Beneath the deepest and coldest depths of the ocean, there life flourishes just like other ecosystem you encounter on the Earth. In this extreme environmental condition, in which its pressure could shatter a human skull, it appears to be an ideal survival surrounding to a wider variety of bizarre and odd species than the tropical rainforest that humans use to discover each year. These marine animals that inhibit at such extreme depths may appear bizarre and horrifying to human sensibilities, but it is the natural adaptation to perfectly match them with an icy, crushing void of the deep sea.

Coffinfish

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The coffinfish is a deep sea dwelling fish that lives in deep waters in Southwest Pacific around Tasmania and Australia. Its scientific name is B.melanostomus whose word of “melanostomus” originated from the Greek “melanos” meaning black and “stoma” meaning mouth. Its flabby body and long tail are both covered with small scary spines. Besides of this external feature, it also has a black mouth lining and an illicium on its snout that can be lowered into a groove. Its body length can grow to at least 10cm.

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The species of C. melanostomus has been trawled in the Central to Eastern Indian Ocean at depths ranging from 1320m to 1760m. Interestingly, this coffinfish can flat itself like a puffer fish but also has a small lure on its head which looks like an angler fish.

Giant Isopod

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The giant isopod is a carnivorous crustacean that spends most of its time scavenging the deep ocean floor. Bathynomus giganteus is the largest known member of the isopod family (crustaceans related to the shrimp and crabs). As food is extremely scarce at the deep ocean biome, the isopod adapted itself by eating any foods that fall to the ocean floor from above besides feeding on small invertebrates (including algae, worms, sea stars, sea urchins, and anything dead and decaying creatures of the deep) that inhibit at the deep cold sea benthic environment of the Atlantic. However, it can survive to long periods of famine and have been reported to survive over 8 foods without food in the aquarium.

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The giant isopod can survive at a depth of 170m to the pitch darkness of the bathypelagic zone at 2,140m, a place where pressure is extremely high but temperature is extremely low (lower to about 4 degree Celsius). Its species are mostly found at a depth of 365m and 730m.

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The adult of giant isopod can grow to a length between 19 and 37cm and weight to a maximum of 1.7kg. Its large eyes are compound with approximately 4,000 facets, sessile and spaces far apart on its head coupling with its two pairs of antennae. Its life span can be in between 5 to 8 years.

This giant isopod is one of the gigantic creatures dwelling at the depths. Being a roly-poly bug in the ocean, it is considered as a bug-sized – a centimetre or so long. However, in the deep sea it has become a MONSTER. Watch the youtube video and see its action in this deep-sea feeding frenzy.

Umbrella mouth gulper eel

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Umbrella mouth gulper eel (eurypharynx pelecanoides) or pelican eel is a deep-sea fish which resembles an eel. It is found in all temperate, tropical and subtropical oceans particularly from the Atlantic to the eastern and central Pacific Oceans at depths ranging from 900 to 8,000m (3,000 to 27,000ft). It has a notable feature of having an enormous mouth, which appears to be larger than its body.

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While swallowing its prey, it opens its wide mouth. It is said that its mouth can be opened to pelican-like proportion to enable it to feed on preys that are much larger than its size. Another striking feature of this creature is that it can stretch and expand its stomach to accommodate large quantity of foods that it fed on. While swimming, it uses its relatively long, whip-like tail to move around the sea, and the end part of its tail will emit light to attract prey. It feeds primarily on shrimp, plankton and small fish. It can grow up to about 0.61 or 1m in length.

Viperfish

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The viperfish (chauliodus sloani) is one of the most ferocious and unusual-looking deep-sea creature found in tropical and temperate waters world-wide at depths of up to 2,800m (9,000ft). It is usually dark silvery blue, but its color can be varied from green to silver or black. It grows to over 30m.

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Viperfish is characterized by its bulldog-like large mouth, long fang-like teeth and long first dorsal fin that has luminescent organ called photophores, believing to attract its prey by flashing the light on and off via process known as bioluminescence. Several luminescent spots can be found running from its throat to tail, and several such spots on each side of its head.

