Bizarre

Hello, Earthlings! Did you start the week in stile? We did. So far we have got 13 more hauls and a handful of hydrographic profiles. Besides, for some of us this week starts the countdown, for most of the people on board, both Vizconde crew and biologists it means a short pause, if only the time it takes to get to St. John’s, refuel and go to Flemish Cap. We, biologists are free to spend our time on land as we want, but the crew has lots to do, as the ship has to get ready for another survey even longer than ours, and install the new arrivals.

But let’s go back to business: yesterday it was redfish day, but we also got yellowtail flounder and cod. Not as much as over the past two years, but enough for our purposes. We got a large Greenland halibut that measured 110 cm and weighted 14 kg. Not an unusual length for the species but it is for this survey, so much that we took a few pictures to show you. The angle is not very good, but you get the idea.

Catch of the day. 14 kg of Greenland halibut in a single piece.

In the last haul last evening we got this pallid sculpin, I am sure most of you had never seen such a fish. It is a so called “fathead”, but it could have also been named “hardhead”, because it is nearly impossible to drive a knife through it. Then the rest of the body feels like jelly, but the head is definitely shockproof.

Cottunculus thomsonii

Fishing today has gone well although catches haven’t been great. In the first haul we got yellowtail flounder and sea cucumbers (lots of these, over 100 kg) , at least depth was the usual range for the flounders. Next haul got us American plaice, more yellowtail flounder and large ophiuras, that filled several boxes.

Ophiuras look like starfish but they belong to a different group within the Echinoderms. They have small bodies and very long arms, sometimes very thin, sometimes very bushy, as it is the case for Gorgonocephalus eucnemis, our star (pun not intended) for today.

The basket star Gorgonocephalus eucnemis upside down

For those thinking “this animal is way more beautiful than those horrible fish she showed the other day” I’ll tell you that ophiuras eat and let go through their mouths, because they lack an anus. And for those that called my fish martians, I’ll tell you that ophiuras can regenerate even from a single arm, which sounds more like sci-fi tan biology. Besides, they can see from their dorsal side. They have some kind of calcite that work like a compound eye.

We have also found gastropod eggs, you definitely must have seen them during winter strolls on the beach, before the machines enter for the summer cleaning and take away all the treasures the sea deposits there.

Gastropod egg mass

And this creature here is a solitary ascidian called Boltenia ovifera. It belongs to a very interesting group (if there is any animal that it is not interesting) called Urochordata or Tunicates. Adults consist of a bag with two orifices, one to inhale water and food and the other exhale water and waste. We call them tunicates because of the tunic protecting their bodies. One of the most smashing features of tunicates is that the larvae of many of them has notochord, the main characteristic of chordates (like us), pharingeal slits and a tail like tadpoles. All this is lost during methamorphosis, after which they become sessile and lead a sedentary life ever after.

Boltenia ovifera, also called sea onion

So as you can see there is no time to get bored. There is something special in all hauls. We also got this 111 cm cod, that weighted 15 kg, an elderly veteran.