Coasts

This week’s critter is a funky, multi-coloured seastar, Asterodiscides truncatus, commonly known as the firebrick seastar.

Nothing says summer holiday quite like the rhythmical sigh of waves breaking gently on a sundrenched shore.

New Zealand marine molluscs are incredibly diverse, with nearly 3,600 species described or known undescribed (Gordon, 2009).

When we think about marine animals, we usually think about organisms that are relatively large, such as whales, sharks, fish, squid, or sea stars.

The Ram’s Horn squid (Spirula spirula) is a mesopelagic species, meaning that it lives in the mid-water column. It typically lives in dark depths of 500-1000 m in the day and migrates up to the shallows of 300 m at night.

We would probably be grumpy too if we didn’t have any eyes, however, in the deep sea, where there is very little light many organisms have lost the ability to see altogether.

This week’s critter will forever have a special link with NIWA CEO John Morgan.

An animal entirely made out of glass? We don’t have to go to an alien world for this but just have to look deep into our oceans.

This long spiny-armed brittle star is named Ophiocamax gigas Koehler, 1900, and was collected from 700 m deep on the Admiralty Seamount, just north of the Ross Sea, Antarctica in 2008.

The Antarctic ‘sea pig’ (Protelpidia murrayi) is a type of sea cucumber that can be found roaming the muddy seafloor in the Ross Sea.

Our largest New Zealand king crab is something to behold when it comes on deck.

This week's Critter of the Week (number 142) introduces the delicate cup coral Caryophyllia.