Honestly the thing that shocked me the most when I started researching the ocean is just how…. Frickin normal the deep sea is? Like sea urchins, starfish, lil worms, corals, shrimp… they all look the same down there.
Sure it’s deep, but once you get past all that water, it’s just. A floor. Like.
This is what 80% of the bottom of the ocean looks like. There’s almost no productivity in the middle of the ocean, which means there’s almost no energy reaching the sea floor in the middle of the ocean, either. There’s no giant monsters, because there’s straight-up no food for a giant monster. You have been tricked into fearing a perfectly normal environment. See that lil eel? It’s about 20 cm across. See the specks in the second image? Those are rocks and sea urchins and sea cucumbers.
If I didn’t tell you that these coral reefs were photographed from a mile below the surface, would you have known that? They live on underwater mountain ranges in the deep ocean, where water currents passing the mountainside bring enough food particles for them to eat!
This lil octopus from a hydrothermal vent (less than a foot in length) is just chillin. We all love a good hot spring right? Vents like these occur along tectonic fault lines, and some organisms that live there are able to create energy directly from the chemicals released from the ocean floor: the only known alternative to photosynthesis! This is how we know that life may be possible on other planets, even without sunlight.
This is a sponge! A glass sponge to be exact. It’s probably been sitting here filtering poop out of the water for decades.
But what about the stuff that looks REALLY scary like the anglerfish, viperfish, etc?
They live relatively shallow. Only about .1-.5 miles below the surface. And they’re tiny, typically less than a foot in length (Yes, even the anglerfish.) Your cat could do more damage. Because food is so scarce, they can’t use a lot of energy, so they usually just float there, waiting for bits of algae, small fish, or other dead stuff to float into their mouths (that’s why their mouths are so big, it’s a bigger target!).
And fish that are deeper? They can’t expend a lot of energy either, so they mostly just sit there and wait for food to come to them.
This is an anglerfish species from about a mile down. She hopes she strikes fear into the hearts of men.
The real issue with hating and fearing the deep-sea is that it is actively under threat from human activity, and no one really cares. And that’s just the way big oil, big tech, and big fisheries want it. This is a coral that’s been entangled with years worth of fishing gear off of Hawaii. I took this picture. I was there. The coral itself, based on size, was probably a few CENTURIES old.
The deep-sea is a frontier, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what’s down there. We actually know a lot! There are scientists who are retiring now who have spent their entire careers studying the deep sea. Take the time to learn about these environments, seriously! They’re not nearly as scary, and WAY more interesting, than you think! 🙂
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