We don’t know if the eggs move through a snail and then a polychaete worm before reaching the fish, or through a mussel and then a clam, or through a limpet and then a lobster. Finding an adult worm in a fish tells us nothing about the first two animals it used as hosts.
#Blue planet deep sea shrimp full#
It is a cinematic adolescence, full of trials (just how does one penetrate a mollusk?), tribulations (sustained attacks by its hosts’ immune systems), and a long-anticipated first encounter with sex (losing one’s virginity in the intestinal tract of a fish).īut our understanding of the deep-sea trematode’s life cycle ends with the zoarcid. In order for many species of trematodes to reach adulthood, the young worm must journey through the bodies of three other creatures, penetrating the first two and being eaten by the third, where it finally matures and reproduces sexually.
Perhaps I should clarify that our intrepid young protagonist is not the zoarcid, but the eggs contained in its feces, eggs belonging to a parasitic worm called the trematode. For when the zoarcid poops, the bildungsroman begins. It weaves through tangles of tube worms and munches on snails, limpets, and worms, blissfully unaware of the saga taking place inside its body, and, to be very specific, its gastrointestinal tract. The site, called Nine North, is part of the East Pacific Rise, an underwater mountain range that stretches from the Gulf of California across the southeastern Pacific Ocean. It enjoys a spectacular view, at the bottom of a glittering black canyon 559 miles off the coast of Acapulco, Mexico. It lives in one of the cushiest parts of the deep sea, in the shimmering waters near a hydrothermal vent that warms the freezing seas to the temperature of a kiddie pool. Otherwise, the fish has no real reason to be grumpy. The fish in question, called a zoarcid, looks like a creature caught in an identity crisis, too long to be a fish but too short to be an eel, its lips permanently drooping in a sullen pout. I read it in Sir David Attenborough's voice, for the sake of consistency (and just because I love his tone and cadence).In my personal opinion, the greatest coming-of-age story on Earth does not take place in a Dickens novel or a Disney movie, but rather in a white fish at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. A must-have if you enjoyed the television series. I should think that ages 12+ would have no problem understanding the concepts presented here, and the younger ages would still be able to appreciate all of the fascinating pictures.
#Blue planet deep sea shrimp movie#
Some of the information from the television series repeats here, but it is mostly broad concepts, and you don't feel like you're reading a movie novelization by and large, what repetition there is only serves to reinforce the information, and I wasn't annoyed by it. Or narwhals, with their meter-long tusks protruding from their heads like unicorns of the sea. Some of the underwater creatures are so bizarre that simply reading about them isn't enough take, for example, the angler fish species where the tiny males latch onto the larger females and fuse with them for life. Large, color photographs appear on every page and really help to stimulate the imagination. Although the book's layout and hefty proportions make it akin to a high school textbook, the pacing of the content is uniform and completely readable.
Three members of the BBC's production crew for the television series, "The Blue Planet," form Voltron for this splendid companion book.
0 kommentar(er)
