Blog Post Module 9
The Blobfish is an animal most of us may have seen in a meme or otherwise before because they are continuously regarded and one of the ugliest animals to ever exist. Photo evidence appears above.
The reason Blobfish look like...that... is because they live extremely close to the ocean floor, between 2000 and 4000 feet below sea level depending on the area. This puts them living at a pressure between 60 and 120 times larger than sea level. To put this into perspective, here is this quote from an article on Australia's Science Channel: "There is so much pressure at that depth a human would feel as if a passenger aircraft was parked on top of them". Another fun fact: these fish don't look entirely this awful in their natural habitat--it's because the pressure on land is so much lower that they start to look like this pile of snot.
It takes a lot of interesting adaptation to be able to live in these conditions near the ocean floor. Most fish in the ocean have something called a swim bladder, which is a sac of air that helps to keep the fish buoyant enough to float and swim around. Blobfish do not have a swim bladder, and that's an adaptation of theirs that allows them to live in the harsh conditions of the ocean floor. They also have little to no skeleton, with most of their body being made up of gelatinous tissue and extremely thin, soft bones. This also allows the Blobfish to withstand the extreme pressure of the ocean floor and not simply collapse under the pressure. You could say, by this interesting adaptation, that Blobfish are the original "No Bones" day animal, prefacing Noodle the famous predicting pug.
My biggest question about this animal is why? Why would an animal adapt to withstand such an incredibly hostile environment when it could have literally just lived somewhere else instead? I couldn't find a lot of information on WHY this happens, more just how these creatures are able to live given their adaptations. I think to investigate this I would look into if there are benefits for living on the ocean floor vs. other areas of the ocean for certain fish to see what the reasons behind adapting to live near the ocean floor are. Blobfish are so weird and so interesting, and I think it's fascinating to see how their body has changed and adapted to live in their extremely harsh environment.
References:
https://australiascience.tv/evolution-is-weird/
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/in-defense-of-the-blobfish-why-the-worlds-ugliest-animal-isnt-as-ugly-as-you-think-it-is-6676336/
https://factanimal.com/blobfish/
OH, one of my favorite questions in science! WHY do organisms do what they do? Why live in one of the most difficult and hostile environments on earth? Why run the gauntlet of adaptation to such a specified niche?
ReplyDeleteI raise you two theories. 1) Because of random chance. While we love to personify adaptation as a "choice", remember that genetic changes are caused by chance. Though natural selection frequently has a driving force, changes themselves are random. It's quite possible that an ancestor to the blobfish stumbled upon a genetic change that allowed for increased survival at lower depths. Lower depths are less crowded, and therefore easier to avoid predators in or find food, so this ancestor moved in to that niche now open to them. Give it some time and boom, there you go: fish living in a completely inhospitable environment, which actually *is* hospitable to it because of it's crazy adaptations to such an environment. Or, option 2) the entrapment hypothesis. Some fish found their way into the deep sea and couldn't find their way out. Over time, they adapted to the new environment. Boom, blobfish.
Anyways, sorry for the longwinded response. Hope you find it as interesting as I do, though!
Hello! You chose a great animal with many adaptations to help it survive in its environment! They're so wild and unlike anything in the animal kingdom. I think it would be really interesting to see what they actually look like when they are at their correct depth of water. I also LOVE the Noodle references!
ReplyDeleteHi Jenna, thank you for bringing this organism up and talking about it with us. It made me laugh. It's very interesting to know what kind of fishes be living in the deep sea and the phenotypes they expressed is what allowed them to survive in areas in the ocean with high pressure, even if it makes them look kinda ugly to us. I also wonder what made them found its way to such depth and why they look the way they have to look. haha.
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