Tried going non-set accurate.
I liked being set accurate more.
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“Lie close,” Laura said,
Pricking up her golden head:
“We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?”
A wolf goes for a walk in the woods and meets a dog for the first time
This is fairy encounters to the core. It sends shivers down my spine.
Modern birds are descended from dinosaurs.
Therefore modern rubber duckies are descendants of those hollow mouth-agape cheap toy dinosaurs.
Toy researchers are left only with theories as to how ‘missing link’ may have appeared, but new data is uncovered every day.
Babylonian era problems. (photo via tbc34)
old school hate mail
Imagine how pissed you have to be to engrave a rock
Ok but there was this guy called Ea-nasir who was a total crook and would actually cheat people ought of good copper and sell them shit instead.
The amount of correspondences complaining to and about this guy are HILARIOUS.
Are you telling me we know about a specific guy who lived 5000 years ago, by name, because he was a huge asshole
More like 4000 years ago but yes. Ea-nasir and his dodgy business deals.
And we haven’t even touched on the true hilarity of the situation yet. Consider two additional facts:
- He wasn’t just into copper trading. There are letters complaining about Ea-nasir’s business practices with respect to everything from kitchenwares to real estate speculation to second-hand clothing. The guy was everywhere.
- The majority of the surviving correspondences regarding Ea-nasir were recovered from one particular room in a building that is believed to have been Ea-nasir’s own house.
Like, these are clay tablets. They’re bulky, fragile, and difficult to store. They typically weren’t kept long-term unless they contained financial records or other vital information (which is why we have huge reams of financial data about ancient Babylon in spite of how little we know about the actual culture: most of the surviving tablets are commercial inventories, bills of sale, etc.).
But this guy, this Ea-nasir, he kept all of his angry letters - hundreds of them - and meticulously filed and preserved them in a dedicated room in his house. What kind of guy does that?
[ source ]
Okay, but imagine from the other guy’s point of view. You send angry letters about how Ea-nasir shipped you half a ton of subpar copper, and then 3800 years later—
History: you are without a doubt the worst business man ive ever heard of
Ea-nasir:
Deogen, also known as De Ogen (The Eyes) is a malevolent spirit said to haunt the Sonian Forest in Belgium. It is usually seen as an indistinct figure made of fog, followed by several smaller shadowy figures.
The legend of Deogen is said to have originated when a group of nuns found numerous burned bodies of young children in the forest. However, the only record of this case comes from a 1937 book called De Kinderen van Het Bezeten Bos. As such, Deogen is considered more of an urban legend than anything else.
The Bestiary Revamped: Wyville’s Crownjelly
Disclaimer: While this article is founded in scientific fact, it contains hyberbole and conscious exaggerations for the sake of comedy. Do not take my ramblings at face value. You can find the sources at the end of the article and tools for scientific fact-checking under the “Learn more” link on my blog.
The old article can be read here.
At long last, today we finally return under the waves, and while we’re at it, why not go full fucking overboard? Here at the Terrible Tentacle Theatre, we pride ourselves on not having any idea what “moderation” means. If we return to the sea, there is only one place to go: down. Way, way down.
Say hello to the bathypelagic zone, the expanse of watery void stretching from 1000 to 4000 meters. Our passengers might want to look out their windows and observe the breathtaking scenery below:
Oh no, you’ve got it all wrong. That’s not your internet being shit again. That’s genuinely how it looks, in real life, when you descend to a depth of 3000 or so meters. Nature documentaries like to put more bioluminescent flecks of organic matter in it than a love-starved grandma does lights on the Christmas tree when her grandkids are visiting. However, in reality, making a 24/7 lightshow out of yourself is a preeeeetty bad idea, since it attracts the immediate attention of pretty much everything with huge fucking teeth in the vicinity. Hint: you’ll get eaten, pretty fast. In fact, this is the actual reason why anglerfishes do their little thing with the glowing lures, because anything and everything bigger than said lures will be attracted to it, allowing the anglerfish to basically pull a “gotcha” and eat them in turn.
