Hydrothermal Horrors; or, The Crawling Chaos Beneath the Sea
Hydrothermal vents are scary places. Observe.
Nat Geo sees a mass of tube worms. I see Ubbo-Sathla.
Below, strange formations of cooled lava, apparently quite ancient. No, this isn’t Atlantis, but I wouldn’t blame anyone who made such a connection.
Incidentally, these hydrothermal worms also live there:
Fortunately, they are very very tiny. But they’re still horrifying. This image was taken with a scanning electron microscope, along with a bunch more of similarly horrifying aspect, in a gallery at The Telegraph.
Still want to go swimming? Shall I continue? There are plenty of non-hydrothermal oceanic horrors to be had.
Mother Nature Network offers these hatchetfish (aka the reincarnated souls of drowning victims):
Plus there’s mutated branching octopi. Read about it at Pink Tentacle. (I feel sorry for this poor thing. What sort of gene gone awry could cause this?)
And below, my personal favorite. Phronima amphipods. Great shot too, by Solvin Zankl, who has a whole gallery of bizarre amphipods and isopods and etc.
This is why I don’t go in the ocean much anymore.
(Actually it’s because I was stung by a giant jellyfish when I was younger, but these certainly don’t help.)
