Bizarre Creatures From The Deep

I realize that our blog title sounds like a science fiction movie. I thought this morning I would share photos of a few wonderful deep sea critters.

Scientists from the Queensland Brain Institute have used high-tech cameras to photograph sea creatures at a depth of 4,600 feet at the Osprey Reef in the Coral Sea, northeast of the northern Australian city of Cairns. Above is a deliciously red Atolla jellyfish. Below you will see the viper fish!

The viperfish is considered one of the oddest-looking and most ferocious fish of the deep ocean. Its fangs are so large that they cannot fit inside its mouth, but instead curve back very close to the creature's eyes. The viperfish is thought to use its teeth to impale its victims by swimming at them at high speed.




The deep-sea anglerfish below is well-adapted for living in a dark world where the pressure is 140 times greater than on land. "Learning more about these creatures' primitive eyes and brain could help neuroscientists better understand human vision," research team leader Justin Marshall says. "We could also design better cameras and illumination systems because, as we've seen, nature often gets there first."

And I will end with this lovely.

The deep-sea hatchetfish gets its name from the shape of its body, which looks like an ax head. It may be a warlike name, but most hatchetfish are actually rather timid.