Reflections on Scotoplanes:Sea Pigs in Pop Culture, Facebook, Art, Octonauts and Toys!

I started this blog in 2006 without a really good idea of what I was getting into.. and it was my big Sea Pig post (here) that really gave me an idea of just how far a blog that specialized on echinoderms (of all things!) could go.

So, its now been three years and I've had a chance to look at some numbers and trends. This has given me a chance to see exactly HOW my sea pig post has presented these animals into the public eye.

Now bear in mind, that the term "sea pig" actually refers to sea cucumbers in the family Elpidiidae, mostly in the genus Scotoplanes but several genera are similar and fit the bill pretty easily.

Prior to the late 20th/early 21st Century, before we had video and crisp pictures of these animals in their natural habitat, the number of people who even knew these animals even existed was something you could count on two hands.  This included a small number of echinoderm taxonomists (no more than 6) and deep-sea biologists who had perhaps seen the dead ones or perhaps pictures from towed underwater cameras.

As the early 2000s rolled around, some pics and etc. rolled around. People were discovering some of the weird and crazy stuff that lived in the deep-sea. Giant Isopods and all of the "big stars" of a deep-sea biology book were slowly coming to life!

In 2009, I came across an unusual spike in readership (probably from a Facebook quiz) that was focused on a "sea pig" I had posted from a blog about a scientific meeting on image analysis. I rapidly figured out (thanks to some help from friends on Facebook) that people had seen this strange beast and wanted to know what it was. So, I took the July 4th weekend and wrote that up and posted it!

The result greatly impressed me.  And then, hot on the heels of my post, Animal Planet followed up with a piece on Sea Pigs that same month! (July 2009)

Here are the Google Search trends graph for "sea pig" and the term "sea pigs".  Basically, there is a HUGE spike in hits for July 2009 (when my sea pig post went up, followed by the Animal Planet post), and a significantly greater interest afterwards...
                                   

What do the numbers mean?  Here's the explanation from Google Trends: 

The numbers on the graph reflect how many searches have been done for a particular term, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. They don't represent absolute search volume numbers, because the data is normalized and presented on a scale from 0-100. Each point on the graph is divided by the highest point, or 100. When we don't have enough data, 0 is shown.

Its fascinating to see how outreach and social media have affected the perception and awareness of a weird, little sea cucumber, which frankly, nobody gave a damn about throughout most of the 20th Century. And I'll be honest, research on this species has not perceptibly jumped but perhaps that's just a matter of time as inspiration and funds dovetail...

Where has the "concept" of sea pig gone? How have they entered into the culture? 

1. There is ART.

They have replaced reindeer on Holiday cards!

Yeti Crab Santa by NocturnalSea on deviantART

I love this one.

Sea Pigs by HangingLeaf on deviantART

The Sea Pig as Meme.

Sea Pig Motivational Poster by XxweirdpersonxX on deviantART

2. There are toys (albeit Japanese candy toys)

 Plushie!

3. Sea Pigs were on OCTONAUTS! (and were scientifically accurate!) My thanks to "Skymouse" who sent me the original link!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHBG2utmCbE

4. and of course the famous "voice guy" from Buzz Feed and so on Ze Frank did one of his famous "True Facts about the sea pig" videos!

5. and MOST recently, Kronos Quartet has been inspired to compose music from/about/by Sea pigs??

Did I directly participate in getting sea pigs on Octonauts? No, but would Octonauts have a show featuring sea pigs without my blog back in 2009? Who knows?  But its nice to know that contributions and/or influences from the Echinoblog can be seen in a variety of places.....

Have you seen some new art/statue/show/pop culture reference to sea pigs? Let me know! I'd love to continue seeing how sea pigs become part of popular culture..

Because you demanded it!: THE SEA PIG!! aka Scotoplanes globosa!!!

(From Clipart Etc -Florida Educational Claringhouse)

I was casually checking the numbers for the Echinoblog over a July 4th weekend in 2009 and on the day just before a 3 day weekend I found there was a HUGE spike of hits (>600 in one day!) simultaneously and inexplicably searching for something that I narrowed down to a massive international search for the term "sea pig".

