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Longer Than a Blue Whale? The Deep-Sea Team of Tiny Glowing Clones!

2026-10-17 · Watch on YouTube

Summary

Deep in the ocean off Western Australia, scientists may have found one of the longest animals ever seen, and it's longer than a blue whale! Dive in with an underwater robot to meet the giant siphonophore, a glowing string of thousands of tiny clones that work together as one amazing team.

Transcript

0:00Longer Than a Whale

What if I told you that somewhere in the deep, dark ocean, there's an animal longer than a blue whale? And what if I told you it isn't really one animal at all, but thousands of tiny ones holding on to each other? Sounds impossible, right? Let's think about blue whales first. A blue whale is the biggest animal that has ever lived. It's even bigger than any dinosaur we know of! It can grow about thirty meters long. That's roughly one hundred feet, or about as long as three school buses parked in a row! Its heart alone can weigh about as much as two grown-ups put together. Wow! So for anything to be longer than a blue whale, it would need to be truly gigantic. Well, get ready, because scientists may have found exactly that. And it was hiding in a place almost nobody has ever seen. But wait until you meet the team that went looking for it...

0:47The Ocean Explorers

In the year 2020, a team of scientists sailed out on a research ship off the coast of Western Australia. Western Australia is a huge, sunny part of the country, with long beaches and bright blue water. The scientists were exploring deep underwater valleys called canyons. Yes, the ocean has canyons, just like the ones on land, only these are hidden under hundreds of meters of water! Nobody had ever explored these canyons up close before, so the team didn't really know what they would find. But people can't just swim that deep. The water is far too cold, far too dark, and it presses down far too hard. So the scientists sent a helper instead: an underwater robot! The robot was about the size of a small car, with bright lights, cameras, and grabby arms. It was connected to the ship by a long cable, and the scientists steered it from a control room, a bit like driving a remote-control car, only for science! Fun fact: this robot could dive more than four kilometers deep! Down, down, down it went. But wait until you see how dark it gets down there...

1:48Into the Deep

Let's dive along with the robot. Scientists split the ocean into zones, like the floors of a giant building. At the top is the sunlight zone. This is where sunlight shines in, and where you'll find most of the fish, dolphins, and seaweed you know. Below that is the twilight zone, starting about two hundred meters down. Here, the light fades to a gloomy blue, like the sky just after sunset. Plants can't grow here, because there isn't enough light. Keep going, and you reach the midnight zone, starting about one thousand meters down. It's pitch black there, all day and all night, forever! The water is icy cold, about as cold as the inside of your fridge. Our mystery animal was found in the twilight zone, about six hundred meters below the waves. That's about as deep as almost two Eiffel Towers stacked on top of each other! Wow-fact: most of the deep ocean has never been seen by humans at all. So who knows what's out there? Well, the scientists were about to find out. But wait until you see what floated into the robot's lights...

2:47A Glowing Discovery

Suddenly, the cameras spotted something strange. At first, it looked like a long, thin rope floating in the dark water. So the scientists followed it. And followed it. And kept on following it! The 'rope' was curled into a giant spiral, like a huge loop of ribbon twirling slowly in the deep. It shimmered and sparkled in the robot's lights, like a string of fairy lights hanging in the dark. The scientists on the ship could hardly believe their eyes. They were cheering and laughing and saying, 'Look at that!' It was a siphonophore. That's a tricky word, so let's say it together: sigh-FON-oh-for. Sigh-FON-oh-for! Great job! Siphonophores are wobbly, see-through ocean creatures, and they're cousins of jellyfish. Many of them are much smaller than you. But this one was enormous. Wow! So just how big was it? But wait until you hear how the scientists measured it...

3:36Measuring a Giant

Measuring a floppy animal in the dark ocean is not easy. You can't just pull out a tape measure and ask it to hold still! So the scientists used a clever trick. The robot shines two little beams of light that make two dots a known distance apart. Those dots work like a tiny ruler right on the screen. Using that ruler, the scientists worked out that just the outer ring of the spiral was about forty-seven meters long. That's about one hundred and fifty feet! And the whole animal, counting the parts curled up in the middle, might have been even longer. Now let's compare. A blue whale is about thirty meters long. Lay our siphonophore next to it, and it stretches way, way past the whale's tail! It's about as long as four school buses in a row, or more than one and a half basketball courts end to end! That could make it one of the longest animals ever found. Scientists say 'could' because measuring wobbly ocean animals is tricky, and good scientists always check carefully. But here's the really mind-blowing part: this giant isn't exactly one animal. Wait until you find out what it really is...

4:40A Team of Clones

Imagine a string of fairy lights. There's one long cord, with lots and lots of little bulbs all along it. A siphonophore is built a bit like that. The long cord is called the stem. And all along the stem are thousands of tiny bodies, and each one is called a zooid. Say it with me: ZOH-oid! Each zooid is a tiny creature. But they're all stuck together, and they can't live on their own. They share food, and they work together, like one big team. And here's the wildest part: all the zooids are clones. A clone is a copy. It all starts with one single tiny zooid. That zooid grows a copy of itself. Then another copy grows, and another, and another, budding out one after another, like new beads being added onto a necklace. Over time, the chain grows longer and longer, until there are thousands of copies all joined together, all sharing the exact same instructions inside them! Wow-fact: it's a bit like if you could make copies of yourself, and all of you held hands in a line that stretched across a whole park. But a team needs more than just copies. Wait until you see the different jobs each zooid does...

5:46Jobs on the Team

Even though the zooids are copies, they grow into different shapes to do different jobs. It's just like a soccer team. Everyone is on the same team, but some players defend, some pass, and some score goals. First, there are the swimmers. These zooids are shaped like little cups. They squeeze water out to push the whole chain forward, a bit like tiny jet engines! Next come the eaters. They have long, dangly tentacles that hang down like fishing lines to catch tiny floating snacks, like little shrimp-like critters drifting by. Then the eaters share the food with everyone else, passing it along the stem. How kind is that? There are also zooids whose job is making eggs, so that one day, new siphonophores can grow. And some zooids work like little protective shields, covering the others. Wow-fact: our giant siphonophore was probably made of many thousands of zooids, all working together without a single boss in charge! Nobody tells them what to do. They just know their jobs. But how does a team like this light up the dark? Wait until you see the deep sea's own light show...

6:51Living Fairy Lights

Remember how dark it is down there? Well, many deep-sea creatures have an amazing trick: they can make their own light! This is called bioluminescence. That's a big word that means living light. Let's try it: bye-oh-loo-min-ESS-ence! Many siphonophores can glow, often blue or green, flickering in the dark like tiny twinkling lights. Fireflies use the same kind of trick on land. Inside their bodies, special ingredients mix together and make light without getting hot at all. It's cool light, totally different from a hot light bulb! Scientists think deep-sea animals use their glow for all sorts of things: to find each other, to attract food, or even to say, 'Please stay away!' Wow-fact: about three out of every four animals living in the open deep ocean can make their own light. The deep sea might be the biggest light show on the whole planet! So when the robot's lights shone on our giant siphonophore, it shimmered like a glowing string of fairy lights in the darkness. And it's not the only amazing animal in its family. Wait until you meet its cousins...

7:50Meet the Cousins

Siphonophores belong to a big animal family that also includes jellyfish and corals. Yes, corals! Those colorful reefs are made of animals too, and many corals also live together in big groups, just like siphonophores. Jellyfish are some of the oldest animals around. Their family has been floating through the oceans for more than five hundred million years. That's long before the dinosaurs! And what about other super-long animals? There's a stretchy sea worm called the bootlace worm, and some people think it might grow incredibly long, maybe even longer than a blue whale! But it's so stretchy that it's really hard to measure. Scientists are still working out who truly holds the record. On that same trip, the scientists also found as many as thirty other creatures that might be brand new to science. Imagine discovering an animal nobody has ever named before! The deep ocean is full of surprises still waiting to be found. And who knows? Maybe one day, you'll be the one to find them. But first, let's look back at everything we discovered today...

8:52Recap and Challenge

What an adventure! Let's remember the coolest things we learned. Off the coast of Western Australia, scientists used an underwater robot to explore deep ocean canyons. There, in the twilight zone, they found a giant siphonophore about one hundred and fifty feet long. That's longer than a blue whale! We learned that a siphonophore is really a team of thousands of tiny clones called zooids. Some swim, some eat and share food, some make eggs, and some act as shields. And many siphonophores can glow with living light called bioluminescence, like fairy lights in the deep, dark sea. Now here's a fun challenge to try at home. Make your very own siphonophore! Grab some strips of paper and some tape, and make a paper chain. Then draw a job on each link: a swimmer, an eater, an egg maker, or a shield. See how long you can make your team. Can you make it longer than your hallway? And here's a cool fact to share with your family tonight: one of the longest animals ever found might actually be thousands of tiny clones holding on to each other! Keep exploring, keep wondering, and always stay curious. See you next time, ocean explorers!

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Series: science (English)