How Researching Siphonophores Almost Made Me Have A Nervous Breakdown | Alien Ocean

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Sources:
Land acknowledgement adapted from: Land Acknowledgment - Native Hawaiian Place of Learning Advancement Office. (n.d.). manoa.hawaii.e...
Munro, C., Siebert, S., Zapata, F., Howison, M., Damian-Serrano, A., Church, S. H., ... & Dunn, C. W. (2018). Improved phylogenetic resolution within Siphonophora (Cnidaria) with implications for trait evolution. Molecular phylogenetics and evolution, 127, 823-833.
Damian-Serrano, A., Haddock, S. H., & Dunn, C. W. (2019). Shaped to kill: The evolution of siphonophore tentilla for specialized prey capture in the open ocean. bioRxiv, 653345.
Mariscal, R. N. (1974). Nematocysts. Coelenterate biology, 129-178.
Damian-Serrano, A., Haddock, S. H., & Dunn, C. W. (2021). The evolutionary history of siphonophore tentilla: Novelties, convergence, and integration. Integrative Organismal Biology, 3(1), obab019.
Mackie, G. O. (1963). SIphonophores, Bud Colonies, and Super Organisms. In E. C. Doughtery (Ed.), The Lower Metazoa: Comparative Biology and Phylogeny (pp. 329-337). University of California Press.
Munro, C., Zapata, F., Howison, M., Siebert, S., & Dunn, C. W. (2022). Evolution of gene expression across species and specialized zooids in Siphonophora. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 39(2), msac027.
Dunn, C. W. (2005). Complex colony‐level organization of the deep‐sea siphonophore Bargmannia elongata (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) is directionally asymmetric and arises by the subdivision of pro‐buds. Developmental dynamics: an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists, 234(4), 835-845.
Grimmelikhuijzen, C. J. P., Spencer, A. N., & Carré, D. (1986). Organization of the nervous system of physonectid siphonophores. Cell and tissue research, 246, 463-479.
Mackie, G. O., Pugh, P. R., & Purcell, J. E. (1988). Siphonophore biology. In Advances in Marine biology (Vol. 24, pp. 97-262). Academic Press.
Mapstone, G. M. (2014). Global diversity and review of Siphonophorae (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa). PLoS One, 9(2), e87737.
Dunn, C. (2009). Siphonophores. Current Biology, 19(6), R233-R234.
Dunn, C. W., Pugh, P. R., & Haddock, S. H. (2005). Molecular phylogenetics of the Siphonophora (Cnidaria), with implications for the evolution of functional specialization. Systematic biology, 54(6), 916-935.
Mapstone, G. M., & Arai, M. N. (2009). Siphonophora (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa) of Canadian Pacific waters. NRC Research Press.

[@OctopusLady]

If you or a loved one have been diagnosed with [ CHRONIC EXISTENTIAL CRISES ] you may be entitled to financial compensation. [ CHRONIC EXISTENTIAL CRISES ] is a rare inner conflict linked to [ LEARNING ABOUT HOW PARADOXICAL SIPHONOPHORES ARE ]. Please don't wait, call [ WWW.PATREON.COM/THEOCTOPUSLADY ] or [ WWW.TWITTER.COM/THEOCTOPUSLADY ] for a free consultation.

[@timkbirchico8542]

palagic means dwelling near or at the sea surface

[@ThatFreeWilliam]

If you pluck me out of society and place me on a desert island I will die of not-pizza. Am I a zooid?

[@wedgewizard5429]

I like that you seemed upset that you had difficulty defining the exact nature of siphonophores. I don't care as much as you, so it didn't bother me that much. I would tell you to care less about it to make it easier for yourself, but that drive to know might result in a person discovering something. At least your passionate about your interests! :D

[@ashleysmith9516]

As an indigenous American I was born with existential crises

[@cherubug]

i relate to freaking the fuck out about siphonophores a lot would love to see more vids about them

[@taliasmith5066]

You should call the little shame corner for the creatures with no fossils the "Fossil free zone".

[@vwaaaat]

"Blank slate of shame" 😂

[@upliftothers4599]

Too cool for the fossil record?

[@CuratorOfCurios]

​@@upliftothers4599 Only normies show up in the fossil record.

[@WeAllWitnessed]

Nah call it the “No bone zone”

[@jpfan1989]

The Lost Ones

[@dancincoolkid]

I just learned like a month ago that a Portuguese Man-o-War is a siphonophore and not a jellyfish and I swear it felt like I stumbled into another dimension.

[@GuiSmith]

I also only recently learned they were a siphonophore and not some other kind of colonial organism. It was a real trip since they’re so unlike other siphonophores I’d seen.

[@vapourwolf8767]

I found this out just now because of this comment

[@Geoffreyblunts]

I got an a on a paper about the man-o-war being the most deadly jellyfish 😂

[@Liliputian07]

I just learned it just now

[@kelpstorm]

Portuguese _Men_-o-War??

[@Cowdragon01]

I think the quote you mentioned on them that says they are in-between colonial and single organisms is actually trying to give insight on what the earliest single organisms look like. I believe it’s suggesting that Siphonophores are a stage where specialization begins in the steps towards becoming a singular entity as opposed to a colony

[@SHNASTDOG]

That's what I was thinking. It reminds me of a peek into the past. A stage of evolution.

[@glenngriffon8032]

Pretty much. Evolution hasn't got any kinds of plans or tiers, or ladder rungs to climb into becoming "more evolved". Instead it's just a process of organisms changing on the rock solid foundation of "yeah, that'll work" or "eh, that's good enough". Some nroke away from this lifestyle and the different sections became more and more specialized, developing into organs. But this... for want of a better term- "stage" has never really stopped working or being a stable, successful lifeform. So we still have Siphonophores.

[@indieramus]

I really would liked to have known what the scientific basis for that claim was. Detaching parts of complex organisms like humans does not "kill" the cells, hence why we can reattach things. The time without the resources provided by the specialized cells elsewhere in the body is what kills our parts as well.

[@snekysneks]

​@indieramus349 That's what I was thinking. It's pretty clear to me that these guys are in the same stage that our ancestors once were in before they evolved into "organisms"

[@jamesanderson5465]

Or maybe Siphonophores "like don't care about playing by your rules and labels MAN"

[@YinYangAngel55]

I love that at no point did you give up attempting to call them by the class/classes it fit under instead of just calling them "things", great job!

