Far below the ocean’s surface, in the dark depths of the deep seafloor ecosystem (about 3,000 feet or 1,000 meters deep), exists an entire world of deep sea creatures that people rarely get a glimpse of.
It is one of the largest ecosystems in the world, but is still relatively unexplored. Here are some of the deep-sea animals we do know about.
1. Pelican eel
The pelican eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides) is a type of swallow eel that uses its large, pelican-like mouth to swallow its prey. Like other members of the Eurypharyngidae family, the pelican eel’s mouth can be even longer than its tapered body, which can expand to fit the prey it swallows whole.
Pelican eels live in the mesopelagic zone (also known as the middle pelagic or twilight zone), at a depth of about 2,700 meters, along with other terrifying-looking deep-sea creatures such as the vampire squid.
2. Toothfish
The common canine (Anoplogaster cornuta) is a rarely spotted deep-sea fish that the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) calls “almost as elusive as it is amazing.”
It owes its name to the two long teeth protruding from the upper jaw. According to the Smithsonian Institution, the canine’s teeth are the largest of any marine animal, compared to its body size of about 7 inches.
The canine fish hunts small crustaceans, cephalopods and other deep-sea fish by opening its mouth and sucking it in, like a deep-sea vacuum. “They seem to eat anything that fits in their mouths,” Tracey Sutton, a professor at the Guy Harvey Oceanographic Center at Nova Southeastern University in Florida, told Newsweek.
Fangtooth fish live primarily in the mesopelagic (dusk) and bathypelagic (midnight) zones at depths of 1,650 to 7,000 feet (500 to 2,100 meters), but have been spotted as deep as 16,000 feet (nearly 5,000 meters).
3. Japanese spider crab
With a leg span of 4 meters, the Japanese spider crab (Macrocheira kaempferi) is the largest crab in the world. It lives in the mesopelagic (twilight) zone of the Pacific Ocean at depths of 200 to 550 meters.
The Japanese spider crab has 10 legs, eight of which it uses for walking; the other two legs have claws and are intended for pinching. He spends his days walking along the seabed, looking for dead animals and plants.
4. Sea cucumber
Some deep-sea creatures are rarely seen by humans because they stay close to the ocean floor. However, sea cucumbers (class Holothuroidea) can survive in both shallow waters and the deep ocean. They use their tube feet to eat small pieces of algae and decaying organisms on the seafloor or plankton closer to the surface.
The smallest species of sea cucumber — there are more than 1,200 of them — is about 1 inch long, while the largest can grow up to 6 feet long, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
5. Frill shark
Although it belongs to the same class (Chondrichthyes), the 2-meter-long frilled shark (Chlamydoselachus anguineus) looks more like an eel than a great white shark. “The head on it looked like something out of a horror movie,” fisherman David Guillot, who accidentally caught a frilled shark in 2015, told 3AW radio (via NPR).
This 80 million year old deep-sea inhabitant extends from the pelagic to the benthic zones, with an upper limit of 50 meters below sea level and a lower limit of about 1500 meters deep.
According to the Shark Research Institute, it can swim with its mouth open and use its “strikingly white teeth” to attract prey before swallowing them whole.
6. Giant Woodlouse
The giant woodlouse (Bathynoma) is a deep-sea crustacean related to roly-polys and pill bugs. Although the “giant” isopod ranges in size from 3 to 20 inches (8 to 51 centimeters) in length, it is dwarfed by most marine isopods, which are typically about 2 inches (5 centimeters) or smaller.
The giant woodlouse is a good example of deep-sea gigantism, a phenomenon that also occurs in other deep-sea creatures such as the giant squid and the Japanese spider crab. It lives from 152 to 2133 meters deep, from the lower epipalegia (sunlight) to the upper bathypalegia (midnight) zones.
“As far as we know, they are primarily scavengers,” Ruth Carmichael, senior marine scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab and professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of South Alabama, told HowStuffWorks. “They play an important role in recycling nutrients and elements” by digesting pieces of rotting fish, crustaceans and sea sponges on the seabed.
7. Giant sea spider
Just like a daddy longlegs, the giant sea spider (Colossi) has long, delicate legs protruding from a smaller body. Unlike a daddy longleg, the giant sea spider prefers to live at the bottom of the ocean rather than in the corners of your ceiling.
Some species of sea spiders are small – the smallest have legs just a millimeter long – but the giant sea spider, which lives at depths of 2,200 to 4,000 meters, can grow up to 51 centimeters in length. , according to MBARI.
8. Sea pig
Sea pigs (Scoto planes) are some of the stranger-looking deep-sea animals. They are not related to pigs – the name comes from their pink-transparent body and stubby tube legs – but are instead a type of sea cucumber. Their other similarity to pigs is that they eat almost anything.
According to MBARI, they reach lengths of up to 17 cm (6.5 in) and live at depths of 3,300 to 19,500 feet (1,000 to 6,000 meters) on the seafloor of abyssal plains and eat decomposing organic matter.
9. Deep sea anglerfish
Anglerfish (sometimes spelled ‘anglerfish’) refers to about 200 deep-sea fish species found at varying depths (up to 16,400 feet or 5,000 meters) and in many sizes, from the size of a fist to 1.2 meters (4 feet) long.
“New ones [species] are still coming,” Ted Pietsch, professor at the University of Washington’s School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences and author of “Oceanic Anglerfishes: Extraordinary Diversity in the Deep Sea,” told How Stuff Works. “They live so deep that we don’t really have a good idea of how big they actually get. We send nets down to collect them, and the deeper we go, the bigger the specimens come up.”
Anglerfish are known to create their own light (a bioluminescent lure at the end of a dorsal appendage) to attract prey. But it is only the females of the species that hunt. Females are much larger than males – up to 60 times larger – and provide their male partners with nutrients.
10. Sea Angels
The Monterey Bay Aquarium calls the angelfish “a type of swimming snail.”
Instead of the ‘foot’ found beneath the shell of a common land snail, the angelfish (clade Gymnosomata) has two ‘wings’ that it uses to propel itself through the ocean. They also lack a shell, leaving their transparent bodies visible – hence the name Gymnosomata, or ‘naked body’.
Sea angels prey on other swimming snails, such as sea butterflies, and use a tentacle-like appendage to scoop the meat from the shell. Despite their predatory habits, angelfish are small: only 1 to 2 inches long. They can be found from the surface to a depth of 600 meters.
Original article: 10 deep-sea creatures that are (almost) too bizarre to be true
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