(This image from the Galathea 3 expedition site)

Reasons were offered: A new Facebook quiz app. A video on Youtube. Who knows?

But if the PUBLIC wants to know what a SEA PIG is and I KNOW??? Then Frak it!! Its my duty to society to tell it WHAT a sea pig is!!! Who am I to deny the public's interest in sea pigs??

So, let's get to it!

What is a Sea Pig??
The "sea pig" is the common name (i.e. non-scientific name) for a species of sea cucumber (in the class Holothuroidea) that lives in the deepest abyssal depths of the world's oceans.

(from the MBARI news page)

Specifically sea pigs belong to the genus Scotoplanes, a genus of deep-sea sea cucumber which currently includes four species. Sometimes other genera of deep-sea sea-cucumbers are called "sea pigs", but historically, THIS is the one most people mean. Its not entirely clear if those four species are all distinct, but THAT is a discussion for another day...

(From Clipart Etc -Florida Educational Claringhouse)

The name Scotoplanes has been around for a LONG time. The genus was discovered and described by H. Theel in 1882 as part of the famous HMS Challenger expedition reports. Sea pigs are ELASIOPODID sea cucumbers, an order of sea cucumbers whose members are prominent in the deep-sea.

They are often characterized by having these little legs that come off the bottom surface such as what you see here (legs on side, mouth pointing outwards)

(This image from the Galathea 3 expedition site)

One species, Scotoplanes globosa seems to be particularly widespread with a distribution that is WORLDWIDE. Yup. That's right you can find it in the Atlantic, the Pacific, in the Indian Ocean and of course..in the Southern Ocean (Antarctica).

Because waters in the Southern Ocean (Antarctica) are so cold, sea pigs can be found in shallower waters around the South Pole. Pictured here is one collected during the recent expedition operated by the New Zealanders and held by NIWA scientist (and friend of the Echinoblog) Sadie Mills:

(Photo credit: Richard O'Driscoll, NZ IPY-CAML)

How do Sea Pigs Live ???
Scotoplanes live in the ABYSS. That's not just a little deep..that's the DEEPEST part of the ocean on the flat oceanic plains. Its not unusual for sea pigs to be collected from over 6000 meters!!! How deep is that? That's about 3.7 miles DOWN (by contrast the Grand Canyon at its deepest point is only about 1.1 miles deep). Some can be found shallower..but they live across a wide bathymetric range.

Scotoplanes don't just occur individually either. Collections and observations of these animals show that they often number in the hundreds. Early trawling records have recorded some 300-600 specimens per trawl!!!

(from the MBARI website)

What do they do down there??

Very little is known about Scotoplanes general biology, but we do know a thing or two about their nutriton.

Like a lot of other deep-sea sea cucumbers, Sea pigs are what's called deposit or detrital feeders. That is, they feed on the fine nutritious scum and goo that falls to the bottom of the seafloor from the top of the ocean. They feed on them with the ring of tentacles that surrounds the mouth...

(This image from the Galathea 3 expedition site)

BUT contrary to some accounts that these are "slug like" or coarse dirt worms, deep-sea cukes like Scotoplanes have evolved this feeding mode into a finely honed adaptation!!

For instance, this study by Robert Miller et al. (2000) studied several deep-sea cuke species from the North Pacific, including Scotoplanes globosa using isotope tracers.

S. globosa (and other species in the region) ingests only VERY fresh (and presumably very rich) food-rich sediments. This species (and others like it) feed on a thin veneer of food that had settled out of the water column the last 100 days. So they actually eat FRESH food.

(from Gage & Tyler 1991)

Other facts of interest??

1. According to Dave Pawson, Smithsonian Curator of Echinoderms (and an expert in deep-sea sea cucumbers) you can also often see this species all oriented in a particular direction (such as above) facing into the current, where they are presumably rooting around, searching for better and fresher goo to eat

2. According to this study summarized by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institue and performed by marine biologist Henry Ruhl, the food that these beasts eat (which as a reminder- live at THOUSANDS of METERS depth) ARE directly influenced by what comes down from the SURFACE of the ocean!! Yes, what happens at the SURFACE affects animals that live THREE MILES down!!!
There is apparently a direct correlation between some species and rich food that falls to the ocean fall following certain oceanographic phenomenon such as El Nino.
So, for example, the population numbers of S. globosa boomed after the rich nutritional particles descended folowing the 1997-1999 El Nino and La Nina periods. Ruhl also found other relationships between abundance and size (summarized here).

