A "living fossil" Desmophyllum, a solitary coral aged to 3000 years.
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That is a lovely photo and makes me think about the IMAX Deep Sea 3-D movie I saw at the Houston Museum of Natural Science yesterday. No, barnacles weren't having hot steamy sex, but they did show them briefly feeding. Narrated by Kate Winslet and Johhny Depp, it was a bit corny at times, but I have to say the polarized 3-D viewing is excellent. The reefs were beautiful as were the swarms of moon jellyfish, etc. Since they focused on "cleaning stations," the theme was the symbiotic relationships of coral reefs, including sharks. So, I was pleased with the message. The kids enjoyed it, too: eels popping out at them, peaceful turtles, and a mantis shrimp beating up on an octopus. Have you seen this IMAX movie? It ended with the Flower Gardens reef in the Gulf of Mexico showing it's mysterious annual August spawning. That is really a fascinating phenomenom and beautiful to watch.
Can you point me to reference where dating live animals is discussed? Better yet, write a blog post about it. :)
Kate Winslet was one of our best Friday Deep Sea Pictures! The movie must be good. Cleaning stations make it seem like everyone's friends undersea, don't they?
>>>Cleaning stations make it seem like everyone's friends undersea, don't they?
Ha, briefly! They point out that the tiger sand sharks and their "cleaning friends" call a truce - away from the reef they're backstabbing friends. :-)
They show plenty of reef denizens chomping on their reef neighbors, and the agressive Humboldt squid fighting over fish. The nudibranch sucking down a sea anemone is lots of fun, too. What I like about this particular IMAX movie is that there are no sharks eating, just lots of interesting creatures the general public doesn't know about. I'm having trouble finding detailed information about the mola molas mentioned in the film; they said they congregate to be cleaned at some non-reef spot off of California and they wonder how they know to always go there. Do you know what spot they're speaking of?