Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
into total darkness under the pressure of hundreds of feet of sea-
water. I did a quick calculation and figured that when we reached
the bottom there would be almost five hundred pounds of pres-
sure on every square inch of the sub's surface. It was a sobering
thought, but, recalling all the successful dives the sub had made,
I quickly dismissed it and focused on what was happening in front
of me.
Dave turned on the bright underwater lights, and a whole ar-
ray of fascinating creatures became visible. There were red shrimps
of several kinds; fish and an occasional squid shot by; and I rec-
ognized graceful sergestid shrimps, their long, slender antennae
trailing behind them as they swam. Dave blew some air into the
ballast tanks to slow our descent.
Then out of the gloom loomed the muddy bottom and,
directly in front of me, a rocky outcrop covered with two-foot-
high bright white plumose sea anemones. Hanging around the
anemones were large vermilion and bocaccio rockfish. They were
some of the biggest I had ever seen, but then, I had never fished
or been down eleven hundred feet before. Nestled at the bottom
of the rock were two or three red thornyheads, a species of rockfish
found only in deep water. They're very diā€¹cult to collect alive,
but we had a few small ones in the deep-sea R&D lab at the
aquarium.
Dave cruised the submersible slowly over the bottom. A flatfish,
possibly a species known as the deep sea sole ( Embassichthys ba-
thybius ), swam away as we neared it. Here and there we saw hagfish
( Eptatretus stouti ) curled up in coils on the bottom. These re-
markable eel-like fish are, together with the lampreys, the only
living relatives of the ancient creatures that gave rise to the fishes
and all the land vertebrates. Very primitive in physiology, they
have no jaw, or vertebrae in their backbone; instead their flexible
backbone is a simple cartilaginous rod. Almost blind, their rudi-
mentary eyes can distinguish light and dark but cannot see im-
ages. Their most remarkable feature, however, is their ability to
produce amazing amounts of sticky slime: a single hagfish can eas-
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