Murder, Sex and Drugs: The Underwater Reality

I helped contribute to an illusion in my blog about the undersea

fissurella oriens

world. When we look out over the placid sea and imagine the world down there as a beautiful, peaceful haven from which we humans could learn about a benign order of life, this is fiction and far from the truth. The animals we see are intent on feeding and eating each other. It seems perfectly normal to most of us to feed on other animals – we eat species like chickens, cattle and pigs. The snail you see here (fusitriton cancellatus) is happily eating the fissurella oriens (keyhole limpet) underneath it. But they’re both gastropods and members of category 6.2 in our Linnaeus ordering system. Cannibalism! This is considered to be dreadfully abnormal to us humans.

Murder!

fussitron cancellatus

When John Rae found proof that members of Franklin’s 1840s Northwest Passage expedition had resorted to cannibalism (in a last desperate attempt to stay alive), Lady Franklin successfully campaigned to totally discredit him. His navigational discoveries were effectively buried for years. Only recently (and many years after his death) has he received due credit for his work leading to navigating the NWP.

Cannibalism is perfectly normal behaviour underwater.

comasterias lurida

There’s also plenty of ‘unprotected’ and highly visible sex going on in the sea if you know what to look for. These intertwined and aptly named lurid sea stars (cosmasterias luridae) are mating. You’ll find huge clusters of them ganging together for group orgies and they’re not shy about letting you look on. This is probably why most reputable dive schools won’t allow kids under 12 to take dive lessons!!

The Drug world is also an element in the underwater scene. The beautiful nudibranch tyrinna nobilis is rumoured to assist in curing skin melanoma. So far there are plenty to be found here. Perhaps its commercial properties have not yet lead to over-harvesting in Chile.

tyrinna nobilis

The drug potential of newly discovered organisms or discoveries of well-understood organisms in new locations are part of the discovery process. As soon as the animal has been immobilized, killed and stabilized in some type of appropriate solution, it’s sent for dissection and classification by the appropriate scientific expert. After that it goes for a chemical evaluation to see if it can be of use medically. My family included a mushroom expert. Shipments of newly discovered examples of cyathus olla (Bird’s Nest Fungus) arrived from all over the world for my stepfather to codify taxonomically. Some that he sent on to the lab were later discovered to contain new and helpful chemical properties.

squat lobster

Underwater pests: Unfortunately, the underwater world also contains pests similar to the mosquitos that live with us up here on terra firma. The galatheid crab is known in Norway as galatheaa nexa, in Canada as munida quadraspina, in Australia as munida haswelli and here in Chile as munida subragosa. It’s common name is ‘ Squat Lobster’. When you’re on a dive, squat lobsters bound around everywhere - ineffectually clacking their claws and interfering with photographs. They’re media-hogs and try to horn in on every photo. When you look hopefully down into the placid sea at night from the deck, you’ll find thousands of their unfriendly bright red eyes staring back at you. We’re happy because there are not nearly as many of them now that we’ve crossed the Golfo de Penas.

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At 2017-10-17 22:51 (utc) our position was 49°07.66'S 074°24.74'W