Currently, Ohana et al. are in Australia's "Eastern Abyss" region, examining deep-sea animals there. They set out in mid-May and have discovered many strange creatures so far. Ohana believes that about a third of them are new species.
The expedition roughly followed parallel lines off the coast of Australia, diveping regularly into the sea and spotting a variety of animals. Merrick Ekins, a team member from the Queensland Museum, said: "Of the animals we caught, it was mainly thousands of sea snake tails (aka yangsui foot) and starfish, a 'tintin' (trolling gill phylum) and a lot of sea cucumbers. There are also hundreds of the same anemones, which, if soaked in ethanol, look like a barrel of toilet paper. ”
Deep-sea animals tend to appear oddly shaped, unlike most animals we often see in the ocean. Fish and crustaceans living near the surface of the sea are relatively young species in evolutionary history, while deep-sea animals are much older. Most animals that live below a depth of 4,000 meters (this is the definition of deep sea areas) have ancestors much earlier in evolutionary history. They look like prehistoric animals because they were meant to be.
Let's take a look at these strange deep-sea animals.
<h1>Faceless fish, also known as dipterocarp</h1>
The "faceless fish", also known as the "double-buttocked fish", is a representative of strange creatures in the deep sea. It seems that every time we explore the deep sea, we can discover new exotic species. Scientist Tim O'Hara said: "This fish looks like it has two hips. ”
<h1>sea spider</h1>
It's a sea spider. Please, it's just a bunch of pipes spliced together, right? That's right. Sea spiders breathe through the surface of their shells, but their breathing is only passively exchanging gases. They digest food within individual cells and do not have specialized digestive organs. They promote blood circulation through the movement of the legs, which is done using single-celled muscles. Sea spiders are hardly animals, and their life forms are too primitive, but we still count them as animals because they have been around for 425 million years, making them one of the oldest arthropods in existence.
If you prefer worms to spiders, that's okay! The worms are coming.
<h1>Opheliid worm</h1>
The polycatrian is the big cousin of earthworms and leeches, oh no, it should be the cousin ancestor. It's just that they look more cute.
<h1>Syllid worm</h1>
This animal takes a budding and reproduction method, like growing a granulation bud on your neck, and then it slowly grows into your child. Isn't that cool?
<h1>Polynoid worm</h1>
This little thing may look harmless to humans and animals, but those thorns are actually very sharp. It can also catapult its mouth out to attack prey... Reminiscent of the movie "Alien".
<h1>Carnivorous sponges</h1>
These may look like worms, but are actually sponges, carnivorous sponges. They use the spiny hairs on their bodies to catch prey and then digest them slowly through their cells. Their prey is basically single-celled, but that doesn't make people feel more comfortable.
<h1>Coffin fish</h1>
Now something even cuter: the cute coffin fish. Its body swelled up because it was protecting itself. The coffin fish uses water to inflate its body so that it is more difficult for predators to swallow. Very good survival strategy. But when the coffin fish goes down, it's less cute (below).
<h1>The coffin fish that fell down</h1>
The face seems to make up most of the body, and what's even weirder is that it uses its fins to "walk" on the ocean floor. But most of the time, it just waits for its prey to approach, much like its relative, the Wellcome Fish.
<h1>Arowana</h1>
Arowana also belongs to the less cute animals. This is already the most "kind" photo of the arowana. There are tiny dots of light on the Arowana that mimic the starlight in the sky. Deep-sea animals that float to the surface of the sea at night to eat will mistake these points of light for starlight, so they swim towards the dragon fish and throw themselves into the net. The red Arowana in the photo has a smarter predation strategy: it illuminates its surroundings with a red light. Why red? Because the red wavelengths of sunlight cannot reach the deep sea, most deep-sea animals do not have the ability to see red light, and they cannot see the red arowana approaching.
<h1>Tripod fish</h1>
The tripod fish could not see the Arowana approaching anyway, because it was blind. But it doesn't need to be seen with the eyes, because it's sitting and waiting for the prey to come to the door. It is called a tripod fish because it has long spines that are used to support the body on the ocean floor. It stood still, its mouth wide open, hoping that tiny creatures would automatically enter its mouth along the current.
<h1>Neolithodes-cf-bronwynae rock crab</h1>
To avoid focusing too much on fish, let's introduce a crustacean that looks scary. This rock crab and its fellow crustaceans may not live in the deep sea. Some are captured in shallower waters, but many are deep-sea animals. They live in deep seas and are very far from the continental shelf, so they don't look like the crabs in a fresh supermarket.
<h1>Munidopsis antonii armor shrimp</h1>
This white armored shrimp is like a regular lobster that has its back cut off and painted white. Like most deep-sea animals, it looks very joyful, but somehow vaguely disturbing.
Translation: Yu Bo
Source: Popsci
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