smolseaprincess

Today we learned that conches, the sea-dwelling mollusks who live inside those big, beautiful conch seashells in warm tropical waters, peer out at the world with cartoonish eyes on tiny eyestalks. They see you. They see everything. And what’s more, they can regenerate their peepers should they happen to lose one or both of them.

“One 1976 paper dug into the specific behind these animals’ alien eyestalks. Sitting at the tips of long stalks, they contain retinas with both sensory cells and colored pigment cells. But the story gets weirder because obviously, it gets weirder. After amputating the conchs’ eyes, a fully-formed replacement took its place 14 days later. Humans, we really are losing this evolutionary game.”

But wait, that’s hardly the only surprising set of eyes under the sea. Scallops have eyes too, LOTS of them:

Conch photos by Redditor buterbetterbater and via @shingworks.

“Baby whale slapping its tail having a good time while mum sleeps below”.

Dylan Bonner on Society6 and Tumblr

See our ‘Artists on Tumblr’ tag

Whale falls can be found throughout the ocean. This one was spotted in Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary, off the coast of Southern California!

GIF transcript beneath the cut.

The largest species of jellyfish, the lion’s mane, has tentacles that can extend more than 100 feet, longer than a blue whale. 

From the TED-Ed Lesson How does a jellyfish sting? - Neosha S Kashef