Deep flamboyancy.

[DeepThought]

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/09/0907_050907_glowingshark.html :

Photo in the News: Fluorescent Shark Caught on Film
September 7, 2005—Science never sleeps, even when facing down a hurricane. Luckily for a handful of deep sea explorers, they've found a rather unusual nightlight.

This still photo from a video taken on August 22 shows the first visual evidence of the fluorescent chain catshark. Scientists taking part in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Operation Deep Scope 2005 expedition found the three-foot-long (one-meter-long) animal on the sea floor of the Gulf of Mexico.

The fluorescent shark was initially observed—though not captured on film—during last year's Deep Scope expedition. Starstruck researchers noted that the glowing menace bears an uncanny resemblance to the fictional jaguar shark pursued by Bill Murray in the 2004 movie The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Deep Scope 2005 researchers found this shark only days before Hurricane Katrina moved over the Gulf of Mexico on August 27. At its peak, Katrina was listed as a Category Five storm, with winds reaching 175 miles an hour (280 kilometers an hour). The expedition ship waited out the storm at a Texas port while research continued onboard.

—Victoria Gilman

Now if they could cross breed those into the geat white populations around the world...

 

[Apnea Boy]

cool...................

 

[Merlin]

NEAT! That shark is so pimp! Why can't I have nice fluorescent skin like that to attract the ladies??

 

[Fondueset]

Sometimes I think we dream these things up and, through a mysterious mechanism - nature obliges.

 

[colt.45]

any one ever seen an aligator gar? It's baisicaly a 7 foot long alligator with fins and gills.
Shoot one of thoes and you might get a little more than you barganed for :blackeye

 

[land shark]

colt

I have have shot a 3 footer
all he did was quiver at the end of my sprear

jim

 

[Mermaid24]

cool...................

This is awesome.

 

[Mermaid24]

cool...................

http://briefcase.walla.co.il/data/i...504221602122526/200504221604288145/hatima.jpg

 

[colt.45]

colt

I have have shot a 3 footer
all he did was quiver at the end of my sprear

jim

Really? thats it? where did you hit it?

 

[land shark]

Right through the middle.
No didn't stone it
I had to dispatch it.
I might add it looked rather prehistoric
like it didnt even know it was shot

jim

 

[naiad]

Another strange creature - the axolotl.

http://www.indiana.edu/~axolotl/images/ddaa.jpeg

It is real - I used to keep them many years ago.

 

[Fondueset]

Gars are very docile.

That looks like an albino mud-puppy. We have mud-puppies here - they are a kind of aquatic salamander - get up to a foot or so long - fierce noctournal predators - they'll climb right outta the water at night, come into your house and bite chunks out of your face when you are sleeping. They secrete a venom that stimulates the primitive reptile brain. Once bitten you find yourself wanting to be underwater, attracted to smooth, slimey looking people, craving fish and sex.

Mudpuppies

 

[bdurrett]

Once bitten you find yourself wanting to be underwater, attracted to smooth, slimey looking people, craving fish and sex.

That description sounds somewhat familiar (except for the "slimey-looking" part - smooth is good but slimey? :naughty) and I have never been bitten by one of those.....

rofl rofl

 

[Fondueset]

right - replace 'slimey' with 'implicitely well-lubricated'

 

[bdurrett]

right - replace 'slimey' with 'implicitely well-lubricated'

:inlove NOW you're talkin'! :inlove

rofl rofl rofl

A little bit more of this line of thinking and we will get :ban

Ahhhh ... Daydreaming IS a lovely way to pass the afternoon. Beats the he|| out of working.....

 

[Gremlin]

fondueset. I used to hang out in Torch Lake when I was younger. Great memories of entirely too cold water.
That's why I spend most of my dive time in the Gulf Of Mexico now.
My Grandparents had a condo on Torch, right by Clam River.

 

[naiad]

Gars are very docile.

That looks like an albino mud-puppy. We have mud-puppies here - they are a kind of aquatic salamander - get up to a foot or so long - fierce noctournal predators - they'll climb right outta the water at night, come into your house and bite chunks out of your face when you are sleeping. They secrete a venom that stimulates the primitive reptile brain. Once bitten you find yourself wanting to be underwater, attracted to smooth, slimey looking people, craving fish and sex.

rofl rofl rofl

A bit like zombies or vampires then - recruiting others by biting them and thus dragging others down to their level.

They are certainly inactive creatures (axolotls, not zombies) and food is one of their few interests. They do nothing for hours. When they eat, every two or three days, they snap at anything that moves, including each other, and they do bite. Fortunately their teeth are very small.

They also occasionally need to breathe air, as they have lungs as well as gills. When this happens, they start off by looking up at the surface and hesitating, "Do I really need to breathe?" The next step is to try to get to the surface by doggy-paddling with their little hands. This invariably doesn't work. Then there is the sudden realisation "I do need to breathe, quite urgently in fact, and the lazy method isn't working." Then they use their tail like a fish to get there fast, and there is a sort of squeaky gasp, then a short static on the surface before sinking back into inactivity. This is a bit like what I do at the end of a dynamic - I've scared a few buddies like this, but it's normal for me. But then I have been bitten by axolotls...

I don't know whether their sex life is active or lazy - I have only seen newts, and they have a surprisingly elaborate courtship considering that for the rest of the year they fight. :hmm

 

[bdurrett]

rofl rofl rofl
I don't know whether their sex life is active or lazy - I have only seen newts, and they have a surprisingly elaborate courtship considering that for the rest of the year they fight. :hmm

Da§%!! This part sounds familiar too! :mute

 

[Fondueset]

Torch lake is just a few miles from here. I've never been diving in it!
Visibility in the bay was fantastic today - but only a large squad of bass showed up. Pretty much have to take pictures of them though - they are allways like 18inches from the lense.

axolotls sound interesting. They differ from mudpuppies in needing to fill a lung - swimming and feeding sound somewhat similar.

I grabbed a few scuba diving as a kid - extremely hard to hang onto!

 

[DeepThought]

That looks like an albino mud-puppy. We have mud-puppies here - they are a kind of aquatic salamander - get up to a foot or so long - fierce noctournal predators - they'll climb right outta the water at night, come into your house and bite chunks out of your face when you are sleeping. They secrete a venom that stimulates the primitive reptile brain. Once bitten you find yourself wanting to be underwater, attracted to smooth, slimey looking people, craving fish and sex.Mudpuppies

Sounds like it could be a useful pet for those days in which indifference strikes hard.

The phenomenon in which a specie stays in it's juvenile form (like in this case) is many times an evolutional crossroad. Theory of evolution says that some specie of tunicates had stayed in it's larval form and yada yada yada, the first vertabrates apeared.

Yes, I just 'yada yada'ed a few millions of years in which there was probably a lot of sex.