Page 63 - BBC Focus - August 2017

SEA SPIDER
If you suffer from arachnophobia – relax. These knobbly-
kneed creatures aren’t actually spiders but a separate class,
known as pycnogonids. They’ve been around for hundreds
of millions of years, and simplicity is the key to their success.
“They’re all legs and no body,” says Bray. They have no gills
or digestive organs, and use a proboscis to suck the juices
from anemones. Tiny sea spiders inhabit rock pools around
the UK, but down in the deep, giants can have 60cm leg
spans. They walk across the seabed and occasionally drift
spread-eagled on the current. Males carry fertilised eggs
glued to their bodies.
COFFINFISH
The coffinfish sucks in water when it feels threatened and
blows itself up like a balloon. This makes it appear bigger so
predators might leave it alone (pufferfish use the same
tactic). Similar fish have been found elsewhere in the deep
sea, including Indonesia, Japan and Hawaii. But this is a first
sighting for Australia. Bray explains that she’ll need to X-ray
it and possibly sequence its DNA to find out whether it’s the
same species. “It would be really cool if it’s actually new,”
she says.

Dr Helen Scales is a marine biologist and author.
Her next book, Eye Of The Shoal, is out in May 2018.

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