Briefs

Advanced Imaging Pro (04/21/05); Hindus, Leonard A.

With thousands of hours of videotape, researchers needed a better way to access and use the images.

Pannychia is an elasiopod sea cucumber found in the deeper regions of the Monterey Canyon. A deposit feeder, groups of Pannychia gather in "herds" on the soft bottomed areas of the canyon below 400 meters. When touched, Pannychia glows with intense blue-green bioluminescence, which radiates in a spiral pattern from the part of the body that was stimulated.

In a dark room in the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), technicians called "annotators" search deep-sea videotapes looking for creatures that look like they could be the products of a mad scientist. Some species are known and familiar; some have never been seen before.

In February 2004, researchers discovered a "bumpy" jellyfish that moves through the water like a shooting star, trailing four fleshy oral arms -- but no tentacles -- behind it. This and other unique features resulted in the jelly's categorization as a new genus and species.

Each organism, once classified, is entered into a computerized database, dubbed the knowledge base, using a taxonomic annotation along with the tape identifier and time code. Sometimes a frame grabber is included.

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