Manatees usually swim about 5 mph (8 km/h), but they can swim up to 15 mph (24 km/h) in short bursts when they feel a need for speed, according to National Geographic. They have large, strong tails that power their swimming. The manatee is a large marine mammal with an egg-shaped head, flippers and a flat tail. Manatees range in size from 8 to 13 feet (2.4 to 4 meters) and can weigh 440 to 1,300 lbs. Read Also: Conservation of Blue Whales – Facts of Blue Whales More than 300.000 Blue Whales roamed around the oceans. Such gargantuan harvests depend on the continuing fertility of the oceans. This largest animal on Earth feeds almost exclusively on one of the smallest, krill, shrimp-like crustaceans. The heart of one blue whale was recorded at nearly 700 kg (about 1,500 pounds). However, there are reports of 33-meter catches that may have reached 200 metric tons. The largest accurately measured blue whale was a 29.5-meter female that weighed 180 metric tons (nearly 200 short tons). Blue Whale is the most massive animal ever to have lived, a species of baleen whale that weighs approximately 150 tons and may attain a length of more than 30 meters (98 feet). The team collected the latest larval specimens as part of the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative. Solving these mysteries in the name of biodiversity is largely what drives Bracken-Grissom to keep searching. While Varela and Bracken-Grissom have provided insight into these 14 creatures, there are countless others in a variety of life cycle stages that scientists still don’t know who the mommies and daddies are. “Most are prey items for fish, deep diving marine mammals and cephalopods, which means they are important to the food chain.” “A lot of these larvae are found in the mesopelagic zone, open water between 200-1,000 meters, and then settle to the deep sea floor as adults,” Bracken-Grissom said. Originally known as Cerataspis monstrosa, Bracken-Grissom used the same genetic methods then to reveal this tiny monster is actually a young form of a shrimp known to scientists as Plesiopenaeus armatus. Among the specimens collected in this latest research endeavor was an intact larva she has only seen once before - it’s a species she identified in 2012. This is not the first time Bracken-Grissom has given an identity to the monsters of the deep. “I like that we’re getting to reveal this mysterious and bizarre world that we don’t typically get to see,” Bracken-Grissom said. Some of the species they collected have only been seen in their larval forms by scientists a handful of times, some never at all. Shrimp are known to go through multiple larval stages, and Bracken-Grissom said some of the species they identified experience many different larval stages throughout their life cycles. Back in the lab, they conducted genetic tests to identify what species they belong to connecting the dots in an evolutionary family tree.

The research team sent large nets down to deep waters in the gulf to retrieve the specimens. candidate Carlos Varela and Bracken-Grissom have now identified 14 species of these larvae, using deep sea forensics to match the unknown larvae to their known adult counterparts. There have been some observations of these bizarre, miniature-sized monsters in the past few centuries, but no one knew what they actually were. But to marine scientist Heather Bracken-Grissom, they are mostly shrimp. They are the visions of which nightmares are made. Some appear part alien and part Hunchback of Notre Dame. They appear in an array of oranges and blues, though several are see-through. Grotesque little creatures with armor-like horns, misshapen torsos and some with spikes protruding from their sides are lurking in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Blue planet deep sea shrimp