Precious Argo

How's the old saying go? "If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it's probably a duck."

"Quack?"

Courtesy: Derek Bruff via Flickr

By extension I can imagine this test applies to any animal. Let's pick a random one and try it, shall we? If it looks like a..... Nautilus, swims like a nautilus, and has a shell like a nautilus it must be a nautilus. 

"Oh my God! What did you just call me!?"

Courtesy: Michael Vecchione via TOLWeb.org

Oh yeah I'm sorry, paper nauti..... I mean greater argonaut (Argonauta argo). I totally forgot about you. How about I make the rest of this post about how awesome you, and the other three species in your family, are to make up for it?

"We can live with that. I'll just sit here and make sure you

 don't mess up again"

Courtesy: NOAA Photo Library via Flickr

Okay where to start? Well, how about at the very beginning like my nanny used to say. Disclaimer: My nanny may have just been Julie Andrews movies. Anyway, we've known about argonauts for an incredibly long time. Their delicate, paper-thin, shells have been found painted on artifacts from 4000 years ago! Of course, back then we barely knew anything about these animals because we were mostly finding their old shells washed up on the beach. 

However many of the ancient Greeks were talented naturalists, and they started looking closer at these coiled beauties. Aristotle noticed that the argonauts could climb out of their shells because they aren't attached to them like a true nautilus or any other shelled mollusk. So how did Aristotle think argonauts got their shell? Well he assumed they stole it. For the longest time scientists thought that argonauts couldn't be making their own shells, so they were taking them from an unknown animal and using them as boats. Now this seems a little crazy, but add in the fact that female argonauts have sail-like webs on two of their arms, and you have the perfect animal to send after the golden fleece. 

Hahaha...What is it even...? Hahaha...There's a boat to compare it to..Hahahaha!

Bless you for this: Gerard Van der Leun, via Flickr

Although the theory that argonauts combined Grand Theft Auto and that pirate Assassin's Creed (Hold on I have to go pitch an idea to Microsoft) persisted well into the 1800's, eventually science started to sober up. We later discovered that female argonauts make the shells using glands in their webs that secret calcite. They spread these webs out over the shell and lay down material bit-by-bit like nature's 3D printer. 

 On the left you can see the webs with chromatophores, extended over the shell.

On the right this female has pulled the webs back, exposing her construction.

Courtesy: Michael Vecchione via TOLWeb.org

 If you're an astute reader, you've probably noticed that I've only mentioned female argonauts so far. This follows the history of these animals because for the longest time we had no idea what the males looked like. Why? You might ask, well they're tiny, like really tiny, only 1% the size of a female, and the biggest species' female only gets to 30cm across. Plus the males don't build shells, oh and sometimes they only have seven arms.

See argonauts are octopuses, and they normally have eight arms like any of their relatives. However one of a male octopuses arms is very different from the others. The third arm on his right side is called a hectocotylus (pronounced: heck-toe-cot-oh-luss) and it's used for reproduction. The males of most bottom-dwelling octopuses insert their hectocotylus into the female's gill opening; and sit there for a bit while a packet of sperm passes from inside his body, down the arm, and into the female's oviduct. Argonauts don't have the luxury of that kind of time though. They differ from their cousins by living up in the water column, instead of down on the sand. Living in the open ocean is great way of avoiding competition with your cousins down below, but it also means you have to travel far and quick to find food, mates, and shelter. 

Because the ocean is so big, and argonauts so small, males may not have many chances to find a female. To make sure they mate effectively the male argonaut's hectocotylus actually breaks off inside the female's body cavity, and he swims away. By embedding his sperm delivery system in the female, the male has insured that it's his DNA that fertilizes the eggs. Plus it's a great way to screw with naturalists. This is not a joke, the scientist who first found a hectocotylus buried in a female argonaut thought it was a parasitic worm!

 Plus what the hell do we call this thing, a septopus?

The eighth arm is kept inside that pouch.

Courtesy: Edwald Rubsamen via Wikimedia Commons and Public Domain

Now here's where the functional beauty of the female's shell can accompany its aesthetic beauty. Since she lives up in the water there's very little to attach her eggs to, and good material could be floating hundreds of miles from the female argonaut, so she lays her eggs right inside the shell. Female argonauts handcraft baby strollers to push their kids around in until they hatch. Not only that, but the shape of the shell allows the female to trap air in its top which helps counter-act the weight of her body and the eggs; and keeps her from rising or sinking too fast. 

You can see the eggs hanging out of the lower part of this female's shell.

She's new to this whole arts and crafts thing.

Courtesy: Bernd Hoffman via Wikimedia Commons

So how'd I do argonaut? Did we cover everything that makes you so cool? Be fair, we don't know much about you since you're all so small and you live in oceans around the entire world.

Whoooo! Nice work! Go team Argo! High eights all around!

Courtesy A.E Verrill via Wikimedia Commons and Public Domain

References:

Finn, Julian K., "Taxonomy and Biology of the Argonauts (Cephalopoda: Argonautidae) with Particular Reference to Australian Material", Molluscan Research, 2013, Vol. 33, No. 3, 143-222.

Heeger, T., Piatowski U., & Moller, H., "Predation on Jellyfish by the Cephalopod Argonauta argo", Marine ecology Progress Series, Vol. 88, 293-296, 1992.