Scotoplanes have parasites!!!

a. Small snails (genus Stilapex) that work their way into the body wall and suck on their juices!! So, what's weirder then sea pigs??? SEA PIG SNAIL PARASITES!!!!

(from the New Zealand R/V Tangaroa weekly log, photo cred-Stefano Schiaparelli, NZ IPY-CAML)

b. Crustacean parasites!! Good Grief!! It gets even worse then that!! Tiny tanaid crustaceans will also BORE little holes into the sea pig body wall and feed on the internal organs!!! Yikes!

(from the New Zealand R/V Tangaroa weekly log, photo credit-Stefano Schiaparelli, NZ IPY-CAML)

FINALLY..one of the neatest things I found out about sea pigs???

They have become SO iconic that A Japanese toy company (Agatsuma) makes small toys (about 1 inch long) of them!!!
Whew!! So, any OTHER questions about sea pigs????

A spotlight on Echinoderm Art

Things got a bit busy this week  and I've been discovering the wonders of the natural history side of DeviantArt!

MANY creative and wonderful artists out there and I thought it would be cool to showcase some of the notable ones, especially the ones that can be compared against the "originals"

Frankly, I'm pretty impressed. At one time, a LOT of these animals were known only to a handful of specialists in the world. And NOW?People make them into art!! That's amazing!

Here's a few...

Enypniastes! The deep-sea Swimming Sea cucumber! I blogged about these HERE.

Enypniastes eximia by *NocturnalSea on deviantART

Swimming Sea Cucumber Enypniastes eximia by ~JadaFitch on deviantART

Swimming Sea Cucumber by ~veeohlay on deviantART

Here are some video of the original inspiration!

SEA PIGS! The sea cucumber called Scotoplanes! I wrote a bit on this HERE.

OINK!

Sea Pig by ~YavKementari on deviantART

and holiday classics!

Yeti Crab Santa by *NocturnalSea on href="http://www.deviantart.com">deviantART

An interesting one with a Chinese art theme

Sea Pig by ~ToonSkribblez on deviantART

A digital sea pig

cute as a sea pig by ~apostlebird on deviantART

Here's a link to a neat one called "Sea Pig Nouveau" that sadly, was not embeddable..but click here.

and of course, here's the original..

What follows here are some PALEOZOIC fossils, with added colors and "reconstructed" onto a Paleozoic sea bottom as if they were alive...
I try to compare some of these with actual fossils...

Ophiocistioids! Strange Paleozoic forms! I wrote about these only awhile ago HERE.

Volchovia species by =avancna on deviantART

Sollasina and Eucladia by =avancna on deviantART

Here is an actual fossil of the ophiocistioid Eucladia from Yale's collection

Cystoid echinoderms from the Paleozoic!  I'll blog more about the various Paleozoic echinoderms some day, but there's easily as many extinct echinoderm fossil groups (most of them with stems) as living groups.   This image has a nice assortment of them from the Ordovician of New York..

Glyptocystites multiporus by =avancna on deviantART

Here are the three primary critters for comparison! The light olive one in the upper right corner, wrapped around the bryozoans is called Cupulocrinus jewetti

Image by Paleoportal. Photo by Joe Koniecki

The artist indicates the blue individual as the cystoid Pleurocystites squamosus 

Image from Paleoportal. Photo by Joe Koniecki

Here's another.. the brown one with all the unusual spines? tentacles along the sides? Is identified as Glyptocystites multiporus. Here's a fossil from the Ordovician in Ontario for comparison

Image from Paleoportal. Photo by Joe Koniecki

Plumbing the Depths of Guts in Deep-Sea Sea Cucumbers!

(Deima validum from the ECOMAR site Photo by David Shale, 2010)

Deep-sea sea cucumbers (including sea pigs!) are weird, funky animals.

And yet for all of their bizarre appearance their fundamental appearance seems remarkably simple..

