to me it looks like those worthless things you light, it smokes up, and supposedly keeps mosquitoes away

Okay, here are a couple:
1) It's what happens when Plastic Man gets his nose caught in a fan.
2) It's a pig snout vacuum cleaner attachment--to get those hard to reach places on the sea floor.

What a *great* bunch of responses, folks!

I think its an aquatic form of goa'uld. Better off left down there. ;)

My personal guess -- a kielbasa fell overboard from a passing Polish freighter and sank to the bottom.

Obviously it is an evolutionary ancestor to the @ sign.

It's just as well they didn't bring it to the surface; the difference in water/air pressure would have killed it immediately.
Jimmy, have you seen the ``Blue Planet - Oceans of Life'' series from the BBC? They're fantastic looks at undersea life , and available on DVD. One is called ``The Deep'' and has plenty of information about new discoveries - animal and vegetable - made several thousand feet below.