My point being, if you see something shiny in the deep sea, do not go to investigate. Whatever is shining that light wants you to go there.
And that is also the prime tactic of today’s specimen, which takes the incredible freedom that comes with living in a realm of eternal darkness and emptiness and uses it to fulfill it’s lifelong dream of being a goddamn Pokemon master. Come with me on today’s adventure and you’ll soon see what I mean by that.
I often joke around about how some particularly strange species we review here look like aliens. However, if aliens did decide to visit Earth, Wyville’s crownjelly (Atolla wyvillei), also known as the atolla jellyfish or coronate medusa, wouldn’t be one of the aliens. It would be the fucking spaceship.
I mean, look at this damn thing. I can’t tell where it begins or ends, but I sure can tell where the fucking cockpit is. That is not how a jellyfish should operate; they should be controlled by a decentralized nervous system, not little green men from Planet Piss Off out to steal our hotdogs and happy thoughts because their planet doesn’t have any.
Of course, the scare factor of a glowing organic UFO mothership straight out of Roswelltunguska, Arizona swimming around in our oceans is somewhat mitigated by the fact that it’s tiny as shit. Standing at a diameter of about 15 centimeters (~6 inches), it’s either not a serious harm to humankind at large or the mothership of the smallest aliens ever. I’m inclined to believe the latter.
*squeaky helium voice* BOW DOWN TO ME PUNY EARTHLINGS
AND STOP LAUGHING DAMMIT
Of course, there is a very good reason for the crownjelly being as small as it is. In the deep sea, you can’t throw a brick without hitting absolute darkness and empty water. You take two steps to the left and BAM- you’ve just ran headfirst into fucking nothing at all. The bathypelagic zone where this thing hangs out on the regular is a really food-scarce place is what I’m getting at. And big bodies being as expensive to upkeep as they are, most deep-sea creatures are actually much smaller than nature documentaries would have you believe.
Another aspect of the deep ocean besides being empty also being darker than a Morlock’s asshole inside a cave. Therefore, any light sticks out like a sore thumb, drawing attention like Kim Kardashian did with that one photoshoot of hers. (Doesn’t matter which one, actually. All of them drew attention.) Wyville’s crownjelly exploits this to show us that these particular aliens aren’t interested in meeting our leader, only in playing Pokemon Go.
The whole entire process of capturing a shiny begins with the jellyfish carelessly frolicking across the deep sea, like all of them youngster with their fancy phones and smartwatches. For some inscrutable reason, this movement is accompanied by a steady red pulsing on the underside of its bell. For what reason, I cannot determine seeing as most creatures at that depth are completely fucking blind to the color red. The one species that can actually see red is one that you really don’t want to attract the attention of. In fact, messing with this guy is such a bad idea that its existence was literally what prompted me to start writing this blog in the first place and it served as the subject of my first Bestiary article.
Wyville’s crownjelly swimming, also known as Local Suicidal Idiot Takes a Walk. I mean seriously, you can’t even say that it doesn’t live in the same place as the loosejaw because both species are cosmopolitan. The only saving throw for the crownjelly is that it lives an average 2000 meters deeper than the loosejaw, otherwise this blaring red light would be the evolutionary equivalent of putting a big flashing “KICK ME” sign around your neck.
The first method of capturing sea creatures to train them and become the very best (like no one ever was) is the series of tendrils hanging from its bell, which the jellyfish uses to filter out and capture small prey animals that have the supreme bad luck to be in its vicinity. The alien abduction parallels are uncanny.
However, a second and much more impressive weapon in its arsenal is the long, trailing tentacle that is clearly visible on the above gif. This is coated in enough adhesive to make a hagfish gag, and the crownjelly uses it to its full extent to sate its rumbling belly. Streaming in the water like the latest shit-tier waifu harem show on Crunchyroll, it becomes an effective hunting tool for the benefit of the jellyfish. Anything snared by this appendage will be subjected to similar treatment that one might expect the villains in a Conan the Barbarian movie to do, being dragged after Wyville’s ruthless motherfucking crownjelly, sometimes for minutes, before it does an acrobatic little pirouette and swallows its helpless, snagged prey. Lovely feeding tactic.
