Do You Think There Are Pre-Historic Monsters Deep Down In The Ocean?

[Wrestler160]

If I was ever at the beach when an oarfish washed up on shore it would probably give me PTSD

I have an old picture of these Military men catching a similar creature with a really terrifying head/face that they caught in Southeast Asian. The urban legend was that all of the men who took a picture with that creature all ended up dying young.

I'm going to try and look for it at my moms house hopefully this weekend and post it here.

 

[liljoe]

Allready got them.

 

[Sycho Sid]

If some kind of Cthulu monster ain't biding his time down there before he strikes, then I have been wasting my life.

 

[Doughbelly]

Prehistoric? Almost certainly not.

Evolution is ultimately powered by energy. It's just too cold and there's not enough available energy down there for life to have developed large, carnivorous things that we haven't even conceived of. Hydothermal vents? Yes, that's energy, but the motherfucking SUN is in a different energy league several dozen orders of magnitude greater.

People go on about how little of the ocean we have explored, as if a percentage of surface with very little bioactivity has much bearing. The reality is that the overwhelming amount of marine life, its biomass and all of it's energy transfers between trophic levels happen with a few meters to a few dozen meters of the ocean surface. Primary energy input? The Sun.

Go down to the oceanic depths. What is the primary energy input for the vast majority of the bottom of the overwhelming amount of the world's oceans? Poop. Poop of the animals living above it. And the carcasses of things that didn't get eaten along the way down. Thermal? Only in the deep trenches, all isolated, all very few and fart between.

Large animal consume enormous amounts of food and chasing down prey isn't the most energy efficient of way of gather energy. That's why the largest animals of any sort are almost always "grazers." Largest shark? Not the Great White. Whale shark. After that? Nursing shark. Whale sharks and nursing sharks can weigh 40,000 to 80,000 lbs. Largest Great White? 5000 lbs. Largest animal on the planet? Blue whale.

So this giant undersea predator - what does it eat? How does it sustain its biomass? How would such a mechanism evolve in circumstances that, due to the amount of energy available, is prohibitive of fast speciation and specialization? 4 billion years just isn't enough time. Raw mineral availability to support eukaryotic life (aka, anything more complex than single celled bacteria) didn't happen until a billion or two years ago. Life really didn't start evolving except in the past 500 million years, not at the ocean's depths, but on its surface.

We've probably already seen the biggest thing to come up from the ocean depths - giant/colossal squid. Anything bigger will be along those lines. Or sedentary.

OTOH, 500 million years in the future? That's a much more interesting question.

 

[weed]

Prehistoric? Almost certainly not.

Evolution is ultimately powered by energy. It's just too cold and there's not enough available energy down there for life to have developed large, carnivorous things that we haven't even conceived of. Hydothermal vents? Yes, that's energy, but the motherfucking SUN is in a different energy league several dozen orders of magnitude greater.

People go on about how little of the ocean we have explored, as if a percentage of surface with very little bioactivity has much bearing. The reality is that the overwhelming amount of marine life, its biomass and all of it's energy transfers between trophic levels happen with a few meters to a few dozen meters of the ocean surface. Primary energy input? The Sun.

Go down to the oceanic depths. What is the primary energy input for the vast majority of the bottom of the overwhelming amount of the world's oceans? Poop. Poop of the animals living above it. And the carcasses of things that didn't get eaten along the way down. Thermal? Only in the deep trenches, all isolated, all very few and fart between.

Large animal consume enormous amounts of food and chasing down prey isn't the most energy efficient of way of gather energy. That's why the largest animals of any sort are almost always "grazers." Largest shark? Not the Great White. Whale shark. After that? Nursing shark. Whale sharks and nursing sharks can weigh 40,000 to 80,000 lbs. Largest Great White? 5000 lbs. Largest animal on the planet? Blue whale.

So this giant undersea predator - what does it eat? How does it sustain its biomass? How would such a mechanism evolve in circumstances that, due to the amount of energy available, is prohibitive of fast speciation and specialization? 4 billion years just isn't enough time. Raw mineral availability to support eukaryotic life (aka, anything more complex than single celled bacteria) didn't happen until a billion or two years ago. Life really didn't start evolving except in the past 500 million years, not at the ocean's depths, but on its surface.

We've probably already seen the biggest thing to come up from the ocean depths - giant/colossal squid. Anything bigger will be along those lines. Or sedentary.

OTOH, 500 million years in the future? That's a much more interesting question.

here's a good video touching on what you're talking about, how there's little oxygen & sources for food that deep into the ocean etc.

 

[NoGoodNamesLeft]

 

[LEGS MAHONEY]

too the people saying no doesnt the giant ass squids they have been finding prove it can? Or do they not live as deep down as op is talking?

 

[Doughbelly]

That said, if I were writing a screenplay, I'd go with some kind of lobster. Lobsters are near unique in forms of motile life in that lobster cells do not experience cellular senescence. They don't get old. If disease, injury or getting eaten doesn't get a lobster (which it will), lobsters could conceivably live forever, slowly getting larger.

So this ancient, pre-historic lobster makes it millions of years just becoming huge. It's trapped in the depths, but right next to a hydrothermal vent that slowly produces just enough worms or mushrooms or whatever this thing can live off of in enough quantity. One day, an earthquake untraps it and it rises up from the depths, seeking revenge. Throw some megasharks and a tornado or two in there and you've got a movie.