[@shadowdroid776]

Hearing you explain how this weird alien sea thing is, it kinda made sense in my brain when I thought about it like a hive mind: all the parts can function on their own, but they need each other to survive fully, and each part of the creature is finely tuned and changed to fulfill a function.

[@moonrock41]

That's exactly right. This suggests that siphonophores are evolutionarily stuck at a stage between multicellular colonial organisms and fully specialized non-colonial organisms. The fact that they haven't gone extinct and have diversified suggests that they have adapted to occupy a niche that has existed (and will likely continue to exist) for hundreds of millions of years.

[@membranealpha5961]

@@moonrock41 makes me wonder if this is how multicellularity evolved just on the cellular level

[@moonrock41]

@@membranealpha5961 I'm unsure what you mean.

[@GettingSchwiftyy]

​@@membranealpha5961certainly an example of one of the ways organisms find evolutionary advantages in collective specialization.

[@yt-sh]

good summary!

[@Irobert1115HD]

we germans call them staatsquallen wich is a combo of staat (the german word for state as in nation state) and qualle wich is german for jellyfish. so basicaly our word for them translates to nation jellys.

[@karlez7664]

Germans often have some good words which help wraping head around ideas. My favorite is Bremsstrahlung

[@Knifiac]

​@@karlez7664 German physicists for the win

[@shuttzi9878]

​@@Knifiac we all know how it ended

[@forest_green]

Everything changed when the jelly nation attacked.

[@NOGOHIPOO]

@@forest_green your civic duty has been fulfilled.

[@ronaldcounterman5812]

My favorite line of yours is "You don't have to go into space to find aliens." So true!

[@pharaohford1981]

As above so below

[@skurbanvintr0]

Space is all around and in you #zero

[@patstaysuckafreeboss8006]

You quite literally would have to travel to deep space to find aliens.

[@skurbanvintr0]

@@patstaysuckafreeboss8006 How if we have that here on earth ?

[@patstaysuckafreeboss8006]

@@skurbanvintr0 look up what extra-terrestrial means

[@quox3987]

Unknown age area name idea: corner of obscurity. Siphonophores always remind me of microbiology in a roundabout way. They look like the details you’d see in a cell but writ large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

[@thekatt...]

So true😊

[@salt-emoji]

YES!!

[@CATel_]

I think they're creatures that evolved when organs started to exist, but not quite, and they somehow managed to remain alive and be around today

[@wrakatere2907]

Alternative title: corner of disappointment. yours is great, but it’s funny classifying entire species as “disappointments”-

[@kinglyzard]

Slime molds would really bug Octopus Lady. They're on one hand unicellular, but then again they are not. They are on the gradient between single celled and multicellular organisms.

[@blueai5022]

I know this video is old, but seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to talk about the Hawaiian kingdom, the overthrow, and the native people. Your care not just toward the oceans and reefs, but toward us as a people and a culture, is very touching. Too many people are either entirely ignorant of the fact or simply don't care that not just Queen Lili'uokalani, but her brother, King Kalākaua, were forced to sign policies under duress. And mahalo nui loa for also donating to a native wildlife fund, as well! We've unfornately been called "the extinction capital of the world" for a reason, as huge numbers of endemic flora and fauna have been driven to extinction very rapidly. Much love to you and yours, The Octopus Lady. ❤

[@joevlam1055]

Honestly man i was heartbroken to learn Hawaii's history and "integration" into rhe united states from my brother in law. Super fucked up and that fire just makes me wonder

[@blueai5022]

@@joevlam1055Yeah, it's awful. Not to mention all the billionaires buying up tons of land while us Native Hawaiians face poverty and homelessness in our own birth land. I'm not really one for conspiracies, but I definitely don't blame anyone familiar with the truth about the occupation for coming to that conclusion. Thank you for caring, friend. :)

[@gregantoine1162]

The WEF has plans to put "smart cities" where all these "mysterious" fires are happening.

[@blueai5022]

@@skylertham6431 This comment is absurdly unnecessary and racist, but okay.

[@skylertham6431]

@blueai5022 no no I wasn't trying to be racist I was just saying that it just looks like it😭😭

[@Marispider]

Siphonophores absolutely gave me a crisis the first time I heard about them and realized what they were. I wasn't confused about nature not fitting into clean boxes, nature does that a lot - it just made me frustrated with how arbitrary the distinction between individuals and a colony is, especially when you have things like eusocial animals/super organisms or cancer that further muddy things. Same thing with viruses and the whole alive vs not alive thing. I just accepted that if I wanna think hard about it, it gets less about biology and more about philosophy

[@Sepi-chu_loves_moths]

Yeah, like at what point does a termite mound become an organism? Will this eventually apply to artificial intelligence?

[@EmpressOfExile206]

I'm one of the last remnants of an incredibly rare (maybe even functionally extinct) subspecies known as an *_independent critical thinker,_* thus I quickly came to _my own conclusion_ while researching the "alive or not" virus debate‼️ I've concluded that *yes* they are in fact alive👍 They are organic + display senescence (thus can be "killed"), they reproduce, and they undergo evolution! In fact essentially *every living organism,* from complex eukaryotes like us to single-celled bacteria, has coevolved alongside them and been influenced to the extent that part of every organism's anatomy has evolved specifically to respond to viruses‼️ Also _exactly like all other life,_ viruses upon being "born" are already equipped with *instincts* i.e. they're predisposed to follow genetically coded behaviors which are designed to ultimately allow them to achieve the end goal of reproduction 💯👏 Also the fact that *nobody* would endorse the idea of calling viruses "inanimate objects" (including those from the "not alive" camp) is very telling in it's own right. Tbh I'm not sure why science academia as a whole hasn't drawn the *obvious conclusion⁉️* 🤔 Since viruses have *so much* in common with what we consider to be "life" minus a few key features... If you were to treat them _taxonomicly_ as part of the animal kingdom's cladistics, they would be considered "basal" to all other life! More specifically in this "evolution of species" analogy, instead of forming their own _branch/clade;_ they'd be considered an evolutionary *grade* that leads to "standard" living organisms most likely. So to bring this full circle, the _correct inference_ based on what we know about viruses is that when life first began, something akin to a virus was the *_precursor_* to full on single celled life‼️🤓👍

[@pendlera2959]

This is a good example of why science was originally called natural philosophy.

