Little beings living in darkness and depth,
They are so beautiful that people really sweat and get addicted.
Our deep-sea phobias are on the verge of being committed!
Dive into the deep sea,
It's like walking into a particularly deep cave.
I really don't dare to go any further,
But with every step forward,
The magnificence we see in front of us makes it hard for us to look back.
These creatures that look very "unknown",
It has fascinated you and me deeply by this dark seabed.
Oceans, which make up 95 percent of Earth's living space, are largely untapped. Although humanity's desire to explore the deepest seabed is as strong as climbing to the top of the world, curiosity alone cannot reach the depths of the ocean.
Every 10 meters of depth increase is equivalent to an increase in atmospheric pressure, so when it reaches the seabed of more than 10,000 meters in the Mariana Trench, it also increases the pressure by more than 1,000 atmospheres, which is equivalent to placing a ton object on an area of only 1 square centimeter; if a 100-pound iron ball accidentally sinks to the bottom of the trench, it will be squeezed and deformed.
The deep sea is the largest and most mysterious habitat on our planet. There are many strange creatures in the ocean that we have never seen before, and they live all year round in the deep sea where there is no sunlight.
Dumbo octopus: A strange animal found more than 1 mile (about 1600 meters) under the sea, about 20 centimeters long, very cute, but extremely fierce. It has two pairs of super-huge "ears" and is named for its resemblance to Dumbo in Disney cartoons.
Deep-sea animals - refers to animals that inhabit the outer edge of the continental shelf to the depths of the ocean below 200 meters, that is, deep-sea waters and deep seabeds. Animals with rare forms that are produced slightly deeper on the continental shelf are also called deep-sea animals. Because competition in the deep sea is not as fierce as in the shore or shallow sea, many primitive taxa have survived to this day.
Photo by DANTE FENOLIO
Dumbo octopus is also known as the flapjack octopus. There is a membrane between the tentacles of this deep-sea cephalopod, and those cute earmuffs are actually their fins.
Creatures that can survive in such a dark, icy environment really don't look like our "native earthlings."
This may also be because the deep sea is the closest place to outer space that can be reached without leaving the earth. It is completely different from what we live on land, and it is, so to speak, a completely different universe.
Photo by Ryo Minemizu
A juvenile-like diamond-finned squid sticks out its antennae along the mantle membrane in a unique pose.
The deepest known trench on Earth, the Mariana Trench, is located on the western seabed of the North Pacific Ocean, with a total length of 2,550 kilometers, an arc, an average width of 70 kilometers, and most of the water depths of more than 8,000 meters. At the same time, the trench is also a subduction zone of two plate spokes, where the Pacific Plate subducts below the Philippine Plate.
A beautiful starworm larvae floats in the water, and the adult starworms are slender and strange-looking.
The deepest part of the Mariana Trench, the "Challenger Abyss", is 11,034 meters deep and is the deepest point on Earth. The world's highest peak, Mount Everest, is 8,844 meters high, and if Mount Everest is placed at the bottom of the trench of the Challenger Abyss, the summit will not be able to emerge from the water, and it will sink below 2,000 meters above sea level.
The juvenile form of a half-mouthed magnificent jellyfish.
In the 19th century, the scientific community believed that only the upper ocean had living things, about 200 meters below because there was no light, there were no plants, and below 600 meters there were no animals, called "animal-free belts". Later, when the transatlantic cable was pulled up for repair, it was found that the cable that sank to a depth of several kilometers was actually "overgrown" with creatures. The deep-sea "no animal belt" argument is self-defeating.
Now we know that even in the deepest trench of more than 10,000 meters, animals still live at large.
A crystal nine-horn jellyfish in the stage of sexual reproduction, the crystal nine-horn jellyfish is a swimming clock.
A long-armed octopus larvae.
After the sea water is more than 200 meters deep, almost all the light is absorbed by the sea water. Although the boundlessly dark deep-sea environment is harsh, the variety of organisms is very rich. Even, in the sea waters of deep-sea craters of more than 400 degrees Celsius, there are still biomes.
A larvae of a sea anemone.
Enter the ocean and you'll be surrounded by thousands of tiny species of marine life: fish, octopuses, sea urchins, and crustacean juveniles. They have all just been born and are still maturing.
In addition to plants and other organisms, these miniature organisms form the basis of the marine food chain, providing a steady stream of food for other life.
A larval of a spiny tailfish.
A gastropod larvae, moving through a ciliated stretch membrane.
