#mermay2021

Another little fellow (the merms up to now were from last year, now we’re getting to the new ones)! Munnopsis are a diverse genus of isopod, frequently found in the cold depths. They’re just hanging out and propelling themselves around with their long spidery limbs. Shrimply living their best isopod life.

Marrus Orthocanna is the first siphonophore of this bunch! These crazy colonial creatures grow from a single egg into many distinct organisms that live and work together as one to brave the deep seas. For example, the bell-shaped husks on this special species are a sort of jellyfish that handles locomotion, while the fiery tail is made up of polyps that catch and devour small crustaceans. What an insane, perfect animal!

Another contender for the title of “real life sea serpent”, the giant oarfish has some curious habits. It doesn’t come up to the surface unless it’s sick, dying or casually washing up on shores, preferring instead to float in the darkness of the deep seas, looking spooky as all get out. Their long ass body may lead you to think they’d move like a snake, but this funny fish keeps it’s body straight like its namesake and moves just by wiggling the dorsal fin along its back. In Japan, oarfish sightings are also believed to forebode earthquakes, and while there’s no direct evidence to that, I’d say it’s hard look upon this creature and not consider it some kind of myth or prophet.

Sea Angels are wonderful creatures: slugs that leave behind their mundane shells and grow wings instead, taking to the (underwater) skies. Here they become birds of prey, using hooks and tounges to ambush and tear apart other floaty slugs, the Sea Butterflies. Some species also secrete a fish-deterrant chemical, which ironically leads to shrimp grabbing them and wearing them as anti-predator accessories.

A celebrity! The christmas tree worm comes in many gaudy colors and is a big hit with divers and aquarists. Its above-coral part, at least. The worm’s actual body is a lot less photogenic, but lucky for the worm, that part usually never leaves the coral it’s grown into. If it has a bad day (or is threatened) it can also completely withdraw into its tube, stopping up the hole with its arm. Marvelous!

The Giant Isopod has gotten a bit of limelight the last few years. One can find lots of cute isopod plushies now (good) but also lots of pictures showing humans holding them up, poking and prodding and being disgusted at their underbellies (bad). There is some pretty gnarly footage of it’s feeding process, calling it “alien” and “gross”. But isopods can survive for amazing timespans without eating, and when you see a video like that, you never know how long the animal has been starved before it was taken. Let’s show some respect! Maybe not everything was made to be perceived!

We don’t know much about the behaviour of this fancy little worm, since it was just discovered in 2007! So far, it looks like it doesn’t do much at all. Beside swimming through the abyss of the Celebes Sea, feeding on marine snow (underwater dust), and looking absolutely snazzy, of course! And isn’t that enough, sometimes?

Frilled sharks are often presented as “real life sea serpents!!!”, but unless you’re a squid or soft-bodies deep sea creature, you have nothing to fear. Fishermen also consider them a nuisance, as their many little teeth can damage nets when caught by accident, and the fish don’t have a lot of economic value. Like any predator though, they’re very valuable for the ecosystems they inhabit. You go, frilled sharks! Fight the machine!

Enypniastes eximia - the pink see-through fantasia - looks like a jellyfish, but is actually a very funky kind of sea cucumber!
Most of the time, it just floats around and glows aimlessly in the deep. Its feeding process is very relatable, as it simply dips to the bottom of the sea for a minute, and shovels mud into it’s mouth without mercy!

mermay 1

Photoshop doodle of my OC Ember for Mermay. In their canon, Ember “upgraded” all their limbs by replacing them with cybernetic equivalents. So I figured Ember would solve the whole “curious about the human world” problem mers face a little….differently…..

MerMay day 4 is Primarina!

Day 3 of MerMay is Feraligatr!

The mermaid for MerMay day 2 is Dewgong! I really love how she turned out.

It’s MerMay! Started off day one with Eternatus.