[@OsirisLord]

You just gotta accept that the little taxonomic boxes we put organisms into are an arbitrary imposition we put on nature for our own benefit. Once you remember that every organism was at one point part of a different organism, then it makes sense to see nature as one contiguous spectrum rather than a bunch of separated thing.

[@charlespancamo9771]

You respond to stupidly made boxes with more stupidly made boxes 👍😂

[@erickbelvin4781]

That existential crisis where every neuron began firing and arguing is amazing and totally relatable. As someone who has come to terms with the fact that we very much are individual conglomerate organisms made up of at least a trillion hyper-specialised cells that act in conjunction together to make the functioning individual known as "you."

[@daniel4647]

Yeah, that thought has always made me wish I was a better God, then instead I go eat at MacDonald's giving their entire universe hell to deal with. Then I'll often blame the individual parts for not being wired to eat more healthy, it's their own fault for screwing up all those neural pathways lol

[@feloniousheisenberg224]

I guess im mata nui, damn

[@kein4991]

That's why I have come to terms that we're actually all a tiny part of our brains (the consciousness) that's taking control of a giant organism and leads it, like a mecha kind of thing or a car lmao Were all driving a body through things but the "car" itself doesn't stop functioning, if we "die" someone else can take control (when people get amnesia or various personalities, that sorta thing) and the body will be alright~ it's so cool how living creatures work

[@crabbyalthegrump641]

No matter what your beliefs are, the universe has imagined itself better than any of us ever will ... making almost all beliefs undeniably false no matter how close they might reflect the truth of reality. I wish any one and everyone luck in fighting.the truth of reality, you will need it.

[@mitchellboyce9853]

The whole weirdness with zooids reminds me of eusocial colony insects like bees and ants, where the individuals are obviously individuals, but they are so specialized as to not be able to function long-term outside the colony, ie the workers can't reproduce, the queen can't really work, etc. I feel like these are 2 examples working toward the midpoint of colonies and organisms from very different lineages, which is interesting [edited slightly because I forgot terminology and said drones when I meant workers; drones are the males]

[@LowestofheDead]

That's the first thing I thought of. And also.. aren't humans hyper-specialized as well? If an accountant or lawyer was dropped on a desert island, would they have the knowledge or skills to survive on their own?

[@mitchellboyce9853]

@@LowestofheDead The big difference between human specialization and e.g. bee specialization is that we have specialized knowledge, but we don't have specialized anatomy, whereas a drone bee is not biologically capable of serving as a queen... although it's also certainly true that I'd be dead on a desert island

[@ToriKo_]

Woah

[@johnsentris225]

Legit yeah was just thinking that. How do we know they’re not just protists ???

[@SCP-173peanut]

@@johnsentris225 because they are not protist

[@mnbgt101]

You're not the only one who had an existential crisis about the organization of life after learning about siphonophores. From what I can tell, these kinds of discussions are really on the cutting edge of biology, so hopefully more papers are to come!

[@Alienami]

Welcome to "Everything is on a spectrum", featuring biology and special cohort Quantum Mechanics. But really, you get used to it studying concepts like math and superpositions. Paradoxes go away when you stop thinking like a human. 👽🤖🧞‍♂️

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

I have a robust explanation and solution for this case, read my username if interested.

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

@@Alienami Many of the robust binaries like sex that we find in humans have evolved from a more spectrum-like situation, yes. Multi cellular life's most immediate ancestors were single celled organisms that could on occasion took up obligated multicellular lifestyles. The two options coexist in a species for a while before they can get definitively separated

[@LadyOfAsh9400]

Boy have I got news for you regarding sex being a robust binary in humans…

[@tafazzi-on-discord]

@@LadyOfAsh9400 go ahead. Every human is either naturally ordered towards gestation, (female) or naturally ordered towards impregnation (male). More generally, in multicellular life: an organism that is ordered towards producing and dispersing spermatozooa is a male, one that is ordered towards producing and properly dispersing ova is a female, an organism ordered towards both ends is an hermaphrodite. Please show an example of a single human that is either hermaphrodite or completely sexless. You'll fail, no such being exist due to the way sex determination happens biologically in mammals. But come on, give it a try. Don't give me red herrings, I used extremely exact language, read carefully.

[@AlejandroDamianSerrano]

Yayy I'm on the internet haha thanks for reading my work and making it more accessible to the public :)

[@OctopusLady]

Oh my gosh!! I really should be thanking YOU for doing all the research to begin with!

[@AlejandroDamianSerrano]

@@OctopusLady You're welcome! I too had a nervous breakdown researching siphonophores...

[@gregantoine1162]

@@AlejandroDamianSerrano wait till u find out about the interdimensional species...

[@LucOfArcadia]

I - as a serious siphonophore fan - greatly enjoy how you laid these descriptions out in a way that helps others learn about these creatures! You did great work in making it easy for people who never knew about them to understand their colony's functions and evolutionary traits. I think it's really important to have people doing that for others, because while I might read that Werner comment and understand it perfectly fine, other people can't/don't know where to start learning/don't have the background in marine biology to know off the bat, and I'm so very miserable at explaining things in simple terms. Thank you for your hard work making easily digestible educational documentation!

[@YochevedDesigns]

I know this isn't ocean related, but can you PLEASE do one on slime molds? They're the terrestrial versions of siphonophores, and every bit as maddening. I'm absolutely obsessed with them!

[@CATel_]

Wait, do the slime molds have individual "organ-organisms" ??

[@dappermola1232]

that's really fascinating; id also love to learn more about them

[@Sara3346]

@@CATel_ It's stranger than that, slime molds are macroscopic amoeba colonies who can become single celled again but can also differentiate into specific forms esp for reproduction.

[@CATel_]

@@Sara3346 oh, cool!

[@custos3249]

Nah. Humans aren't that interesting.

[@witchfinder420]

i got a life size tattoo of a nanomia bijuga colony on my upper hand extending upwards , specifically chose such a prominent location to grab every opportunity i could to talk about siphonophores. thank you for making that video and spreading the word. glad to see there are others who quite admire these fellas.

