March 01, 2004

Deep-Sea Fish For years I've been wanting to see actual photos of these scary creatures. Here they are. [Via Metafilter]
posted by rustcellar 20 years ago
  • Following the giant crabs, I suppose. I'm never going in the water again.
  • Holy snapping duckshit!
  • *vomits*
  • {bad acid banana}
  • About 10 years ago a Georges Bank trawler I knew landed a 5ft Elephant (long-nosed) chimera, and no one knew what it was. And these people were all long time commercial fishermen and fish dealers. All I can remember is one of the older guys saying "that's a devilfish!" and acting all creeped out like we were all gonna be cursed (maybe it cursed him 'cause I think he's dead now). It took a phone call to a state fisheries biologist to name the creature. It's still the strangest fish I've seen in years of fish work. Like a shark with a squid for a nose and a parrot's beak for a mouth. No one ate it.
  • Mmm, I've a pretty good guess what tonights nightmares will be about. Totally fascinating, scary, weird and puzzling. Anyone know why the deep spawns so many "ugly" animals? Why do we not see as many freakish specimens up here? Why is there no terresetrial equivelent of the Umbrella Mouth Gulper Eel (Eurypharynx pelicanoides)?
  • Because ugly thrives in the dark, Keith. It's the old Morlocks vs. Elohim question.
  • Anyone know why the deep spawns so many "ugly" animals? Probably they're only ugly because we aren't used to them.
  • I'm not buying the "we aren't used to them" logic. Physical attractiveness clearly is somewhat consistant across species where mates have to be picked based partially on the sense of sight. Remove that variable and everyone is free to evolve looking like Lyle Lovett on a bender. Or something like that. Someone that knowes what the hell they are talking about is now free to come in a nd make me look like the idiot I am. Also, surface fish generally bear very resemblanmce to their deep sea brethern. I find that odd, and am looking for an explanation but can't see one. (And I realize there are exceptions, see the oh so delicious yet vilely ugly monkfish, but as a general rule it's true.)
  • This is definitely a great link. I'm glad it was posted here; I've been chomping at the bit over at MetaFilter since I can't post there. I find it interesting that multiple MeFi members are so sure these are props! Even if they are (and I see no reason to believe that), these are dead ringers for the real things. All that said, I don't find them particularly nightmare-provoking. :) Different and amazing looking, but not so scary. I'm a little bit more frightened of the angler fish in Finding Nemo. ;)
  • The deep is cold, dark, high-pressure, and relatively anoxic. Think adaptation. Dark means either large, staring eyes or no eyes at all, and few pretty shiny colors (there being little point in generating the pigments). High-pressure means unusual body shapes. Anoxic (on top of high pressure) implies less potential for exertion, so no streamlined athletic swimmers, and (on top of dark) bodies predicated around "let the prey come to you" rather than "chase the bunny." /not a marine biologist, but I do eat a lot of fish
  • Physical attractiveness clearly is somewhat consistant across species where mates have to be picked based partially on the sense of sight. Remove that variable and everyone is free to evolve looking like Lyle Lovett on a bender You might be on to something there. Also, a lot of sea creatures don't actually have sex, just leave their sperm and eggs floating about, and the like. Attracting a mate isn't necessary. Its the surviving too mate that counts. On preview, goetter's explanations/specualtions look much more likely to me than mine
  • So you're saying the purple-assed Mandrill isn't a bizarre-looking terrestrial beastie? Or the Warthog? What about certain species of spiders, frogs, reptiles and Republicans? The first time Western Man ran into a rhino, he was freaked out. And there's that monkey with the huge nose. Whatsisname. Looks like Jimmy Durante. Not much on the Megamouth Shark, I admit, but we killed off most of the really ugly animals on earth due to our desire for .. uh.. something.
  • For sure goetter is on to something but part of the problem of his explanation is there is a wide variety of shapes, fat, skinny, round, flat. It seems that the only unifying trait I can see is thay all seem to have one vastly out of scale body part. Eg. Normal body with a tiny tail or a giant head on a otherwise proportioned body. Very odd.
  • Warthog! My favorite plane ever. /derail
  • Ptthp! Everyone know the Gee Bee is the oddest thing in the air, in fact it kind tooks exactly like the Oreo Dory. Warthog is positively conventional in comparison. http://www.donhollway.com/writing/doolittle/doolittle.html
  • Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin' aloft, stayin' aloft, Ah, ah, ah, ah, Stayin' alofffft... /the Gee Bees
  • I don't know about the Bee Gees, but this link has had me singing the "Birds Eye Fish Fingers" song since it went up.
  • Honestly, Nostrildamus, that warthog is downright cuddly compared to any of the fish in the gallery. Rhinos can actually be beautiful. Mammals are definitely not where to look for strangers; we feel a kinship with them that makes them, when healthy and well-formed, instinctively attractive to us. Insects are probably where you want to go to find strange looking creatures that we're used to, but even then I'd say that the bugs from the sighted world have great elegance compared to these suckers. (Douglas Adams said something re Komodo Dragons in Last Chance to See like this: They are man eaters. That in itself is not a bad thing; lions and tigers are man-eaters, and while we may be wary of them, we treat them with respect; we don't resent the actual idea of being eaten by them. But being eaten by a lizard, that's different.)
