
You see the ophriuriod brittle star arms moving around in the water and a close-up view of the octocoral that we’re going to collect.
Do you want the whole thing?
Sure.
That’s magnificent.
It’s got these sort of squiggly branches, but I’m not a black coral specialist.
So what’s interesting about this is that Leiopathes,
we’ve collected some in the Gulf of Mexico and then Nancy Prouty from USGS has dated the age of these corals to be upwards of 2,000 years old, using C-14 analysis, or radiocarbon isotope dating.
And so the corals, based on her analysis, are really slow growing, on the order of two to eight microns per year.
So not millimeters, not centimeters, but microns per year.
And I guess it’s settled and encrusted on this really dark rock.
Or is that the extension of the base, I wonder?
So we’re zoomed in here. This Anthomastus is an octocoral.
You can see that each polyp has eight tentacles.
And you see some crinoids on the right-hand side of the screen, with arms extended.
And there’s also sponges all over this rock. It looks like a glass sponge, hexactinellid.
This is a type of primnoid octocoral. The primnoid polyps have these scales on them, sort of appear rough.
When we look at it really closely, you can see that it kind of looks, has a rough texture.
And then octocorals, as we’ve been saying throughout expedition, each polyp has eight tentacles.
So that’s another distinguishing feature.
And then, with this particular type of coral, the polyps aren’t at right angles with the branch, they’re actually pointed downwards towards the seafloor.
So that’s another distinguishing characteristic.
Thank you.
Looks like Asteroschema.
I believe it’s a Paramuricea, although it looks really strange.
With that long stalk.
It’s a snake star.
So let’s go in on the sponge and the star on the bottom first.
Take a look at that.
Looks like there’s zoanthids on the right-hand side of the screen.
And then the ophiuroids look like zebra striped, zebra like.
Those look cool.
Nice.
More zoanthids.
Lovely, lovely zoanthids.
The zoanthids have created this coating on the coral.
I think that’s why the zoanthids don’t get the love.
They smother everything?
Yeah.
Can we get a shot of the crab on the right of this coral?
That rock is actually really nice.
Fractures in that rock.
Yeah.
This one might be Lophelia again.
We’re at 494 meters.
Take a closer look, see if there are any live polyps.
So far I see dead skeleton. We might have to tilt up a little bit.
There are live polyps. There you go, you can see some live polyps on the right-hand side.
Now you can see the black skeleton there. That gives the black corals their name.
And then those are the shape of the polyps that I was talking about when we were looking at the sponge,
they just have the two longer tentacles coming off the top.
Good morning for our listeners just tuning in, we’re looking at a nice example of a black coral.
There was a crab on it. Hopefully you caught it.
This is a primnoid octocoral.
We collected some earlier on, on the other side of the seamount.
Is that another crinoid below? It’s not another coral below?
It’s a, the red is a brisingid sea star.
But there’s a bit to look at on the coral above.
And that was an anemone attached to the top of it?
Yeah. It’s a type of anemone – flytrap anemone.
The temperate and salinity look like it’s gone up a little bit.
It looks like, yeah, maybe a different water mass moving down over this wall.
Mixing around.