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Viperfish spends long time at depths from 500m to 2,500m during the day, but at night it migrates to shallower waters at depths of less than 600m (2,000ft) to search for food before returning to the darkness below. It feeds mainly on small fish and crustaceans. Despite of its relatively low basal metabolic rate, it can go without food for days. This is its unique adaptation as a result of the scarce nature of food in the deep sea.

Fangtooth

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A Fangtooth (anoplogaster cornuta) or known as an ogre fish dwells in tropical and cold-temperate marine water worldwide particularly the waters off the coast of Australia, Pacific and Atlantic Ocean. The species is black to dark brown.

A Fangtooth is an abyssal hunter with tough and armored-like skin with four long and straight teeth that look like iron nails. These teeth are so long that when its jaw is closed, the lower pair must slide into special sheathes on either side of its fish’s brain to avoid impaling it.

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Although its appearance may look like a monster, it is actually a deep-sea, ferocious-looking small fish which can grow up to a maximum length of 17m. It has a large head and mouth with a relatively short deep body. Its head contains several mucous cavities separated by serrated ridges. Its body is decorated with small and prickly scales, with its eyes set high on its head along with its extremely long pointed teeth. Also, it has small, simple and spineless fins; its scales are embedded within the skin to take the form of thin plates. It is one of the deepest living organisms yet discovered to be robust enough to stay at great depths of 5,000 m (16,000ft) that has an intense pressure in which the water temperature is near to a freezing state. But, it is commonly seen between 200 to 2,000m (600 to 6,500ft).

Hatchet fish

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A hatchet fish has an obvious hatchet-like shape of body and hence it gets its name. It is a deep-sea fish that varies in size from one to six inches. It is recognized by its extremely thin body, resembling the blade of a hatchet. Of its entire species, Argyropelecus gigas is found to be the largest species, which can grow as long as 12m in length. Small hatchet fish species are covered in delicate silvery scales which abrade easily.

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Most hatchet fish have tabular and large eyes that pointing upward to enable them to search for food falling from the above besides helping them to combat predators. At the great depths, their eyes are sensitive to light. They have an ability to create their own light as these fish are adapted with special light-producing organs known as photophores that run along the length of their body particularly on their lower flanks and bellies. Many researchers believe that their life span is short, and thus they live no longer than a year. They migrate to shallower waters throughout the night to feed on plankton and tiny fish but by the day break, they return to the blackness of the deep ocean. Hatchet fish are found in most temperate waters at depths ranging from 180m (600ft) to 1,370m (4,500ft). The species also distribute evenly in tropical and subtropical waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans at depths of 200 to 6,000m.

Dragon fish

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This deep sea dragon fish, or Grammatostomias flagellibarba, is neither fantastic nor attractive fish. Its name simply means “lined stomiatid with a whip-barbel.” Despite of its small size, this ferocious predator inhibits in deep ocean waters at depths of up to 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) in most tropical regions around the world. Its length can grow to 6 inches but its whip-like chin barbel can be up to 6 feet in length.

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The dragon fish has a long barbel attached to its chin which is tipped with a light-producing organ known as a photophore. This organ is used as a fishing lure, flashing it on and off and waving it back and forth like a fishing pole. When the suspected enemies get approaching, it will be snapped up in the dragon fish’s powerful jaws.

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During mating, the dragon fish uses its photophores lining along the sides of its body to signal other dragon fish. As if such an absurd appendage is not enough to impress enemies and friends alike, this fanged freak sea monster from the deep, can light up as though a nature’s stab at a spaceship with its double row of luminously blue-violet organs running down its flanks.

