Other Marine Life

The long-nosed Chimaera. An ancient, deep-ocean relative of sharks and rays. The spine on the back is highly toxic.

- Spineless Pirate -

The violet sea-snail spends most of its adult life hanging upside-down from a raft of bubbles floating on the sea's surface. The snail blows these bubbles from its own slime as it gulps air. It feeds on the tentacles of the Man O' War and other colonial hydrozoans it encounters on the ocean current.

- Bone Blossoms -

Osedax frankpressi is a species of worm that grows exclusively on the bones of dead whales. Their microscopic eggs can be found drifting in every corner of the sea, waiting patiently to contact their highly specific food source. Once hatched, the female develops into a pinkish, flower-like animal that bores into bone with a network of spongy "roots", and digests it with the aid of a symbiotic bacteria. The males remain microscopic, and thousands may inhabit the body of a female. The worms will die when the skeleton is fully consumed, but only after pumping tens of millions of eggs into the water.

- Sonic Rifle -

The Pistol Shrimp has a specially modified claw that, when snapped shut, generates a burst of sound and air that can paralyze or even kill small prey such as fish or other shrimp.

- Killer Shrimp -

The Mantis Shrimp (or Squill) is a ravenous and highly intelligent hunter with claws that can lash out at prey with the force of a gunshot. Larger varieties have been known to shatter glass or sever human fingers. Most are either "spearers" (with sharp, mantidlike claws) or "smashers" (with blunt, clublike claws for cracking hard-shelled prey). Rare among invertebrates are the monogamous mating habits that several species demonstrate. Mated pairs share a burrow, and the male hunts for both his mate and young.

- Sea Maggot -

The hagfish (also called the slime eel or slime hag), is one of the most unusual fish in the world. As a relative of the lamprey, it is one of the last surviving jaw-less fish. It lacks true fins or scales, its skeleton is made up of cartilage (like sharks and rays) and its gills are only circular holes. It feeds on both small, live prey and on the bodies of dead or dying fish, burrowing inside and rasping at flesh. It is also famed as the slimiest organism on earth. Pores along either side of its body generate copious amounts of incredibly strong, sticky mucous, which can suffocate predators and act as a lubricant for the hag to slip in and out of carrion. As if it weren't peculiar enough, it is the only fish capable of sneezing (which it does to clear its own slime from its single nostril) and the only vertebrate animal that can tie itself in a knot (which it does to provide leverage when boring into flesh and to clear slime off its body)

- Stinger Thieves -

Many sea slugs prey upon jellyfish. Not only are they immune to the jelly's toxic stinging cells, but the cells are passed to the tips of the slug's tentacles for its own protection. The photo above shows the tiny nudibranch "Glaucus Atlanticus", preying on the jellyfish Velella.  This nudibranch actually swims upside-down due to the odd position of its floatation sac, and is also known to prey upon the aforementioned violent sea snail.

- Attack Worm -

The keyhole limpet (a relative of snails) protects itself from predatory starfish with its own portable bodyguard. A symbiotic worm lives coiled under the limpet's shell and feeds on the soft, sensitive tube-feet of attacking starfish.

- More Living Weapons -

The Boxing crab carries a stinging anemone in each of its claws to ward off predators and "duel" rival crabs. Other crab species, esspecially hermits, may attach anemones to their backs for additional defense. Usually attached firmly to rocks or coral, an anemone is dislodged when the crab uses its legs and pincers to tickle the creature's base..

- The Doctor is in -

The cleaner wrasse, a tiny blue and black reef fish, feeds by eating the parasites, dead skin and fungi off of other sea creatures who even allow the fish to swim in and out of their mouths and gills. Fish of every shape and size will actually wait patiently in a line to be groomed by the wrasse, and few if any fish (including sharks) will willingly harm one or harrass the other patients. Some blennies, however, are "false" cleaners, imitating the wrasse and feasting on the healthy flesh of unknowing patients.

The Deep-Sea Abyss

In the deepest, coldest depths of the sea, where the pressure could shatter a human skull, life flourishes like no other ecosystem on the planet. This harsh abyss is home to a wider variety of species than even the tropical rainforest, and yields dozens, sometimes hundreds of newly discovered species a year. The forms taken by life at these depths may seem bizarre and even horrifying to human sensibilities, but is perfectly adapted to survive in the icy, crushing void of the deep sea.

- Life Partners -

Probably the largest and most common group of the abyssal fish, deep-ocean anglers boast one of nature's most extreme examples of sexual dimorphism (physical difference between genders). The female angler (three examples shown above) is a large, bloated predator that lures prey directly into her jaws with a luminous "fishing pole". The male, however, is a tiny, eyeless creature with highly developed nostrils and very little else. Once he has sniffed out a female, he locks his jaws onto her flesh and begins to drink her blood. He will remain there for life, losing most of his non-reproductive organs as his skin and circulatory system merges with those of his mate. Some females may carry several parasitic husbands at once. It is not unheard of for a male to attach to a female of the incorrect species. Above is a specimen of the angler Photocorynus, with a visible male attached to her back.

- Underbite -

The Fangtooth (or "ogrefish") is a large abyssal hunter with tough, armored skin and four long, straight teeth that resemble iron nails. These teeth are so long that when the jaw is shut, the lower pair must slide into special sheathes on either side of the fish's brain to avoid impaling it.

- Flypaper Skin -

Slickheads of the genus Rouleina are coated in a "jacket" of slimy, sticky black flesh that traps any small organism that swims into it. When enough food has been caught, the fish istrips off this skin and eats it.

- Venus's Fish-Trap -

Anglerfish of the family Thaumaticthydae have taken the art of deep-sea fishing to its perfection with a luminous, bulb-shaped lure hanging directly from the underside of the upper jaw, which folds shut along its length like the leaves of a carnivorous plant. Once the prey is trapped, the smaller, lower jaw opens to create a vacuum.

- Living Armor -

Instead of a snail's shell, the hermit crab Sympagurus carries on its back a living Zoonathid; a soft-bodied stinging coral. Most corals find the deep ocean inhospitable because the mucky floor provides little to grow on, and shells are too scarce there for most other hermits. The Zoonathid's tough flesh and stinging tentacles provide protection while Sympagurus provides mobility and a sturdy base.

A young "fathead" of the family Psychrolutes. A parasite is attached to its mouth.

---Quick Facts--- -The fat, pinkish "coffinfish" walks on its front fins along the sea floor, uses a short lure to attract prey, and inflates like a blowfish when agitated. -The rat-trap fish is so named for its peculiar jaw structure. The mouth has no floor, so the jaw can snap shut without water resistance. -Ipnops murrayi lacks eyes, but has a pair of light-sensitive panels that give its head the appearance of an airplane cockpit. -Larval viperfish have eyes on long, whiplike stalks. -Grammatostomias flagellibarba is a long-toothed fish only six inches long, but with a whiplike chin barbel that can be up to six feet in length. -Snailfish lay their eggs in the bronchial cavities of living spider crabs.