Pictured: Wyville’s crownjelly on the hunt. Sadly it can’t really go “YEEHAW” under the water. Even if it had a voicebox all it would be good for would be gurgling.
However, that is not the most unusual feature about this cruel little cnidarian. There is yet one more trick that this deep-sea flying saucer holds, a trick which catapults it from “moderately interesting predator” right into “Kanto Elite Four” position. And that thing is its lights.
See, vicious as it is towards smaller animals, the crownjelly is actually a dirty, dishonorable coward, being equally afraid of bigger predators. Apparently this tiny creature composed of somewhere around 97% water counts as a delicious treat for some reason, seeing as even large active predators such as deepwater sharks munch on it regularly. (Then again, it is also possible that they’re simply too hungry to care about their record as gourmets with refined taste. This is the desolation that is the abyssal zone, afterall.)
Running from a sufficiently large and starved predator in the middle of a flat-empty expanse of water is, of course, hopeless, especially if you’re small as shit and your method of locomotion is the jellyfish equivalent of flapping your arms really fast to try to fly. Clearly, a different tactic must be employed here since this one is a one-way ticket to the town of Stomach, United States of Shark. And employ a different tactic it does.
Oh, boy, does it ever.
I have previously mentioned that the crownjelly is bioluminescent, and employs this attribute for some nefarous purpose. Of course, this is not the red pulsing I already mentioned, this is a whole ‘nother can of worms entirely. This is one of the most ingenious methods of defense I’ve ever seen.
If some foolish predator gives the atolla chase and inevitably catches it, the jellyfish activates its second, blue set of lights. Once again the UFO analogues become eeriely appropriate as the slightest touch sends the saucer-shaped animal into a frantic siren-like light show.
This strange eruption of light is no mere panic response. It is a powerful and weird weapon of self-defense, carefully evolved to be as tacky and eye-catching as possible. It’s like a ganguro girl, only bioluminescent.
Of course, you might ask “why would the jellyfish want to be eye-catching? Isn’t being devoured by one predator a big enough problem for it already?” Well obviously it is, but this lightshow is actually its own circuitous path to freedom.
To understand this, picture the following. You are some big mean motherfucker making a living in the deep sea by eating as much as you can find. One day while taking your regular stroll through the absolute crushing darkness, you catch sight of a distinct, circular light in the distance; very flashy and very tasty-looking. You approach to investigate, and find a small jellyfish being caught by a larger and meatier animal.
What do you do?
- Eat the jellyfish like a fucking idiot.
- Eat the meatier, tastier predator.
If you answered “eat the predator”, congratulations! You’re at least as smart as a fish. And that is, in fact, exactly what Wyville’s crownjelly is counting on. While you’re busy making a meal of its predator, the jellyfish quietly and sneakily fucks off into the abyss before you could think about having it as dessert. And so, Wyville’s crownjelly will live to swim another day, thanks to the power of summoning a big tough animal and pitting it against another ani- OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE IT’S A POKEMON TRAINER.
Do you see why I thought that? If you sail out to sea with Pokemon Go open on your phone, and all gyms on the world oceans are captured by Team Instinct, you know who to blame.
Wyville’s motherfucking crownjelly.
Sources
- Encyclopedia of Life
- WoRMS - World Register of Marine Species
- Ocean Biogeography Information System (OBIS)
- Global Biotic Interactions
- Widder, E. A. Eye in the Sea, NOAA Operation Deep Scope 2005.
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Hunt, J.C. & D.J. Lindsay, 1998. Observations on the behavior of Atolla (Scyphozoa: Coronatae) and Nanomia (Hydrozoa: Physonectae): use of the hypertrophied tentacle in prey capture. Plankton Biology and Ecology, 45, 239-242.
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Herring, P.J. & E.A. Widder, 2004. Bioluminescence of deep-sea coronate medusae (Cnidaria: Scyphozoa). Marine Biology, 146: 39-51