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What Kind of Animals Live in the Deep Sea

What Kind of Animals Live in the Deep Sea

xvi creatures from the bottom of the sea that volition give you nightmares

The Atlantic wolffish.

The Atlantic wolffish.
myLoupe/Universal Images Grouping via Getty Images
  • Earth's sea creatures have adjusted strange appearances to help them thrive in extreme environments.
  • An underwater robot helped give u.s.a. a glimpse at some of these listen-boggling animals.
  • To celebrate World Oceans Day on June viii, hither's the most unusual sea creatures to be discovered.
  • Visit Insider'southward homepage for more stories.

The frilled shark is a "living fossil" — a species that has retained some of the features of its primitive ancestors.

A frilled shark institute by a Japanese fisherman in 2007.
Awashima Marine Park/Getty Images

With its grisly advent, the frilled shark is an example of a "living fossil," an extant fauna whose appearance has not evolved much through the millennia. The term can also use to creatures that have few or no close surviving relatives.

What's well-nigh unusual about this prehistoric-looking predator, which is endemic to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is the way information technology reproduces. In other mammal species, embryos are nourished via a placenta. However, frilled shark embryos obtain energy from yolk sacs and mothers merely give nascence once their offspring are capable of surviving on their ain.

Growing upto seven anxiety long, frilled sharks primarily prey on squid. They've as well been known to feed on fish — and even other sharks.

Hagfish are known for their repulsive feeding habits: Lacking jaws, they consume the decomposable carcasses of other sea creatures by burrowing into them with tooth-like structures.

Hagfish feed on the decaying carcasses of other sea creatures.
Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange Canton Register via Getty Images

At that place are estimated to be 76 species of hagfish — and some alive as deep equally 5,500 anxiety below the water'south surface. They are also known as slime eels because of the goop their bodies produce to ward off predators.

Scientists estimate that there are 76 species of hagfish, which can grow to be betwixt 16 and xl inches long. Some live every bit deep as v,600 anxiety beneath the h2o's surface.

The Atlantic wolffish is a predatory species characterized by a rima oris full of precipitous, canine-like teeth.

The Atlantic wolffish.
myLoupe/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

A predatory species that feeds on hard-bodied or spiny invertebrates like body of water urchins and large marine snails, this creature is not aggressive towards humans unless provoked.

You'll find the Atlantic wolffish, which tin abound up to 5 feet long, in the Due north Atlantic and Chill Oceans. Preferring chillier water, it lives at depths ranging from 328 feet to one,640 anxiety.

With its lengthy, eel-like torso, this fish is besides known equally a wolf eel.

The goblin shark has 50 teeth in its mouth.

Goblin Shark caught in NSW Australia.
Fairfax Media via Getty Images

You tin place goblin sharks — a rare, bottom-dwelling species — past the shape of their snouts, which are elongated and flattened.

With 50 teeth in their mouths, these gruesome creatures control attention.

Interestingly, female goblin sharks are larger in adulthood than the males of the species. Females tin exist a maximum of 11 inches long, while males abound to be an average length of eight.66 inches.

The Japanese spider crab can weigh upward to 44 pounds.

This crab is plant in the Pacific Ocean at depths of 160 to 2,000 feet.
Sandy Huffaker/Corbis via Getty Images

Native to the Pacific Sea, the Japanese spider crab grows up to 15 inches wide and weighs up to 44 pounds. It's one of the largest known arthropods, a group of invertebrate animals that also includes lobsters, spiders, and insects.

The vampire squid'south scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, means "vampire squid from hell."

A red vampire squid.
2004 MBARI

In Latin, the name of this cephalopod — which is neither a squid nor an octopus — is even more sinister. Its scientific name, Vampyroteuthis infernalis,means "vampire squid from hell."

Only the vampire squid, found in the inky depths of the mesopelagic zone (nearly iii,300 anxiety beneath the sea's surface), is gentler than its appellation indicates. Unlike its namesake, it doesn't feed on blood. Instead, this creature subsists on"marine snowfall," decaying organic material that falls to the ocean floor — kind of similar the dead leaves that litter forests.

The anglerfish is most famous for the bioluminescent growth on its head, which lures casualty to its decease.

There are more than than 200 species of anglerfish.
Matt Cardy/Getty Images

The anglerfish, possibly one of the world's ugliest creatures, is well-nigh famous for the bioluminescent growth on its head, which lures casualty to its death at the the lightless lesser of the ocean.

Withal, there aremore than 200 species of anglerfish, divided into four groups: goosefish, batfish, frogfish, and deep-sea angler. Simply females possess the iconic, bioluminescent angling apparatus. Well-nigh live at the lesser of the Atlantic and Antarctic Oceans, sometimes as far as a mile below the surface.

Due to their long, tapered bodies, grenadiers are better known as "rattails."

A grenadier aka rattail.
2002 MBARI

At that place are about 300 species of grenadiers, a big-headed fish found in warm and temperate waters.

