Watch this video to learn about some animals that live in the deep sea.
Video Transcript
These aren't Christmas lights. This isn't a mutant lobster. And this fearsome looking creature is not something you'd ever find at the end of your fishing hook. These are some of the rarely seen sea creatures found deep in the ocean in a world of total darkness. Using ultra sophisticated photographic and sampling techniques, scientists working for the Census of Marine Life have inventoried an astonishing diversity of life beyond the ocean's photic zone, the part of the ocean that's too deep for light to seep through.
The Census of Marine Life is a ten-year-long international research program aimed at cataloging the diversity and distribution of marine life. Over 2,000 scientists from 82 countries are participating in the effort. Five of the census's 14 field projects plumb the ocean depths beyond the photic zone. The results have been astonishing. Thus far, over 5,700 species have been identified, thriving in a world that has never known light.
They're a diverse assortment of creatures, exotic cousins to species that live closer to the ocean's surface, such as crabs, shrimp, worms, and jellyfish. They feed mostly on marine snow, fine particles of decaying plants and animals that drift to the bottom of the ocean. They're a hardy bunch, these deep sea dwellers. These fish call horns roughies can live to be 100 years old.
This fella is known as the wildcat tube worm because like the wildcatters of old Texas, it drills for oil. When it hits a gusher, it dines on chemicals found in the decomposing oil. Then there are the Dumbo Octopods, given that name because they flap a pair of large ear-like fins to swim, like Dumbo the cartoon elephant. At up to 5 feet long, they are among the largest of deep sea creatures, but not much is known about them.
The Dumbos are poorly known, so we are trying to figure out how many species there are to and how to tell them apart. For example, this Dumbo may be a species new to science.
The sea cucumber is a distant cousin of the starfish that uses 15 tentacles to sweep the ocean's detritus into its mouth. At the end of its meal, it changes shape and flies off to find another nutritious mud pack. By the time the Census of Marine Life wraps up its mission next fall, the five deep sea projects will have embarked on more than 200 expeditions.
The results of the census will be announced in London next October.