[@Kyoz]

Nanomia 🤍

[@RedKincaid]

Siphonophores are my favorite... organism, for lack of a bether term. I'd love to one day get a tattoo based on the illustrations in "Art Forms In Nature"

[@ASHl33164]

I loved your footage of Hawaii you put in there, as well as your land acknowledgment. It was very respectful, many people, even US citizens, are ignorant (whether willfully or not) of the violent history involved with how Hawaii “became a state” I hope that will change at some point in the near future. My grandfather died in Hawaii in 1986; I think that if his spirit is being blessed by those beautiful sacred lands, he is having a wonderful afterlife. 🌺

[@yuenos3418]

this was my favorite part of the video! the way she educates so thoughtfully about a subject she knows not everyone has heard of before is just so eloquent and insightful! i'm glad i got to be introduced to the sociopolitical situation of hawai'i in such an well done way.

[@GimbleOnDew]

Hawaii was way more violent before becoming a state.

[@SPierre-dm4wo]

@@GimbleOnDew That doesn't give the USians the right to annex and illegally occupy another country.

[@aegisofworms]

Siphonophores are genuinely my favorite creature, so stumbling across this video in my recommended was a pleasant surprise! Finding the answer to any question about them has often led me down a similar line of questioning and scientific papers, so I can say with certainty that I was absolutely floored about how digestible you made a this information! I will for sure be going through the rest of your videos, this is such wonderful work.

[@thebuilder5271]

I think the issue with the confusing classification is how humans tend to put things into a binary “X” or “not X”, but in nature things tend to be a spectrum between the categories we constructed and can’t accurately be defined either way lol

[@stevenneiman1554]

Classification is a useful tool because it lets us break the world down into parts small enough to work with, but it can shape thinking in unhelpful ways. Also, because "figure out how to talk about it" is generally step 1 of any knowledge-seeking process and it's hard to change established terminology and cladistics, we tend to do a lot of shaping before we're really knowledgeable enough to make it convenient or accurate, and only fix it if it's wrong enough to be impossible to keep using.

[@vi_ve_vo_vu2579]

The more I learn about science and classification, the more I learn that pretty much everything is a complex gradient of many different factors that humans kinda arbitrarily drew lines throughout to make them easier to explain.

[@thrandompug2254]

Just like the sex binary. Sex is bimodal, so there're two categories that that most people fit in (Male, Female) but there are also people who don't fit cleanly into either category. I have to explain this to transphobes all the time

[@daniel4647]

@@stevenneiman1554 On top of that a lot of things in the human experience is subjective non physical concepts which makes them near impossible to study. At least with physical phenomena that can be studied using the scientific method we can kind of just go back and look at where we split things up for convenience. But when it comes to philosophy and trying to restructure language to talk about that more effectively we usually just end up sounding like a lunatics. Good and evil for example, entirely made up concepts that are highly dependent on each other to exist, to the point where they can be considered the same thing, but also separate.

[@stevenneiman1554]

@@daniel4647 The problem with good and evil isn't janky taxonomies, it's the fact that morality is both subjective and strongly dependent on controversial facts about reality. I would argue that definitional ambiguity is actually a pretty small part of why discussions of morality are so frustrating and so rarely productive.

[@LocalCryptidGhostdoll]

Once I accepted that life just IS, regardless of our categories, and that it doesn't actually owe us answers My life got a lot easier

[@gabrielcoventry4586]

Yeh, they don’t exist to feed the human need to label things. I don’t see how it’s hard to understand it has a bit of both from colonial animals and individual animals. Why does it have to be one or the other?

[@thewizard1]

Thog don't caare

[@Stormmblade]

Well yeah, reality isn't usually beholden to distinct categories the way we tend to think about them. Breaking things down into separate distinct groups is just so we can have an easier time conceptualizing them, or so that we can make reasonably accurate generalizations about things that seem to fall into said groups. Reality is more complex than the guidelines we try to develop to simplify it.

[@LocalCryptidGhostdoll]

@Stormmblade I mean yeah I know, i was just saying that regardless of our efforts to conceptualise reality, it doesn't owe us easy - or any - answers

[@Stormmblade]

@@LocalCryptidGhostdoll I understood what you meant, I just wanted to say that it's a flaw with the way that the Scientists categorize things. Like for example, you could say a car has 4 wheels and an engine, while a bicycle has 2 wheels and no engine. So, when you encounter something that has 2 wheels AND an engine, which doesn't fall neatly into either category, then you could technically consider it both and neither a car/bicycle. That doesn't mean a motorized bicycle's existence is strange, rather that now it needs a new category of "motorcycle" to fit into (or alternatively, expand the definition of bicycles to include electronic bicycles, for example). I agree with you 100% that there are times that life should just be taken as is, like in this case it would save us a lot of unnecessary confusion.

[@Hongobogologomo]

This video is an endearing example of the struggle humans have to identify everything in their environment. Mercy on the biologist who finds aliens

[@stevenneiman1554]

Or the alien biologist who finds us.

[@user-svqmbiv]

Who needs aliens when we've got so many bizarre creatures like siphonophores that still defy our understanding

[@DarkMetaOFFICIAL]

i'm only half way through this, and i feel like i've taken in more technical information about strange sea life than i have collectively in the past 10 years 😂

[@cosmicphoto05]

I appreciate that you did a land acknowledgement at the end of your video. My church does a land acknowledgement at the beginning of every service, recognizing that the land is the unceded ancestral land of the indigenous tribes of the region, and committing to decolonization and social justice for indigenous people, working with them on their terms. The harms of history cannot be undone, but they can inform our commitment to making better choices moving forward.

[@AureliaLux]

I love the extremely jargon heavy literature descriptions because I know some scientist just sat there looking at something trying to explain something they barely understand in comprehensible language with limited visual aids and just like writing and re-writing it over and over until they give up.

[@zacyquack]

Seek help

[@bugjams]

@@zacyquack Yeah I'd need to seek help after seeing the cringe that is your youtube channel too.

[@AlejandroDamianSerrano]

lmao yep, that was me

[@riqrimoli]

i read visual aids and thought of another thing entirely-

[@colinmulhall1169]

in a way its like an individual human in a society, you can take a single person and put them in the forest and that technically will not kill them. they will most likely die though without the help of other humans. We also tend to specialize into specific roles within a society. Civilization is a kind of macro scale sophonophore.

