Mysteries to Behold in the Dark Down Deep: Seadevils and Species Unknown

[M.D. Holloway]

Mysteries to Behold in the Dark Down Deep: Seadevils and Species Unknown By WILLIAM J. BROAD
Published: May 22, 2007


""When, more than 70 years ago, William Beebe became the first scientist to descend into the abyss, he described a world of twinkling lights, silvery eels, throbbing jellyfish, living strings as “lovely as the finest lace” and lanky monsters with needlelike teeth.

“It was stranger than any imagination could have conceived,” he wrote in “Half Mile Down” (Harcourt Brace, 1934). “I would focus on some one creature and just as its outlines began to be distinct on my retina, some brilliant, animated comet or constellation would rush across the small arc of my submarine heaven and every sense would be distracted, and my eyes would involuntarily shift to this new wonder.”

Beebe sketched some of the creatures, because no camera of the day was able to withstand the rigors of the deep and record the nuances of this cornucopia of astonishments.

Colleagues reacted coolly. Some accused Beebe of exaggeration. One reviewer suggested that his heavy breathing had fogged the window of the submarine vessel, distorting the undersea views.

Today, the revolution in lights, cameras, electronics and digital photography is revealing a world that is even stranger than the one that Beebe struggled to describe.

“It was as though a veil had been lifted,” she says, “revealing unexpected points of view, vaster and more promising.”

The photographs she has selected celebrate that sense of the unexpected. Bizarre species from as far down as four and half miles are shown in remarkable detail, their tentacles lashing, eyes bulging, lights flashing. The eerie translucence of many of the gelatinous creatures seems to defy common sense. They seem to be living water.

On page after page, it is as if aliens had descended from another world to amaze and delight. A small octopus looks like a child’s squeeze toy. A seadevil looks like something out of a bad dream. A Ping-Pong tree sponge rivals artwork that might be seen in an upscale gallery.

Interspersed among 220 color photographs are essays by some of the world’s top experts on deep-sea life that reflect on what lies beneath. For example, Laurence Madin of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution notes the violence that air and gravity do to creatures without internal or external skeletons when they are pulled up to the deck of a ship, obliterating their varieties of form and function.

“This unattractive jello-like mass,” he writes, “is the unfair land version of amazing and delicate creatures that can display their true beauty only in their natural watery environment.” The photographs in the book right that wrong, and not just for jellyfish.

One shows a dense colony of brittle stars, their arms intertwined and overlapping, their masses in the distance merging with the blackness of the seabed, alive, inhabiting a place once thought to be a lifeless desert.

Craig M. Young of the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology writes in the book that the diversity of life in the abyss “may exceed that of the Amazon Rain Forest and the Great Barrier Reef combined.”

Beebe, who ran the tropical research department at the New York Zoological Society, surely had intimations of what lay beyond the oceanic door he had opened. “The Deep” brings much of that dark landscape to light, even while noting that a vast majority of the planet’s largest habitat remains unexamined, awaiting a new generation of explorers.""

I can only imagine aliens looking sorta like this:

Real pics - no photoshop here!

[widebody911]

That's some weird stuff!

[Evans, Marv]

So cool !!

[kstar]

Amazing.

It's hard to imagine discovering life on another planet any stranger than what is in our own oceans.

Best,

Kurt

[billwagnon]

The Rolling Stones one is my new wallpaper.

[livi]

Fascinating! I wonder if 'Kracken' will turn out to be more than a sidekick to Mr. Depp..

[scottmandue]

If you like that you guys should plan a trip to the Monterey (Calif.) aquarium they have some great jelly fish tanks.
The rest of the aquarium is pretty cool too... be warned they don't have performing seals or dolphins.

Judging from the tentacle scars found on sperm whales (I said sperm) and body parts found by fishermen there is evidence of some VERY LARGE squid down there.

[Moneyguy1]

There was a special on (I think) The History Channel about deep sea exploration that included some info on Beebe abd his associate. Very interesting.

[Overpaid Slacker]

Cool photos. Shortly after the Tsunami my brother sent 'round a whole series of photos of theretofore unknown deep water marine species that were washed up on the shore.

Some of the most fantastic, science-fiction looking critters I've ever seen. I'll look for the site.

JP

[M.D. Holloway]

From all the stuff I have read, we only have discovered a fraction of what is down there.

Space travel is cool and all that but I really think we should spend more time on Earth and discover the mysteries within. Not as sexy as rockets I guess...

[Overpaid Slacker]

Here's a link to some photos (not the ones I remember):

http://community.webshots.com/album/260972015TPLDcf

Planet Earth had a great bit on deep-sea critters, and many of them looked downright otherworldly.

Viperfish:


I don't want one of those swimming around in my tub.

JP

[Rusty Heap]

I've had a BLAST scuba diving the last 3-4 years..........I highly encourage anyone even remotely interested in the undersea world to experience it first hand themselves.

Yes, it IS a whole 'nother different world down there with colors, textures, and creatures you can't even imagine.

Scuba is SO MUCH EASIER than snorkling, when you only snorkle, you get beaten up by the wind and the waves and the sun, plus you have only 5-10 seconds to swim down 10-12 feet to glance at something then you have to shoot to the surface to gulp in air.. Sitting on the bottom 30-40-50 foot deep and breathing comfortably staring at a coral or fish for as long as you want is pure bliss.

[rcecale]

Originally posted by billwagnon
The Rolling Stones one is my new wallpaper.

Rolling Stones...?



Randy

[billwagnon]

nope the red one with the lips!

[scottmandue]

If anyone is interested in the book those photos were taken from here is the name and author.

Although I have been searching online bookstores and it appears to be sold out.

Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss
by Claire Nouvian, Claire Nouvian (Editor)
Hardcover
ISBN: 0226595668