Orenstein, Marcie, "Marine Invertebrates of Bermuda: Paper Nautilus (Argonauta argo)", The Cephalopod Page, 

Accessed via: http://www.thecephalopodpage.org/MarineInvertebrateZoology/Argonautaargo.html 

Mangold, K., Vecchione, M., & Young, R., "Argonautidae", Tree of Life Project, 

Accessed via: http://tolweb.org/Argonauta

Internet Explorer

Oh man I'm so excited I can't contain myself!

No I haven't slipped forward in time to the holiday season, and posted this from the future (Obviously what you were thinking). It's still the start of summer where I am and I'm loving it. Not only has the sun started staying up late again, but it's the middle of the field research season here in the northern hemisphere!

See ocean conditions can be tricky; just ask anyone who's been out in a small boat on a really windy day. In order to take ships out, and actually accomplish anything, it's nice to avoid the season where the waves can average ten feet high. The cables that attach submersibles to ships generally don't like being whipped around that much. Plus even ocean researchers get seasick sometimes. About this time every year research vessels from across the States, and around the world gear up for their big research trips that will run throughout the summer.

Alright that's nice for everyone who works in those fields, but why should everyone else care? Because this is the time when all the cool footage and crazy stories from the deep start to come out, that's why. Thanks to this newfangled "internet" that seems to be sticking around, we have the opportunity to watch many of these events live as they happen. Remotely operated vehicles (ROV's) around the world are shooting footage from hundreds, even thousands, of meters below the ocean. And already incredible events are unfolding before the eyes of anyone with access to the web.

That video shows the largest of the toothed whales, the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), casually inspecting a highly advanced underwater robot. If the embedded video didn't work click here to see it on youtube. This incredible event happened during one of the ship E/V Nautilus' research dives into the Gulf of Mexico. The crew of the Nautilus broadcasts their entire expedition season live from their website while they're at sea. t any moment you can be watching, not only the crazy cool creatures you almost always find in the deep, but also one in a billion chances like this. 

In addition to streaming the entire expedition, and allowing you to listen to scientists being the adorably huge dorks they sometimes are, the Nautilus also allows you to ask questions of the crew in real time. It's an amazing chance to learn right from the researchers while they're doing the research. And the research they're doing is incredible.

So far this season the expedition has been focused on the Gulf of Mexico where oil and gas naturally seep out of the sea bed. This petroleum rich region was the site of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is in the midst of its five year anniversary. The Nautilus even visited the well head, and posted a sobering, silent, ten minute video of their survey of the area. The video is a stark juxtaposition to the live footage of crude billowing out of the well from 2010. This catastrophe has been the catalyst for a big scientific push to find out exactly how spills, and the methods used to clean them up, affect deep sea environments. Oil is a normal part of the Gulf ecosystem, but the blowout blasted more material than would have been released over decades, in a matter of months. 

It's like the Old Country Buffet for oil consuming bacteria.

There's way too much food and most of it ends up on the floor.

Courtesy: Lumis via Flickr

I think we'll be revisiting the spill in more detail here in a future post, so we can stay up-to-date on our understanding of those events. For now though, let's turn back to giving you cool research programs happening right now.

Aside from the E/V Nautilus the other crown jewel in the ocean exploration outreach world is the R/V Okeanos Explorer. While Nautilus is part of a non-profit organization founded by Robert Ballard (the guy who found the titanic, and helped discover hydrothermal vent ecosystems) Okeanos Explorer is owned entirely by the citizens of the United States. In fact, it's the only ship in the US fleet devoted solely to "explore our largely unknown ocean for the purpose of discovery and advancement of knowledge." (Okeanos Explorer webpage). 

"Yeah I own a boat, it's not a big deal or anything."

Courtesy: National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Both ships are devoted to opening up ocean research to the public and increasing the visibility of the world's greatest frontier. It's become an old cliche to say that we know more about the surface of the moon than the bottom of the ocean, but it's still true. In 2000 former president Clinton brought together a panel on ocean exploration that challenged researchers to dedicate energy to exploring parts of the ocean not usually covered by other research vessels. The Okeanos Explorer and the Nautilus are the answers to that challenge. In the 15 years since the panel's report both ships have sailed all over the world. They've found new species in unique ecosystems, peered into the chemistry of the deep ocean, and discovered historic and modern archaeological treasures. All the while their satellite link-ups and devotion to education have provided everyone with a chance to find wonder right alongside the scientists at sea.

So what are you waiting for? Get your infinitely curious, ocean loving self over to nautiluslive.org, or  oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/ and see what's happening for yourself. Okeanos also has a great Flickr feed all free for you to peruse and use whenever you like. If you see something cool share it on social media, tell your friends, use it in your classes, and always keep exploring!

References:

"About NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer", January 5th 2015, NOAA Ocean Explorer Website, http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/

The Ocean Exploration Trust, http://www.oceanexplorationtrust.org/

"New Frontiers in Ocean Exploration: The E/V Nautilus and NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer 2011 Field Season", Oceanography, Vol. 25, No. 1, Supplement, March 2012, Accessed via: http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/25-1_supplement.pdf

Nautilus Live, http://nautiluslive.org/