I believe this is a deep sea dandelion which is a type of
siphonophore. The more common one that people might relate to
is the Portuguese man of war and so that's something we see
up on the surface ocean. This is a deep-sea alternative. So
there's often a gas-filled float somewhere up there that
helps to keep these dandelions suspended and then they have
all of these threads, these strings that are sticking them
onto the the rock beside them.
Those threads that you're referring to, those are
basically the tentacles and they use those tentacles kinda
like uh anchors to the substrate that periodically
they can uh release them and then move to a different
I'm not quite sure what it is that's being uh spread out by
this uh this dandelion here but it could well be gametes or larvae.
They're absolutely shedding.
But they're very, very difficult to study as well.
When we collect these deep-sea dandelions, they actually break
up all into their individual pieces. It's very, very
difficult to get one of these to the surface intact to be
able to study. Absolutely spectacular. What a great
observation.