The Mariana Trench is the deepest depression on Earth. There, to this day, they continue to discover creatures unknown to science – the last such find was made in December last year. We present to your attention the ten most unusual inhabitants of this place.
1. Weird Sea Creatures: Grimpoteuthis
Despite its size, this small (only 30 cm) creature is a formidable predator. Unlike most other cephalopods, it does not peck its prey with beak-like jaws but swallows worms and crustaceans whole. In addition, it is one of the deepest octopuses, which feels comfortable at a depth of 3-4 thousand meters.
2. Weird Creatures: Iglorot
If the octopus grimpotevtis looks quite harmless, then the iglorot fish, on the contrary, has a very formidable appearance: huge teeth, a terrible muzzle, slippery skin without scales. Its small, 15-centimeter body has bioluminescent organs that the iglot uses to communicate with other fish, protect, and as bait.
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3. Weird Sea Creatures: Barrel Eye
This fish has a transparent head, inside which the barrel-like eyes move freely. Usually, they are always directed upwards so that the barrel-eye can see the silhouettes of its victims floating above it. The existence of this underwater miracle became known only in 1939 when a transparent-headed fish was raised from a depth of 762 meters. But it was not possible to observe it – the extracted specimens died due to a sharp pressure drop during the ascent.
4. Weird Creatures: Bentocodon
This unusual creature looks like a red flying saucer with a diameter of 2-3 centimeters with one and a half thousand long thin tentacles around the perimeter. This jellyfish feeds on small crustaceans and unicellular ones. And since the food of benthicodon often turns out to be bioluminescent, marine biologists believe that the opaque red color serves to hide this radiance.
5. Weird Creatures: Deep-sea anglerfish
The anglerfish uses the same technology of catching food as the iglorot: it lures prey with a glowing ball. Only the angler has a mustache – a “fishing rod” is located on the forehead. Add to this “decoration” a shapeless body, razor-sharp teeth, a giant mouth. However, the females of this fish do not exceed 20 centimeters in length. Males are much smaller – only 2.5 cm.
6. Weird Sea Creatures: Shark-brownie
The house shark seemed to have swum out of nightmares or horror movies: a muzzle with a giant beak-like nose, huge jaws that can move forward-and unexpectedly pink skin. It reaches 5.5 meters in length. Fortunately, the chance to meet such a “brownie” in coastal waters is very small – this shark lives at a depth of 900 meters, and the older the individual, the deeper it will live.
7. Weird Creatures: Hatchet fish
This harsh fish looks like an Axe, floating at a depth of 1.5 thousand meters underwater. All of its 40 species are very flat, metallic-silver, and bioluminescent. Like good nightlights, hatchets can change the degree of their glow depending on how much light comes from the surface.
8.Weird Creatures: Raincoat Shark
The fish got its name for six rows of wavy gills about 1.8 meters long. But six rows of gill slits are trifles compared to 20 rows of sharp serrated teeth. Her hunting style is similar to that of a snake: the fish bends and quickly rushes forward.
9.Weird Creatures: Amphitretus pelagic
It is not by chance that he is compared to a ghost. Amphitretus is almost completely transparent, and its 8 tentacles are connected by the thinnest threads, like a spider web. But the most amazing thing about this clam is its eyes. They are not round, but elongated, like small spyglasses, and can rotate around their axis.
10.Weird Creatures: Osedax
Osedax is a polychaete worm, whose name means “eating bones” in Latin. You can’t call it anything else – osedax gets food from the bones of dead marine animals, in particular whales. The worm secretes acid, which corrodes the outer part of the skeleton and allows the osedax to reach the brain.
Increasingly advanced technologies have allowed us to look into the impenetrable abyss of the Mariana Trench, but to this day this place remains one of the most unexplored corners of our planet. Its inhabitants carefully keep their secrets at a depth as inaccessible as distant space. At least, not yet unattainable.