[@hedgehog3180]

They're called “Nation jellyfish” in German so the metaphor seems apt.

[@DragonBallsolosyourverse]

But said person can still eat if they find food not so much for siphonphore

[@curiousnerdkitteh]

This is one of the most relatable science videos of all time. Not only the sidetrack-into-existential crisis thing which is so typical of my ADHD, but she really makes science and the process of learning about it accessible and relatable to plebs like me who were traditionally intimidated by academia and taught that scientists are intimidating and are something else, something other than the rest of us... A separate kind of being, if you will. 😉

[@Wtfinc]

Nope, just curious people. Anyone can be a scientist, just don’t stop till u get to the truth and write something down. Good scientist are never so sure. Also, I just realized im super attracted to girls with lisps

[@InvalidUser18]

​@@WtfincI love her voice. It's actually kinda hot.

[@moonrock41]

I think most of what puts people off is the fact that scientists communicate in their own specialized languages. This separates them from anyone who is unwilling or unable to assimilate the necessary terms used in any discussion. However, science popularizers (who only want to encourage an interest in science) are a relatively rare breed. In particular, we are in great need of wise scientists who can help us to understand the most thorny problems we, as a species, face.

[@soultvo]

i had my volume slightly low as i was fully waking myself up imagine how i reacted when i thought i heard “hi, im octopussy”

[@plagueguy1862]

i am currently designing a species of alien for a dnd campaign, and they are based on siphonophores, diatoms, lovely deep sea monstrosities and random weird speculative anatomy. ive been deep diving on sifono4s for a while but its really. really hard to find anything on them thats remotely digestible so this was like. heavenly.

[@dragonfly.effect]

a vote for Siphonophores II, featuring Portugoose Mo'W, if only cuz they don't look much like the examples you showed here. 🐙

[@swifteh1780]

Yeah, I'm looking forward to that also. But please, girl, take your time! Don't loose your mind on us!

[@williamchamberlain2263]

2:20 - coral growers use "micro-fragging" to propagate some corals - they carefully cut between the polyps into really small groups, and each group will start dividing and building up into a bigger colony

[@Zappygunshot]

Siphonophores are so dope! I'm always intrigued when stuff rides/blurs the line between individual and colony. If you'd like to get even more confused, there's a type of amoeba that is in individual until it isn't, reproduces asexually until it doesn't, eats detritus until it eats its own clones, and is like a slime until it's like a plant.

[@coffeeninja8128]

It's called a slime-mould.

[@EvertALove]

Thise is the first video of yours i have watched and i haven't before hear a lecture where the presenter is equal parts, excited, happy, angry and fustrsted all in the same moment while going over a topic they have so much enthusiastic intrest in. Loved it. Keep being awesome.

[@shadeslayer3096]

I hope you get to do another video on Siphonophores. This is one of my favorite videos of yours and I find all the stuff you mentioned wishing you could explore fascinating. Particularly the bit about their growth and nervous systems. I hope you're able to return to the subject soon. Regardless thank you for your amazing work!

[@leaflet3507]

Thank you for your easily comprehensible and entertaining videos! I really do enjoy watching your content

[@TheAweDude1]

Another animal that kind of breaks the "colonial vs individual" organism binary are eusocial insects like bees and ants. Like, each individual ant is a lot like individual parts of a colonial organism. You can take an ant from the anthill, and it will survive for a bit. It can still eat, rest, dispose waste, grow, and whatnot, but it can't reproduce. Also, many ant castes are incredibly specialised, with some species exhibiting very... extreme polymorphism. When looking at an anthill from a macro scale, it is essentially a large super-organism. The worker ants basically act as the gastro intestinal tract, in that they take in nutrients and share it with the rest of the ants. The soldiers can be thought of as the dermis, protecting the rest of the ants from outside attack. And the queen is, naturally, analogical to the spinal cord in humans, supplying the rest of the body with stem cells.

[@Oscar-ek2jx]

It doesnt really. They arent attached to each other. I think there isnt much point in getting specific bout semantics anyways when all life is different and specifying concepts like species is already difficult.

[@Suiseisexy]

Eusociality still works out from the perspective of replicators, the workers are something like 75% related to their queen by who all rights is their sister, there's variations but ultimately the scheme is a "sidegrade" as all biology tends to be, the rapid genetic progress of a high individualization is sidegraded for stability and central control. This has vulnerabilities, low individuation promotes susceptibility to plague and plague also tends to occur in shifting conditions like those brought on by the holocene era or rapid changes in local predator/prey balances due to geolocalized concentrations of pesticides. The vulnerability of eusocial biology is literally dealing with "rapid sidegrades", high-individuators who explore and change both local and global conitions in a short timeframe; the vulnerability of communist economies is capitalist economies. As above, so below.

[@feuerling]

​@@Suiseisexy The queen is the mother, not the sister. The alates she produces every year meet with those of other colonies, so genetic diversity is ensured. Each colony is the equivalent of a single individual animal with many bodies. Ants are here to stay.

[@williamparkinson2060]

I studied zoology at Uni, but either the lecturer or I, skipped over Siphonophores, because they are far more complex and interesting than I originally thought. Thank you very much for bringing their amazing complexity to my attention. I have not seen one diving. Now thanks to you! I know what to look for. ......,,,...,,,,.....,,,,....::::::::;;;;;)))))

[@sleepybeeinc244]

When you were talking about what was going on in your head and how "This doesn't make sense" my immediate response was "Yes it does!!" I think thats just because im still in highschool and dont have as much knowledge banging around in my brain- but for some reason it just makes sense to me?? Idk, but on a different note, your videos make me cry because im so happy to be learning in this way. You make my day, thank you 💛

[@redleaderdemon841]

I loved the section of your video talking about Hawai'i and her history regarding America acquiring her as a state. It wasn't something you had to include but you did and it's nice to know it's becoming more brought into the light

[@sandrastreifel6452]

Thank you, Octopus lady.

[@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789]

Finally, Octopus Lady, as a woman who loves octopuses for their beautiful and lovely consciousnesses and who loves poorly documented aquatic lifeforms. I have found the perfect channel. Siphonophores are crazy

[@lancewedor5306]

I admire her work, too! And btw the plural of octopus is 'octopuses'.

