The 10 Greatest Web Videos of Marine Invertebrates

In no certain order…

10.  Those barnacles just ain’t feeding!  This is red hot barnacle copulation! Turn the lights down low, everything’s goin’ to be just right…

9. Humboldt Squid are vicious, blood thirsty demons ready to rip the flesh off any living creature.  Of course I tend toward exaggeration

8. Beautiful? Definitely! Slow? Stunningly!  Hungry? Absolutely! Equipped with deadly precision and the gastropod equivalent of a harpoon, species of the genus Conus are here to terrorize all the fish in your neighborhood.

7. Sharks? Whatever… those serious about the ocean know octopods are top predators

6. Stunning, a rare thing of beauty but vicious and deadly. Reminds of a girl I dated once.

5. They’re sponges and they’re horny!

4. They’re like little puppies.

3. No top ten craziest web videos of marine invertebrates would be complete with the GIANT ISOPOD.

2. Polychaetes are one of the most diverse and bewildering marine invertebrate groups. To love the ocean is to love the worms. This is a 10cm Nereis. Make sure you watch to 0:55 for the amazing everting proboscis with its horny hooks.

1. Sure there are far more freshwater rotifers than marine but no reason to leave them off the list.

Bonus: Not invertebrate but sometimes you just gotta dance

12 Replies to “The 10 Greatest Web Videos of Marine Invertebrates”

  1. I was hoping when I saw the title that you wouldn’t include the octopus vs. shark video… it makes me cry every time I watch it. Still, cool stuff. Thanks for this helpful archive of videos.

  2. Nice diversity of inverts- I know it’s overdone, but I’ve always been partial to the Pacific Octopus eating sharks in the Seattle Aquarium video.

  3. As a non-marine biologist, I must say…I’m almost speechless.

    I didn’t really know that octopuses “hatched.” Not sure why – I guess I just never really thought about cephalopod lifecycle.

    The conesnail is just plain rad.

    The giant marine roly polies are just plain freaky…

    Is it wrong that the barnacles turned me on?

  4. Irradiatus, barnacle males have the largest penis-to-body-length ratio of any known animal. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t at least a little impressed.

  5. Weeee, in the nereid polychaete, you can see the dots that are used to identify them! Getting the proboscis out, especially in small species, now that’s a challenge!

  6. Wow, that barnacle video was amazing! The anemones and sunflower stars in the tanks at my workplace (Port Townsend Marine Science Center) have been spawning and I wish we had videos like that. We do have photos up on our blog, but videos are even cooler. Awesome collection!

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