The deep sea is a dark world, barely reaching out of five fingers, so how can these vivid images of deep-sea animals be captured?
Japanese underwater photographer Ryo Minemizu, who specializes in science
At sunset, when the tide recedes off the coast of Japan, photographer Ryo Minemizu and team members erect a tripod on the seabed near the fish breeding area and then install 30 colored LED lights.
Next, for hours, he waits for the lights to attract beautiful plankton, and then shoots with macro or wide-angle lenses, depending on their size.
The average length of these larvae is 1-4 cm, and some are even only 2 mm. That said, the pictures of these zooplankton that we see have been magnified many times over.
A larvae of a fox clam.
By individual size, plankton can be divided into six categories:
Giant: larger than 1 cm, such as jellyfish;
Large: 5 to 10 mm, such as large copepods, krill;
Medium size: 1 to 5 mm, such as small jellyfish, copepods;
Small: 50 microns to 1 mm, such as diatoms, cyanobacteria;
Miniature: 5 to 50 microns, such as dinoflagellates, golden algae;
Ultramininture: Less than 5 microns, such as bacteria.
A young reef fish long perch , with a longer tail than its body to accommodate buoyancy , facilitates its movement with ocean currents.
Plankton itself has no ability to move at all, or is very weak, and passively floats in the water layer under the action of seawater movement. Zooplankton that have been drifting throughout their lives are usually small, exist in the microscopic world, and can only be observed with the help of a microscope or dissecting mirror.
A female deep-sea patch-legged animal prepares to lay eggs.
Zooplankton play a key role in maintaining the health and balance of the oceans and their complex food webs. They are food for fish and also break down and consume dead plants and animals in seawater.
A flying fish larvae.
Tiny marine animals, though fragile, can find ways to protect themselves from predators, such as becoming transparent and developing flag-like fins to act as protective "armor."
Their strong desire to survive supports them to adapt to such a difficult living environment.
Live in hand, you can grow up healthily without sunlight!
For example, the firefly squid will use its glowing organs to emit a glow, which can both avoid predators and attract the opposite sex.
Firefly squids emit light with special cells such as light-emitting organs, both to blend in with their surroundings and to attract the opposite sex. In Japan, firefly squid is a popular food, but it cannot be eaten raw because they carry pathogenic parasites.
In addition, the bottle sea squirts, which usually live in cold seas and have the most in the South Pacific, feed on phytoplankton (seaweed, etc.) in the water, and complete their movement in the water by inhaling and spewing out seawater. They are barrel-shaped and almost completely transparent, between 1 cm and 10 cm long, and float in individual or group camps. Transparency in the water is a good camouflage, and their transparent form protects themselves from predators.
There are actually many creatures hidden in this picture: a translucent sea squirt with a hollowed out body, and an alien-like creature laying eggs in the body of the bottle sea squirt. The name of this type A creature is Shen (Worm Rong) (scientific name Phronima), which is said to be named after the movie Alien.
Even relatively shallow rivers and lakes can be muddy by the churning of sediment in the water, making it impenetrable to sunlight. This means that although those creatures are only a few meters below the surface of the water, they also seem to live on the bottom of the sea.
Creatures like the Texan hawk can hunt by sensing subtle changes in water pressure. This amphibian requires little light, so their eyes are completely covered by skin.
Underground water salamanders are also very adapted to life in the dark, and their skin has completely covered their eyes. Above are two distinct species: the Texas hawkfish (bottom) and the Georgian hawkfish (top).
The eels, which live in tropical and subtropical oceans around the world (range 0-2,000 m), are worthy of their name and look like a combination of birds and eels. The eel's mouth resembles the sandpiper's beak (a wading bird) and its upper and lower jaws are slender and curved outward. Those backwards teeth can help them catch and devour crustaceans such as prawns and cherry blossom shrimp.
The tiny cockatoo squid is a translucent invertebrate that changes shape according to momentary conditions. When threatened, they pull their heads and antennae back into the soft membrane and swell up like balloons.
Also known as the spoonfish, it's not surprising that the anglerfish is a spooky sea devilfish. This colorless, opaque fish attracts prey with bioluminescence. By the time the victim discovers the trap, it's too late!
The above picture is translucent and slightly cute,
it's a spoonbilly puppy,
You think it's cute and sucks!
But when you see this grown-up angler fish below,
Believe you have nothing else to ask for.
摄影：NORBERT WU，MINDEN PICTURES / NAT GEO IMAGE COLLECTION
National Geographic Chinese edition
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