  • damn! link's been farked! doh, i mean mofied...
  • True enough, rustcellar, and I only took that tack to be devil's advocate, to be honest. On the issue of Rhinos, I live in Perth, West Oz, and there's a Rhino in the wonderful Perth Zoo called Memphis, who is, believe it or not, a real cutie. He comes up to the fence and you can stroke his (usually mucus-dripping) snout, which he seems to like. He once farted at me & my mrs, sending up a cloud of dust from his reclining position on the ground. It smelt like a skip full of rotting vegetables. We laughed for nearly 10 minutes. It went "PFFFOOOOOOFFFH!" Komodo Dragons are evil bastards. They got bacteria in their teeth that.. you know all that. And I miss Doug Adams.
  • If we're talking about Komodo Dragons, this need to be reposted. Way too funny. Salon used to be funny? WTF?
  • ^ | +---(Linken broke)
  • Actually, komodos on Komodo are fed goats, Mr Funny Smart Salon Man.
  • I suck.
  • The carrier shell underside picture reminds of a fancy pastry desert, actually. We're not seeing these creatures at their best, since they must have been hauled up out from darkly aqueous depths into conditions which, for them, must be roughly comparable to the vacuum of space for an astronaut who suit is breached, and all the delicate tissues of the body are ruptured. Would like to see some underwater shots of them taken while alive.
  • Some of these fish are almost beautiful, they're so strange-looking. Goetter, what does "Go Ugly Early" (from the Warthog site) mean, exactly? I read this piece a while back; the guy who wrote it mentions a woman wearing a "Go Ugly Early" tee-shirt. I've been vaguely curious ever since.
  • GO UGLY EARLY: a pickup strategy where the hunter deliberately seeks out a less attractive potential mate from the beginning, rather than wasting time chatting up hotties and getting shot down. By picking the ugly one right away, you're more likely to reach your desired goal, if you get my drift. The Warthog analogy: insensitive clods may call the Warthog ugly, but she sure does the job, and better than those mincing pretty-boy planes with delta wings, half the payload capacity, and no axially mounted GAU-8A cannon.... [lapses into fanboy drooling]
  • Christ! I might have enjoyed this damn post had I not been eating my DINNER!!!! DAMMIT!!! I'm going to feel sick all night now. Thanks alot. And their UGLY!!!! Used to them or not. UGLY, UGLY, UGLY. That whitish, blob thingy is REALLY UGLY! sighs very heavily at the thought of a queasy night ahead.
  • This is an awesome link, but ohmygodi'llnevergointhewateragain. Ever.
  • Heh. You should see some of the things that live in your hair. Or on your nose. Worlds within worlds, without end.
  • Pez is right. For instance, the things that live in your eyelashes. Be careful: geoshitties link.
  • I refuse to look.
  • "The deep is cold, dark, high-pressure, and relatively anoxic. Think adaptation. Dark means either large, staring eyes or no eyes at all, and few pretty shiny colors (there being little point in generating the pigments). High-pressure means unusual body shapes. Anoxic (on top of high pressure) implies less potential for exertion, so no streamlined athletic swimmers, and (on top of dark) bodies predicated around "let the prey come to you" rather than "chase the bunny."" goetter you are partly right. large or no eyes is common in creatures evolving in limited or no light conditions. colour is often forsaken too, but you won't find many blind deepsea fish: bioluminescence as a means to both attract prey and mates. as a matter of fact several of the fish in those pics are really pretty colorful - this could be because of diet or more likely they just never lost the pretty colours that evolved somewhere else. making your skin one colour or another isn't very costly energetically, and doesn't make you more of a target to predators when its dark anyway ;) pressure has little to do with body shape, in general shapes of fish are determined by their lifestyle (which you pointed out), they are either swimmers or sit-and-wait predators. swimmers look like surface fish - herring, salmon, tuna, while SAW fish tend to have big heads and shortish but powerful bodies. one characteristic of deepsea fish that is a result of pressure is the flesh consistency - its really rubbery. not good for eating! the deep ocean is not _always_ relatively anoxic. O2 concentrations are determined by pressure, temperature, salinity primarily. deep water is often very cold, and fairly saline and obviously under a great deal of pressure - all of which can increase O2 concentration. the gulf stream area of the atlantic for example has less 02 in general at the suface than at 3000m. also, these fish were taken from a seamount survey between 200m and 1.2 km. seamounts are incredibly productive oases in an otherwise relatively barren deep basin. even so, most deep water has more than enough O2 for fish, unlike areas in fjords where replenishment can be a rare event and deep waters grows anoxic. sorry for the length of the post, but i thought someone might find it interesting. IAAMB
  • That was an interesting post, owl. Thanks.
  • (Ha ha, made you post!) Thanks for the exposition, owl.
  • Very cool. Thanks for the update Wolof.
  • The bit about the loss of the ice at the end is scary. A 40% thinning of ice cover over the last 30-40 years, and an extra 5 days of summer every decade is more than significant warming.
  • hail to thee, wee ocean critters! o clearly, hippopodius, your interior's commodious! and although you bear a drake-ish name old dragonfish you've lost your flame, a fact I think some scientist missed and an omission for which s/he should be hissed
  • hi bees!
  • hi, medusa! are those auburn tresses I sea waving?