There is a lot of weird shit in the ocean. An amazing number strange creatures float around in the depths, doing their thing (whatever that is) in relative anonymity; discovered then forgotten about except for in textbooks and the heads of specialists.
A team from BP (yes, Deepwater Horizon’s BP) was using a deep sea remote vehicle routine maintenance on one of their rigs off the coast of Angola when they caught the strange looking creature you see above on camera. They sent the video over to a scientist named Daniel Jones (no, not Mikala’s brother), who is part of Serpent, a project from the National Oceanography Center in Southhampton that identifies little-known marine life. The one they found swimming around their rig is nothing short of supremely strange.
It was aptly nicknamed the “Flying Spaghetti Monster” by the BP workers because it really, really looks like the God of Pastafarianism–which is a real thing. Kind of.
Touched by His noodly appendage. Image:Touched by His Noodly Appendage” by Source. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.
The real name is little bit more boring, but getting a glimpse of the elusive creature in real life is not. The Bathyphysa conifera is pretty much never seen. It’s part of the Order siphonophorae, which, if you remember your high school biology, comes between Class and Family (thanks, Mr. Bell!). Looking from the outside like a regular jellyfish, siphonophores are way weirder. Like, way, way weirder.
As it turns out, the Flying Spaghetti Monster is actually flying spaghetti monsters. Siphonophores are made up of many organisms, and each one clones itself to grow. Each different organism has a specific purpose; reproduction or feeding, for example. But scientists aren’t exactly sure just how these massive colonies are able to synchronize themselves into what seems to be one creature. Which, in fact, it kind of is. Each one of the individuals within the whole couldn’t function on its own.
So, while the Flying Spaghetti Monster is in a tiny little spotlight right now (both on the internet and from the cameras directed at it), with in a few short days, most of the world will have forgotten it exists again, and it will recede back into its realm of the mostly-unknown, continuing to do its thing, whatever that is. And that’s kind of nice to think about.