They troll around on the deep sea floor (and by deep-I mean the TRUE abyss over 1000 meters-and usually 2000 to 5000 meters deep!) rooting for food as these elasiopods are doing...

When biologists started seeing these bizarre animals-they also realized just how MANY of them seem to be present in any one spot.

(from New Scientist)

Sometimes numbering in the 100s in quite a small area! And so naturally a LOT of important questions began popping up.

• What are they eating exactly?
• Is digestion part of what makes eating scum so good?
• What down there is so dang nutritious-that it supports a kajillion deep sea cukes??
• How can a place that seems wholly depauperate of plants, life and light be supporting SO MANY animals?

In addition to all of this, awhile back, I happened to get a classic question relating to sea pig biology- "Can I have one as a pet???" And the answer was "No." for various reasons. (click here to see that post).

But today I have yet one MORE reason why deep-sea sea cucumbers (including sea pigs) just won't make good pets! (and delve into the biology of these weird deep-sea animals!)

Data for this paper comes from two sources: A paper by Jody Deming and Rita Colwell (University of Maryland, 1982-go here to see it) and another by Teresa Amaro and others in Deep-Sea Research from 2009 (here to see it).

The paper by Deming and Colwell looked at the microbial floras of three genera of abyssal sea cucumbers sampled from the South Atlantic.....

the genus Deima

(Deima validum from the ECOMAR site)

Psychropotes

(P. longicauda North Pacific from MBARI)

and Pseudostichopus

(Pseudostichopus tuberosus from BOLD Systems Taxonomy Browser)

Deming & Colwell sampled the microbial faunas from the intestines of these various holothurian species, sampling different cultures from the gut (# 2) and parallel to stomach in humans) versus the hindgut (#3) (parallel to our long intestines)..Here's a nice image from Amaro et al that shows this...

Fig.2 from Amaro et al.

It turns out that microbes..specifically bacteria WERE present in the intestinal lining of these sea cucumbers! And in significant abundance!!

Here's what they looked like..

(Fig. 5. Transmission electron micograph of the bacteria in the intestinal lining)

These microbial floras were 1.5 to THREE times higher in sediments that had been recently ingested than those where present in the surrounding sediments.

The abundance of these microbes was HIGHEST in the hindgut..where digestion in the intestine occurs (again the equivalent of our long intestine).

But perhaps what was most significant was that these microbial populations were actually MORE ACTIVE under deep-sea pressure (about 400 atmospheres given that "home" pressure was from about 4000 meters!). "Pressure loving" bacteria are what's known as barophilic
(etymological note-that's "baros" for pressure-like in barometer and "philos" for attraction or lovin'...oh yeah...)

Dynamics of the bacterial/microbial community:

1. Various trivia of sea cucumber digestion. By their estimates, it took about 16 HOURS for the organic materials in the sediment to be affected and cleared through the gut. This resulted in about 105 grams of sediment passing through one animal per day (which may not seem like much-but consider that its deep-sea mud and how many animals are in play)
2. Commensal Flora? The authors argued that the bacteria assisted or was involved in digestion or in their terms..."transformation" of the organic materials present in the ingested sediments
3. Food? They did not rule out the possibility that the bacteria were somehow directly involved in providing nutrients via the gut to the sea cucumbers.. perhaps as food? or perhaps contributing to the minerals or the energy of the sediment being digested??

At this juncture I can take a moment to further embellish the answer: Why would deep-sea sea cucumbers make lousy pets? Well, these things have a community of microbes that live in their intestine that they need to survive. And they are MOST successful at deep-sea pressure! (400 atm!)

So-food would likely have a lot of problems metabolizing in these beasts at the surface..assuming they could get the right kind of fine quality, organic scum to begin with!

Adding Further info with studies from MOLPADIA!!

A study that further added some understanding to our knowledge of these gut communities comes from a recent paper by Teresa Amaro and others in Deep-Sea Research from 2009 (here to see it).

Their study focused on the North Atlantic deep-sea sea cucumber Molpadia musculus which is just a lovely animal that is basically a big mud-eating yam-shaped bag..

Yes, I've seen them alive, they are THAT glamorous. Sometimes they are purple.

