Why I want to be a Marine Biologist

Every so often, I do or attend something dealing with Biology and every single time I walk away just remembering why I wanted to be a Marine Biologist in the first place. Well, today was one of those days.

There was a convocation today and the speaker was a deep-sea explorer by name of Edie Widder. She was so cool! And her presentation: AWESOME!!! She showed all these cool pictures that she herself took on her deep-sea explorations of viperfish, loose-jawed fish, jellies, and squids. She even had some rarely-seen video clips of six-gill sharks (deep-sea dwelling sharks) foraging for food.

Which was really cool. These sharks grow to be 12 feet in length, which is really hard to comprehend in the deep-sea environment where a fish is lucky to get a meal. However, these sharks forage in the sand, swallowing it and blowing it out through their gills and catching sand-dwelling critters for dinner. Dr. Widder had a video clip of that that she showed us. It was so cool!

She was able to get those video clips because she built the Eye-In-The-Sea. Which, for many who don't know, is a camera that sits on the bottom of the sea, with a little jellyfish-like light-up contraption that attracts other deep-sea creatures. Well, it was thanks to this contraption that she was able to discover the foraging techniques of the six-gill shark, and to see a squid that has not been seen before, and therefore has not been categorized in a family. She came up with this idea because the deep-sea submersibles make noise and so they scare away much of the wildlife (which, as she pointed out, is a probable reason why a giant squid has never been seen alive. They've only been found dead, floating on the ocean surface). The Eye-In-The-Sea, being very quiet, will allow scientists to see critters that have not been discovered yet.

It was just so cool. And I loved it. I wish I could get a hold of some of her pictures. They were so cool! And she had a good one of a viperfish (I did a presentation on that fishy in my fish class) and its modified first dorsal fin ray, which it uses as a lure to attract prey. That is why I want to be a marine biologist. I want to dive down into the deep oceans and see aviperfish for myself and other bioluminescent creatures doing their thing. It's just so fascinating. Nature is amazing! Science is amazing!

*sigh* I love this world.