Angler fish

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This grotesque-looking deep sea angler, also known as Melanocetus johnsoni inhibits in an extreme depths of over 3,000 feet of the ocean throughout the world. It looks like it could swallow one prey with its basketball-like round body. Its mouth is relatively large, decorating with sharp and fang-like teeth and hence it has earned an “honorable name” as “common black devil”. Its ferociously fanged jaws, undoubtedly, has also earned the description of “one of the most horrifying of sea monsters,” in the fishery record. In contrary to its ferocious appearance, this sea alien only reaches to a maximum length of approximately 5 inches, a size which is not a baby’s fist.

The angler fish also obtains its name for the long, modified dorsal spine which is tipped with a light producing organ called photophore. Like many other marine animals from the deep, the angler uses this organ as a fishing lure to attract its prey. It will flash it on and off and waving it back and forth like a fishing pole. While the prey fish gets closer, the angler snaps it up with its powerful jaws.

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“No, it can’t be,” might be your first reaction, when you learn that the male of angler fish is smaller than the female. In general, female angler is a large and bloated predator that lures prey directly into her jaws with a luminous “fishing pole”. The male is only about the size of a finger, eyeless creature with highly developed nostrils and has small hook teeth which are used to attach itself to the female. Once he has sniffed out a female, he locks his jaws onto her flesh and begins to drink her blood. His blood vessels will join with that of the female and later it will spend the rest of his time joining to her like a parasite, losing most of his non-reproductive organs as his skin and circulatory system merges with those of his mate. By deriving all his nourishment from her body, he sustains his life. The male will die of starvation if he is unable to attach to a female. Some female anglers will carry several parasitic husbands at a time, and thus this deep-ocean angler is one of nature’s most extreme examples of sexual dimorphism (physical difference between genders).

Long-nosed chimaeras

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Long-nosed chimaeras, Harriotta raleighana is a rare, deepwater cartilaginous fish of temperate and tropical sea, inhibiting to depths of 2,000m. It is related to the sharks and rays, and it is sometimes called ratfish, rabbitfish, or in South Africa, it is known as ghost shark. It has a tapering body, smooth orange-brown, black or brownish gray skin and lack of scales, and long tread-like tail. Its snout is elongated into cylindrical or flattened point, and it is larger than other chimaeras. Its stiletto-like nose has always reminded us as “the nose contour of a supersonic jet aircraft.”

Vampire squid

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The vampire squid, scientifically known as Vampyroteuthis infernalis, is a deep sea marine animal of tropical and temperate sea throughout the world, inhibiting at the depths over 3,000 feet. It is an extreme example of a deep-sea cephalopod that could reside at the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) in which the oxygen content is too low to support any aerobic metabolism in most higher level organisms. In the oxygen saturation of less than 3%, the Vampire squid is found to be able to breathe as usual.

The largest eyes of any animal that it owns, has earned vampire squid a name of “vampire squid from hell”. Despite of its name, it is a small animal, growing to a length of about 6 inches, but it has globular eyeballs the size of a large dog’s. Such attractive orb, coupling with its large-ears resembled gelatinous fins and its ability to turn on and off at will, it is considered as an extraordinary creature from the deep. When its photophores (tiny lights all over its body) are turned off, it is a completely invisible creature in the dark oceans where it resides. The constellation of photophores helps this dark-bodied beast searching prey at the lightless depths more than 3,000 feet down the ocean.

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As like other squid and octopi squeeze black ink, the Vampire squid does not have ink sack. Its arms are covered with sharp tooth-like spikes, with one pair of its arms being adapted into retractile filaments that can be extended to twice the body length of the animal, in which it uses these arms to catch its prey. It will form a defensive web that envelopes its body by drawing its arms up over itself when danger approaches. It can swim very fast with a speed of 2 body lengths per second, which the animal can maintain for short distances. When threatened, the vampire squid moves its fins toward the funnel and emits a jet of water from the mantle. A defensive posture has been described as a “pineapple posture” when the arms and web are spread over the head and mantle. This position protects the head and mantle and the animal is further camouflaged by its dark body. The vampire squid will also flail its arms to confuse predators by making it difficult to determine the squid’s exact location.

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