Amaro and her associates characterized the microbial community within Molpadia with DNA fingerprinting and discovered that in fact, these communities can be quite diverse, with many lineages of bacteria present...

But perhaps what is most interesting was their study that compared two populations of Molpadia-each population present in a different canyon. Each canyon with a different nutritonal setting!

How might these different food rich/poor settings affect the microbe fauna of each sea cucumber population??

The authors compared the bacterial communities present in a canyon with a sediment bottom that was rich in organic matter (i.e., food!) versus one which was poor in organic food.

They found that in the canyon with a rich sediment bottom with lots of yummy organic food, the Molpadia did not need to develop a specialized community of gut bacteria!

In contrast, the population of Molpadia present where the sediment was poorer DID have a more specialized community of bacteria.. Does this augment or provide further nutrients to the host cucumber?

So-getting back to some of the questions asked earlier.. these bacterial communites seem to be an important part of how these weird critters live their lives- as they trundle around on the sea bottom picking up delicious scum from the abyssal mud of the sea bottoms! Perhaps they carry it with them or perhaps they are feeding on them? Many questions remain!

It always seems kind of a funny contrast to me as I observe individuals become so paranoid about bacteria on door knobs and small microbes everywhere in the air.. that at 4000 to 5000 meters below the Earth's surface bacteria (yogurt?) are actually essential to this abundant form of weird life....

Five Cool Things we have already seen on the Okeanos Oceano Profundo Expedition!

This week: Some echinoderm highlights from the 2015 Okeanos Oceano Profundo cruise! 

I've made the point in the past about how AWESOME it is to be able to see so many deep-sea animals alive!

As a scientist who works mostly with preserved specimens, our typical perception of these species from dead material is something like this:

The above specimen is a species of Freyastera, a deep-sea brisingid asteroid. Brisingids have special suspension feeding arms with very delicate arms covered by needle-like spines. I've discussed them at length here.

In stark contrast, here is one alive: 

Dang. THAT's a world of difference!! And the living observation gives us basic info like color and basic posture. Surprisingly important information when you consider how badly deformed and damaged specimens collected by trawl net can be....

But on the other hand, it is FROM these specimens that we are able to have records of these rare species from past expeditions.  

Case in point: 

1. Laetmaster spectabilis 

We saw this Tuesday. At a depth of 3915 meters from the east wall of Mona Canyon. This is a member of the Solasteridae, which are the "sun stars", which I have written up briefly here. 

This is one of the rarest known sea stars, which was known previously from one or two specimens in the late 19th Century on which the descriptions were based. Collected in 1878 by the Blake, a famous oceanographic vessel!

That pretty much means that no one has collected this species for over 130 years! It gave a hard pass to the 20th Century. yow.

2. Plinthaster dentatus feeding!

Another cool thing that we often encounter on these dives is basic aspects of biology which, for deep-sea species, are unknown. 

This "cookie star" is in the family Goniasteridae. These get collected quite a bit but we know very little about them. I wrote about some Hawaiian ones here.

Now, we know this one fees on sponges (or hydroids)!

                            

3. Holopus sp. Bizarre stalked crinoid! 

This was a great pleasure to see... These are unusual types of stalked crinoids which I have written about before.

This sequence nicely shows the arms extended and withdrawn...

4. Oneirophanta mutabilis! A different kind of "sea pig"!! This one is in the family Deimatidae, so it is different from the classic sea pig Scotoplanes globosa.. So what is a "sea pig" anyway? A discussion for a different day...

5. Big Unknown Spiny Cidaroid Urchin!
with ophiuroid (Asteroporpa annulata? I think?) living on the spines!

But who is it? Not sure..

Note that there's some striped ophiuroids living on the spines...

They could be this species? Asteroporpa annulata?

Other noteworthy observations!!

Swimming sea cucumbers (Elasiopoda mostly) were everywhere...

A Enypniastes like species (possibly Amperima or Peniagone?) with transparent body.... That's the gut you are seeing THROUGH the body wall.

And a Benthodytes also with clear body wall showing the gut! 

And a white one.. but again.. transparent body wall...

And finally... one pic full of intrigue! my "phantom" wood starfish?? Did I see it or not? A revisitation to the HD is in the stars....