[@homeopathicfossil-fuels4789]

@@lancewedor5306 whoops, thanks for correcting!

[@kelsey2333]

@@lancewedor5306 I think it can be octopuses or octopi

[@lancewedor5306]

@@kelsey2333 try a dictionary

[@Fullmetalnyuu0]

​@@kelsey2333 Octopussies ❤❤

[@herbertkeithmiller]

What I love about Coral reefs from the one time I went snorkeling (In other words no experience) is that when you swim up to a bunch of coral You can see a bunch of little fish until you get close then they all vanish. Hang around for a minute and they start popping back out. Everyone's got there little hidey hole to protect themselves against the giant predators that swim by.

[@TaleDreamer]

Good video. I have always been fascinated by the idea of specialized cells within the human body that behave and look like they could be distinct microorganisms, and yet they came together in a squishy homeostatic meat bag. I mean you have... Macrophages that patrol around the body like an amoeba to consume + digest foreign pathogens/cancer cells, and then muscle cells that allow you to perform locomotion to get to food, and then stomach cells that secrete mucus and digestive fluids to break down and absorb food, and nerve cells to coordinate subsystems (etc.)... Oh, and also gut microbiota that are technically not "part of the body", but the body seems 100% okay with letting them stay, and sometimes even "swap" resources with them. And clearly, you won't die whenever you shed a few cells here and there. But also, cells removed from the body can still survive in-vitro away from the rest of the... Ahem. "Colony". Soooooo animal? Colony? Maybe the distinction here isn't all too important and just a convenient abstraction because humans have an obsession with creating clear-cut discretization in order to understand the world around us (otherwise we would all be driven to madness, like you!). This feels like the Biology's version of Zeno's paradox.

[@Sleipnirseight]

Tbh thank you so much for this. I was having an impossible time wrapping my head around the fact that man-of-war "jellies" are colony organsims

[@MisterOrgans]

A turtle singing Mr Brightside is a thing this world needs

[@mollipop4095]

Supremely entertaining, educational, and deeply existential-crisis-inducing. Just like all good marine biology should be!

[@mymom1462]

Can't wait until you find out and do an episode on Choanoflagellates. I hope you have an even terrible existential crisis researching that and display it in video for all of us to enjoy. Jk, I love your editing format where you are humble enough to admit if you are unsure about a scientific concept. It is really heartwarming and immersive and seriously puts the viewer in the head of you conducting the research.

[@ebenwaterman5858]

I've held the same opinion of the the "state" of Hawaii as you do for over 2 decades. Once I did the research. So good for you.

[@tiotheberk]

I lived there for a few years and after hearing some of the locals talk like that I did some reading on it.. it’s not as simple as America took Hawaii by force. A very large portion of Hawaiians wanted to be added to the U.S. for the security and infrastructure. Also, beyond that. if America had not made it part of its nation there is no way it lasts as an independent sovereign nation on its own. They would have been taken by force from another world power. First in line was Japan. Although if they now think they r better off I say let em go. If they can get the votes of most Hawaiians saying they don’t wanna be part of the America they shouldn’t be.

[@ebenwaterman5858]

@@tiotheberk Thanx Tio, you're probably right as all I know about it is hearsay.

[@tiotheberk]

@@ebenwaterman5858 I can tell you from personal experience many of the locals feel this way and view any foreigner as an invader. They don’t mind tourists very much because it’s a large portion of their income. However when you are living there it can become dangerous. Keep in mind most of the locals are extremely kind and loving so we are talking about a minority of hostel racists. A friend of mine was beaten so badly he had to have facial reconstruction surgery. His crime was being white in the wrong town at night. I was also surrounded and threatened more then once. I do believe a lot of what’s pushed online about them being “occupied” comes from this extreme nationalism that’s couched in racism.

[@Mr.Vicious]

​@@tiotheberk Well did you listen to Octopus Lady go on about how evil white people where?

[@LowestofheDead]

​@@tiotheberk I wonder - if Japan took Hawaii first, would they be saying that it was a good outcome? Because otherwise they'd be invaded by the US? Every country teaches a one-sided history in its schools - Japan and the US are no exceptions. But yes, in almost every invasion, there are some benefits and some locals who support it. Heck, even the N*zis had enough American supporters to do a rally in Madison Square gardens

[@robinsea]

this makes me want to write a dnd campaign where the whole world and all the 'other' realms are a siphonore-esque commuity.

[@woooooooooooooooooooooooo]

Octopus Lady with siphonophores 🤝 Charles Darwin with barnacles Having a mental breakdown

[@xarvei]

I have never seen something real, that was more alien-like than this creature. I knew about existence of siphonophores, but I didn't know WHAT it is. Truly terrifying. I really appreciate you for making this video!

[@pettersonystrawman9291]

Damnit, I started with watching deep sea horror videos for a scare before bed, but now I'm knee deep in actual marine biology videos.

[@EdyBraun]

Excellent video! I'm a molecular genetics major and find this fascinating! I like to think of each cell as an automaton, reacting to it's immediate surrounding environment. You can scale it up and have individual zooids also act as automatons as well, at each level of organization (same root as the word "organism") you have various levels of function and specialization. If you look at the "Game Of Life" (John Conway) there are very simple instructions that determine the state of each cell based on it's surrounding neighborhood, yet you will see some very complex emergent properties arise out of some simulated patterns. Now imagine a 3D "stack" or some extra-dimensional game of life with different patterns all working together for the benefit of the group. When you have an organism that appears to be colonial yet has sub-specialized components grouped together (zooids), it is as if your coral reef polyp colony rather than all being identical polyps have decided to diverge into specific functions that evolutionarily-speaking benefit the entire group. Of course, each still has some capability to survive on it's own but without being part of the group, an individual sub-specialized clone will suffer. Just like a colony of people heading out to newly charted territory needs a farmer, a blacksmith, a doctor, a teacher, etc... not everyone can do everything. So how this type of specialization evolved seems to be on the spectrum of evolutionary development from colonial to highly specialized cellular organisms, as you mentioned. I would imagine that the number of zooids, their type and structural distribution would seem to be dependent on some set of rules based on pressures during it's growth in whatever is their environment. What would be amazing is creating a type of computer simulation of zooids and allowing things to "evolve" in a type of oceanic simulation to see what types and structures develop and see what the most advantageous body structure/plan is in different situations. Keep up the entertaining videos!

