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The Sea’s Weirdest Creatures, Now in ‘Staggering’ Detail
- pvaldes 6y agoYes, Apendicularians are weird. The real animal in this 3D scanner is the tadpole shaped thing at the center. The remaininig structure is its home and hunting net. The article is confusing because it seems to thing that this is part of the soft body, but is just a temporal enveloppe. The animals can lose or discard it and create a new one if necessary. They have also a second one that is more external and is like a spiderweb made of mucus.
- pvaldes 6y agoThe interesting part in the article is that the entire structure collapse and starts disintegrating when you try to manipulate it, so it was a very difficult group to study because your sample melts in front of your eyes. Scanning the live animal is a good solution for navigating this obstacle.