Due to their long, tapered bodies, these rodent-like creatures are better known as "rat-tails."

This ghoulish-looking creature is aptly named ghost shark, or chimaera.

Pointy-nosed bluish chimaera.
2007 MBARI

Similar sharks and rays, the ghoulish chimaera is a blazon of cartilaginous fish. Information technology also bears an uncanny resemblance to Zero, the dog from "The Nightmare Before Christmas."

Inhabiting temperate to common cold waters around the world, chimera live atdepths of 8,200 feet or more. At that place are nigh 47 species, which range in length from 24 to lxxx inches.

Archaeological testify has proven that chimera have been around for millions of years. The earliest fossil specimen, a skull, was dated to most 280 million years agone. It was unearthed in Southward Africa in the 1980s.

The sarcastic fringehead is a tube blenny, a fish that burrows in narrow structures created by other creatures.

A sarcastic fringehead.
Julian Gunther/Shutterstock

Native to the northeast Pacific Bounding main well-nigh California and Baja California, the sarcastic fringehead is a kind of tube blenny, a blazon of modest fish that burrows in tube-similar structures created past other creatures.

Sarcastic fringeheads primarily gorge on squid eggs, but scientists believe that the males' oversized mouths may impede upon their power to feed.

The barreleye, also known as a spook fish, has extremely light-sensitive optics on the top of its fluid-filled caput.

A barreleye fish.
2004 MBARI.

The barreleye was first described in 1939, simply remained a mystery to scientists until 2009, when they discovered that its large, tubular optics could actually rotate inside of its head. This rotational ability allows them to expect upward for potential casualty or face frontwards to meet what it is eating.

Since barreleyes live at such depths where in that location is hardly any light, their tubular eyes help them use whatever faint amounts of lite drift downward to them. They likewise have 2 spots to a higher place their mouths which are called nares, coordinating to human being nostrils.

As the name suggests, the faceless cusk eel has no confront.

The get-go faceless cusk was discovered in 1874.
Fishes of Australia

Like Dementors of the fish world, these eels don't accept a face.

Almost four years agone, Australian researchers found a faceless cusk an incredible 13,000 anxiety below the h2o's surface. Expedition leader Dr. Tim O'Hara of Australia's Museums Victoria told the Guardian, "It looks like two rear ends on a fish, really."

Apparently its rima oris sits underneath the rest of its body, and is "protrusible," meaning information technology extends to catch food, and then disappears back inside of its ain body.

Oceanographers aboard the HMS Challenger nerveless the kickoff specimen of the species in 1873, which was the last time i was ever seen.

The blobfish was named the "world's ugliest animal" in an online poll.

Blobfish have bodies that are less dumbo than h2o.
Kyodo News Stills via Getty Images

Named the "world'southward ugliest fauna" in an online poll conducted by a British organization called the Ugly Animal Preservation Club, the blobfish belongs to the fathead sculpin family — a group of fish that dwells in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans at depths ranging from 330 to 9,200 feet.

While most fish stay buoyant with the assist of a swim float, blobfish — whose bodies are less dense than water — employ the ocean itself as a floating mechanism.

The near famous blobfish, Mr. Blobby, was discovered in 2003 off the coast of New Zealand and has inspired everything from plush toys to emoji. Preserved in ethyl alcohol, Mr. Blobby's terminal resting place is at the Australian Museum in Sydney.

The highfin lizardfish grows to a maximum size of 2.5 feet.

Bated from its fins, it would exist like shooting fish in a barrel to mistake this fish for a reptile.
Shutterstock

This toothy fella is foundat depths of more than 3,200 feet, and has been spotted in Africa between Morocco and Gabon and in Europe betwixt Northern Ireland and the Mediterranean Ocean.

Deepsea lizardfish — whose sharp teeth and large mouths come in handy for catching prey on the sea floor — can grow to be more than two feet long.

Bougainvillia superciliaris look similar glowing, mini jellyfish

Bougainvillia superciliaris.
Getty Images

These bioluminescent ocean creatures create their own calorie-free in the darkness. They either live solitary lives or in colonies, and swallow through filter-feeding.

The slender snipe eel tin can abound to be at to the lowest degree 4 feet long, but it weighs merely a few ounces.

The slender snipe eel spawns once and then dies.
DeAgostini/Getty Images

The slender snipe eel, i of the near meaty deep-ocean critters, tin abound to a minimum length of four feet, but weighs no more than 6 or seven ounces.

Scientists aren't entirely certain how this eel catches its prey, but they speculate that the procedure involves the creature using its beak-similar rima oris to capture food.

Research also suggests that slender snipes spawn one time and and so die. They reproduce through a process known as broadcast spawning in which female and males respectively release eggs and sperm into the water cavalcade at the same time.

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What Kind of Animals Live in the Deep Sea

Source: https://www.insider.com/strange-deep-sea-creatures-trivia-facts-2018-4

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