[@eyewai]

this is such an interesting way to put it!!! love this!

[@Duck_Praise]

i was thinking this the whole time, the characteristics mentioned sounded more like cells or mother cells than organs

[@alexanderportolov]

This channel is SO IMPRESSIVE!!! I got an undergraduate degree in oceanography but found reading and writing scientific papers SO infuriating and boring that I did my entire senior thesis making a choose-your-own-adventure style theatre show (my other degree was theatre performance), so you’re living my dream making this type of content! Definitely subscribed!

[@djannias]

Thank you so much Octopus Lady, you are awesome. I really enjoy learning so much about our ocean friends and you have a great sense of humor. We all appreciate the time and energy you put into these videos, big love!

[@eyewai]

Hi Octopus Lady!!! I'm so happy this got picked up by the algorithm cause I've been DYING for content like yours!!! I am autistic and marine biology has been my special interest since chikdhood and for a long time, I knew what Siphonophores were, but I didn't UNDERSTAND them. This video helped me achieve that!!! I will be a regular here for sure!!!! :D

[@AGDinCA]

You articulated my exact thoughts on siphonophores. I love these things, partly because of the conundrums they create. They are kind of like the "missing link" between colonial and individual organisms.

[@ezarhon1002]

This was something that NEEDED to happen. You made something that was maddly confusing into something coherent, succinct and interesting. Keep up the awesome work, Mahalo!

[@originalgally9866]

Never thought I'd be sat at 2am listening to someone trauma dump their experience researching a bizarre sea creature and then watch a turtle singing mr brightside, all in the same video.

[@elliottclaassen]

Siphonophores are one of my favorite animals. But I don’t know much about them and what they look like. So THANK YOU SO MUCH! This is amazing

[@Capstone2266]

Oh. My. God. You're doing exactly what I've dreamed of doing... Your vacation footage where you swam around in a reef observing all those organisms was pure magic for me. I was already in love with marine biology, but you are making me just that much more interesting and in love with it ten fold. Thank you Lady Octopus.

[@jonathan_cline]

I love your editing style and blend of content and humor, awesome video, please do more on these strange esoteric creatures as they dont get solid analysis often

[@CChissel]

I appreciate your acknowledgements at the end of the video, really cool of you to do and say. Thank you for recognizing the reality of Hawaii and how it came to be occupied by America.

[@amberkat8147]

I appreciate it too, and I'm not Hawaiian. I just think that since every square corner of the continental United States plus Hawaii was taken from natives, either by cheating them (since they didn't have the same concept of land ownership as we did.) or be threatening or massacring them until we could take the land, the least we today can do is be honest about that fact- no pretty little lies, no blinders, no self-delusion. It wasn't right. We, and I mean our ancestors in general, or at least our cultural ancestors, killed millions, destroyed nations that had their own society and laws, and did our best to destroy their culture, language, and religion, and none of it was right or okay, even though we still enjoy the benefits today. There's really not much way to go back, although I think restoring some of the traditional land where it's only being used as parks would be a good way to start, and of course actually honoring the agreement to respect the land we left them with and not do sh*t like run oil pipelines where we know they will inevitably leak and contaminate their water sources, stuff like that, because technically that is against the agreement and even if it wasn't it still be wrong to do. That's Native American issues, though, I don't know as much about the issues native Hawaiians have to deal with tbh. But I know they exist, because I know there's still a deep resentment against non-native Hawaiians today and that wouldn't be the case without a reason. I would like to know more, because I believe all such grievances are valid and should at least be addressed to what little extent is actually practical.

[@skeetsmcgrew3282]

Bro I was so annoyed when I heard for the first time, as a man in his late 20s, how unbelievably unethical the annexation of Hawaii was. I was working with a native Hawaiian and she spent a lot of time teaching me about their history and it was just... ugh. I feel like my history lessons in school were just a giant effing waste of time. If they were going to shove a fantasy down my throat it may as well have been a well written one like. Idk Lord of the Rings.

[@CreationForgotten]

Ma'am as a junior marine biologist I am SO SORRY you had to go through this

[@LawofAxis]

Your editing is so refreshing compared to a lot of videos. This was a happy and informative watch!

[@derekhasabrain]

You are such a good person, Octopus Lady. I just… I’ve been drawn, no, addicted to your videos specifically because I admire you so, so much. From crediting ignored artists, to nearly killing yourself with research in the quest to find tested, verified truth. I’m crying because of that acknowledgment at the end. I HAVE NEVER HEARD ANYONE DO THAT. I’ve always known that Hawai’i was illegally annexed by the United States but never have I, an American, been there. God I just, your kindness and consideration and love for life and culture is radiant. Please keep making videos - not only for the free and entertaining education, but also just so that I can selfishly watch them to remind myself that there’s at least one great person on earth. Thank you, TOL.

[@dagoodboy6424]

Siphonophores are my favorite anim- *creatures* and id like a follow up since ive learned alot more in this than anywhere else.

[@pawsome38]

Great video :). I'd love to see a video on (if this is relevant) how siphonophores are important to the evolution of multicellular life. My thought process being, if multicellular life evolved from multiple single-celled organisms learning to function together and depend on each other; that's basically what siphonophores are, or at least how they seem to function.

[@TheB3stie]

"Are siphonophores colonies?" "Yesn't"

[@RaymondSandoval123]

This was a whole video about why I was so confused about Man O’ Wars. Thank you

[@OriginOfMajesty]

I'm so glad I found this channel! It always makes me really excited to find someone with this much genuine passion for marine biology, which I unfortunately can't say is a regular occurrence. You teach interesting concepts, and you're super entertaining while you do it. Keep up the great work, I love your stuff so much!!

[@salt-emoji]

Thank you for your mental anguish on this subject😬 I had a biology teacher absolutely swerve siphonophore questions.

[@MajoraJamora]

They were afraid of the unknown simply

[@Hansulf]

I remember having the same dilema when watching the anime "Parasite". If many parasites invade a human and each become a different organ, do the whole organism count as an individual or Its now a colony? We are basicly that but at the cell level. So really Its about how you ask the question. Its a cell and individual? Its the whole biosphere an individual? They are all bad questions.