 

[loyalyolayal]

That said, if I were writing a screenplay, I'd go with some kind of lobster. Lobsters are near unique in forms of motile life in that lobster cells do not experience cellular senescence. They don't get old. If disease, injury or getting eaten doesn't get a lobster (which it will), lobsters could conceivably live forever, slowly getting larger.

So this ancient, pre-historic lobster makes it millions of years just becoming huge. It's trapped in the depths, but right next to a hydrothermal vent that slowly produces just enough worms or mushrooms or whatever this thing can live off of in enough quantity. One day, an earthquake untraps it and it rises up from the depths, seeking revenge. Throw some megasharks and a tornado or two in there and you've got a movie.

They're peaceful as long as you don't draw nipples on their chests with a permanent marker.

 

[fightingrabbit]

I hope so. My favorite is watching/seeing shit about giant sharks and crocodiles and shit. I think they're called Megalodons (fuck you i'm no prehistoric shark expert). That stuff fascinates me.

 

[Doughbelly]

here's a good video touching on what you're talking about, how there's little oxygen & sources for food that deep into the ocean etc.

I can't like this post enough. That is a fascinating video.

"Marine snow." Great euphemism for little bits of dead animals and fish poop.

 

[Doughbelly]

They're peaceful as long as you don't draw nipples on their chests with a permanent marker.

I had a flash of this scene for a moment when writing that post. Such a funny manga/anme.

 

[kingkokong]

I have an old picture of these Military men catching a similar creature with a really terrifying head/face that they caught in Southeast Asian. The urban legend was that all of the men who took a picture with that creature all ended up dying young.

I'm going to try and look for it at my moms house hopefully this weekend and post it here.

I know the one you're talking about.
Apparently the head was photoshopped with scales and wiskers to make it look more like a dragon lol

 

[jefferz]

No I was just talking about sharks in general. And separate from that, those wierd fucking fish with the blue bioluminescent bulb protruding from their heads.

not all deep water creatures are scary looking

 

[fightingrabbit]

Whales aren't good enough for you? Blue whales are like 200 fkn feet long and weigh a bazillion pounds.

Yeah but all they eat is krill and shit like cans.

 

[Rod1]

 

[fightingrabbit]

Prehistoric? Almost certainly not.

Evolution is ultimately powered by energy. It's just too cold and there's not enough available energy down there for life to have developed large, carnivorous things that we haven't even conceived of. Hydothermal vents? Yes, that's energy, but the motherfucking SUN is in a different energy league several dozen orders of magnitude greater.

People go on about how little of the ocean we have explored, as if a percentage of surface with very little bioactivity has much bearing. The reality is that the overwhelming amount of marine life, its biomass and all of it's energy transfers between trophic levels happen with a few meters to a few dozen meters of the ocean surface. Primary energy input? The Sun.

Go down to the oceanic depths. What is the primary energy input for the vast majority of the bottom of the overwhelming amount of the world's oceans? Poop. Poop of the animals living above it. And the carcasses of things that didn't get eaten along the way down. Thermal? Only in the deep trenches, all isolated, all very few and fart between.

Large animal consume enormous amounts of food and chasing down prey isn't the most energy efficient of way of gather energy. That's why the largest animals of any sort are almost always "grazers." Largest shark? Not the Great White. Whale shark. After that? Nursing shark. Whale sharks and nursing sharks can weigh 40,000 to 80,000 lbs. Largest Great White? 5000 lbs. Largest animal on the planet? Blue whale.

So this giant undersea predator - what does it eat? How does it sustain its biomass? How would such a mechanism evolve in circumstances that, due to the amount of energy available, is prohibitive of fast speciation and specialization? 4 billion years just isn't enough time. Raw mineral availability to support eukaryotic life (aka, anything more complex than single celled bacteria) didn't happen until a billion or two years ago. Life really didn't start evolving except in the past 500 million years, not at the ocean's depths, but on its surface.

We've probably already seen the biggest thing to come up from the ocean depths - giant/colossal squid. Anything bigger will be along those lines. Or sedentary.

OTOH, 500 million years in the future? That's a much more interesting question.

Okay, well explain this footage then..

Spoiler

 

[mmaelitefan000]

i think so. the ocean covers alot more area than it does land and we're only talking top surface. put into consideration that it's deepest point is 7 miles deep. w/that said, there could a giant squid 2 football fields long or some prehistoric creature 5 times the size of an elephant, that rarely needs to come up for air just living it's content life, sustaining itslf w/a a near infinite amount of fish as it's diet.

 

[loyalyolayal]

well they couldnt locate that black box on the plane which crashed into an ocean back a few years ago? mh370.

so if they cant find a man made object that remits electronic signals, i would sure love to think they cant find obscure creatures down there in the ocean.

plus. well, ok this was just found recently, but it evaded humans for centuries. (if you wanna believe every word for word like i do.)

- http://www.news.com.au/technology/s...d/news-story/1224ff64f355791693138ebbee3d4ad8

Mythical ‘horror’ shipworm that grows up to five feet long caught 300 years after it was first spotted
SCIENTISTS have finally glimpsed a huge, black five-foot-long worm which has eluded humans for centuries.

They don't even have a scalpel. LOL@ philippine labs.

 

[Cold187um]

Unless science has mapped out every square mile of every ocean to a depth of like 300 ft I think there could be something of considerable size to be found