More random marine facts:
- only 30% of the deep sea floor has been mapped. The work continues. This generation’s era-defining fight will be about hands off deep sea mining
- the deepest part of the ocean is known as the hadal zone (6000-10 000m / 20-36 000 ft) (after Hades)
- siphonophores look like a single animal but they are made of many different zooids, each playing its own role. Some catch prey, some swim, some reproduce. Some can be longer than a blue whale
- ‘marine snow’ or ‘ocean dandruff’ (organic material that falls into the deep sea, looking like dandruff) is an important food source
- along with whale fall. When a whale dies and its carcass sinks to the sea floor, an entire ecosystem of animals and bacteria will be fed for a long time. Osedax are bone eating worms that can bore into bone, feed off collagen, etc. they have no mouth, anus or gut
- male deep sea anglerfish fuse physically to females they find. Females can have more than one male fused to her. The males start to lose their eyes, fins and organs.. and just live on like that. They share blood circulation
- creatures that are red are invisible in the dark.
- the largest migration happens daily: when deep sea creatures migrate up to feed https://youtu.be/tJ1gRfXTIIg
- 80 miles off from Monterey / Moss landing there is an octopus garden in the deep sea floor near the hydrothermal vents. 6000 - 20000 female octopus are there brooding their eggs. They sit there, without feeding, for a year or more and die shortly after their job is done https://www.mbari.org/project/the-octopus-garden/
The deep sea is a treasure. Many medicines have been formulated from research in the deep sea. Companies are already trying to exploit it https://www.rnz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/571758/cook-islands-children-s-book-on-deep-sea-nodules-is-about-facts-says-author