[@bobsonny]

> If many parasites invade a human and each become a different organ Maybe stop getting your science from anime

[@nomethodonlymadness9528]

For your consideration on naming the no fossil corner: The corner of mysterious origins.

[@milchesarreal6964]

Me coming into this video: Wanna learn about invertebrates Me exiting this video: questioning what individuality is

[@AlexIsOffline]

The video’s at 68k views and there’s been about 4000 new additions to the Alien Ocean club when I’m writing this. I’m so happy for you OctopusLady! It’s insane the level of growth the channel has seen in just under two weeks 🎉

[@eeneranna9795]

I'm shocked you don't have more subscribers. Your content is so entertaining and well made.

[@daddydeimos9863]

You earned a sub when all the octopus lady voices almost perfectly recreated my mental struggles whenever I read about anything I'm truly fascinated with. So many questions, never enough answers.

[@ulture]

THANK YOU! I have been wondering this for years and no-one I've told about it has ever thought this was as weird and confusing as I do

[@AudraK]

The commentary of the sea life from your vacation *WAS SO GOOD*

[@shi-o8434]

I literally only discovered this channel today and I’m already hooked, this channel has the perfect blend of interestingly weird info, and also being funny like how I would splurge out random crap to my friends

[@davidlivingston4203]

oh welcome, you're in for a great ride. this is becoming my favorite science youtube channel.

[@Mojken_yakionigiri]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how similar a lot of mamals are to each other, down to things like instincts, emotional expressions, and organs. And then, you take a look into the ocean, and life there is so different that our conceptions around life just significantly clash with it. It's very cool. Thanks for the video, I'd love some more scientific details about these.

[@peytoia]

please do another video on siphonophores i am hopelessly obsessed with them…. youre the first person ive seen whos had the same existential reaction to how they work as i did and id be OVER THE MOON to see a video where you go in-depth with the more “boring” stuff. i hope you had a wonderful vacation btw!

[@Shaze339]

" To all subjects of ymir, My name is Eren Yeager. I'm using the power of the Founding Titan to address all subjects of Ymir"

[@JuneBugInSpring]

oh my goodness PLEASE do more videos on Siphonophores it would bring me immense joy!! I love them deeply and seeing you talk about them is lovely! :) (also side note, I just stumbled onto your channel from this video and I'm already in love!!! glad there are well educated and charismatic channels out there like yours :)

[@GeoffryGifari]

oh love to hear more about these bizarre, enchanting creatures!

[@artificercreator]

I differentiate zooids by thinking that once they are detached from a main organism they were supposed to join another one in a future (while an organ has a check list of compatibility and placement, the zooid is designed to bypass those somehow) and if it doesn't find another cluster in certain threshold it will die eventually unlike a colony organism. I imagine this setup worked more in the past where its life form was everywhere in the oceans, and what we see is like a remnant of that era, maybe we are seeing the ones that didn't depend exclusively on that skill to survive. Not sure how acurate is my idea tho, so, take it with caution.

[@gwendolynodaugherty9601]

It feels like biology is slowly catching up with truth. Everything exists on a spectrum: Individualism vs colonialism, gender, evolution. Nothing is ever really its own category, it bleeds into other things constantly. We all just are what we are, a bundle of strange vibrations in the fabric of spacetime, bumping off of each other in the void of existence.

[@glockel4308]

wow so poetic, we should definitely put foreign hormones in our body to feel more like the spectrum we belong to

[@joelanderson5285]

Some things are a binary like human sex, just a binary.

[@orppranator5230]

How is evolution a spectrum? Did creationism slowly morph into evolution just to fool us humans into thinking the all mighty smiter didn’t create everything in 7 days?

[@pflanzenmuddi2019]

@@joelanderson5285intersex people exist you know

[@JustAaron94]

a lot of words to say absolutely nothing

[@anthonybaransky137]

I like your narrarating emotional voice. I can hear you smile when you do and I can't see it but it's there

[@Minohorse]

Feels like "You cannot grasp the true form of Siphonophore" is a good summary of our situation.

[@spiritinflux]

Props for your shoutout and acknowledgement of the Indigenous culture and people of Hawaii ❤️‍🔥 Great video 🐒 Custodians NOT consumers 🌏

[@mossyhawk1312]

I can't explain how happy I am to have found this video & channel. *subscribe* Also thank you SO MUCH for doing a land acknowledgement. As a native person myself I can't express how much that means 🫶🏼

[@theinfrnoblazer]

I think your main issue with understanding it was not taking an evolution mindset. It's pretty easy to understand them as an evolutionary midpoint between colony and organism. They're pretty easy to grasp if you look at them like how all multicellular organisms must've been like in the early stages of gaining organs and such. Gotta start somewhere and a pyrozome looks like a great place for that. Pre proper organ organism :)

[@cerberus0225]

That's sort of the case, except that each zooid is itself a multicellular organism. It's like the transition from colony of single-celled organisms to multicellular organisms, but another tier of organization up.

[@SSDD_NYC]

I've never been quite so confused and entertained while learning but feeling like I'm getting nowhere.

[@brianrosser72]

Your channel is the coolest, my friend. I'm so stoked to have found it! Please keep putting out this wholesome content.

[@MissMarigold32]

I think yt knows im falling back in to my marine biology phase 😅 But ive always seen these things as super intresting, but i also have a genuine love & fascination w/all thinks confusing & strange. Octonauts did a pretty decent job at explaning them (granted it is a show targeted at kindergarteners so they didnt go into scientifics much)

[@GutRotGoblin]

My monkey brain has concluded that they're just a bunch of lil guys that form Voltron. I'm also so, so happy I found your channel! Keep up the amazing work!

[@IDWpresents]

I have mad respect for the people in the Hawaiian independence movement. When I visited Haleakala national park during a government shutdown a few years ago, they had shown up to take over the responsibilities of the park rangers WITHOUT GETTING PAID! These people don't want independence because of some stupid nationalistic fervor. What they care about is the extremely fragile ecosystem they live in, and they don't think the rest of us do a good enough job of protecting it.

[@iampierce7474]

The best in between for organism and colony could be “The Dubious Creature”

[@dylanromansky7228]

Please don't stop making videos, I really love the way you present your topics