Underwater 'Flying Spaghetti Monster' Caught on Film (VIDEO)
A deep sea species related to jellyfish was filmed underwater off the coast of Angola, earning it the nickname "flying spaghetti monster."
Workers from the BP Global oil and gas company recently videotaped a multi-tentacled Bathyphsa conifer, a siphonophore marine animal, making its way along the ocean floor 4,000 feet underwater on the Angolan coast.
BP employees were collecting underwater video footage using a remote controlled underwater vehicle when they spotted the translucent many-armed creature and dubbed it the "flying spaghetti monster." The term was first coined by the satirical religion/social movement, Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
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The siphonophore, belonging to the suborder Cystonectae of the phylum Cnidaria, is related to jellyfish and corals. While it is relatively harmless, one of its more infamous cousins, the Portuguese Man O' War, has venomous tentacles that deliver severely painful stings.
The. B. conifer is composed of several multicellular organisms called zooids, considered to be "colonial animals." Attracted to other zooids, they bond from a single zooid and clone several copies of themselves to form a more complex animal.
Every zooid in each B. conifer "colony" has its own job to do. There are zooids that catch food, others that eat the food, and others that are in charge of reproduction. Together, the interconnected zooids comprise a whole symbiotic organism that is able to survive via cooperation of its various components.
The organisms are composed of two main parts: a pnematophore resembling a gas-filled floating bubble, and a siphosome, where food-catching, eating, and reproducing zooids are located, both parts are anchored together on a long stem.
The B. conifer also has multi-armed "spaghetti" appendages known as gastrozooids, which the tightly-knit group of organisms uses to catch food, as well as side wings or ptera located near its bubble-like pneumatophore.
B. conifer specimens up to 40 meters long have been given the title of world's longest animals, a New Scientist report points out.
