Siphonophore — the grizzly bear of squishy things

They drift, hunting for tiny critters that migrate to and from the surface each night to feed under the cover of darkness. With hundreds and hundreds of stomachs, the siphonophore stalks their prey much like a grizzly bear that waits for salmon to swim upstream. Instead of claws, stinging tentacles drape like a curtain of death, ensnaring many tiny meals. Slow-growing and long-lived, scientists suspect these top predators can live for decades, if not centuries, but they lack solid body parts that might help age these gelatinous curiosities with any precision. Siphonophores are colonial. Each part has a specific job to perform — some manage movement, others digestion or reproduction. Together, these parts make a whole animal capable of surviving in the edgeless realm of the Ocean’s midwater. ROV pilots recorded this footage at 1589 meters during the 2025 #AsgardArchaea expedition offshore of Uruguay. Credit: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute