as someone who was already scared of the ocean uhhhhhh
Terrifying depths of the ocean my beloved
This is the COOLEST FUCKING THING
This is now my favorite thing EVER
You just keep scrolling and think “huh i bet the ocean ends here huh” but nope it just keeps on going and theres no end to the deep sea eldritch abominations
Why is this so funny to me
I’m just a majestic lil slug
Floatin around with my wings
Doot doot doot
sea angels imply the existence of predatory sea demons
a flock of sea demons float toward you
you let them surround you because they’re just salty slugs
they aggressively nibble you while one of them tries to buy a tenth of your soul
That’s kinda cute and kinda creepy at the same time
The ability to hide or camouflage could mean the difference between life or death for animals in the deep sea. Octopuses on the seafloor can change their skin color and texture to match their surroundings.
This red octopus, Octopus rubescens, is trying its best to camouflage with the benthic sediment around it. It scouts the sandy seafloor to flush out small prey or crawls in and out of rocky areas to hunt crabs and shrimp. These octopuses have excellent eyesight, but they use touch and smell to find food—thousands of chemical receptors and millions of texture receptors line the rims of its suckers.
During a recent deep-sea dive, our team came across one of the most remarkable residents of the ocean’s twilight zone: the strawberry squid (Histioteuthis heteropsis). MBARI’s remotely operated vehicle (ROV) Doc Ricketts spotted this crimson cephalopod 725 meters (2,378 feet) deep in Monterey Canyon. The stunning ultra high-definition resolution 4K video from the ROV Doc Ricketts allows researchers to examine deep-sea denizens in astonishing detail.
The strawberry squid has one big eye and one small eye. Together, this unlikely pair helps the squid hunt for food in the ocean’s twilight zone. The big left eye looks upward to spot shadows cast by prey in the dimly lit waters above. The eye’s tubular shape helps collect as much downwelling light as possible. Often, this eye has a yellow lens to see through the luminescent camouflage of its prey. The squid’s right eye is small and looks downward. This eye searches for flashes of bioluminescence produced by prey or predators lurking in the darker waters below. This squid is sometimes called the cockeyed squid for the remarkable difference in size between the two eyes.
Spending some quality time with our fish friend, Spunky. #heeeeeyspunky
The pudgy or giant cuskeel, Spectrunculus grandis, is a relatively common fish in the Northeastern Pacific’s very deep waters. They live in a depth range of 800–4,000 meters (2,600–13,120 feet) and can reach a length of 127 centimeters (just over four feet).
This orange cirrate octopus was observed by MBARI’s ROV Doc Ricketts swimming over the Taney Seamounts. These finned octopuses belong to an order of animals called Cirrata named for the presence of hair-like structures called “cirri” on their arms which may aid these animals in capturing food.The Taney Seamounts are a linear, near mid-ocean ridge chain consisting of five volcanoes located on the Pacific plate 300 kilometers (nearly 200 miles) west of San Francisco, California. Seamounts formed adjacent to mid-ocean ridges are the most abundant on Earth, numbering several orders of magnitude higher than hotspot-related seamounts.
POV: floating under the sea, serenely drifting with the jellies.
Sit back and relax with these soothing jellies. From tiny delicate drifters, to giant deep-sea denizens, jellies come in a variety of beautiful and mesmerizing forms. There are many different kinds of gelatinous animals in the deep, but here we are featuring the umbrella-shaped animals that swim by pulsing a bell and usually have tentacles trailing behind their mellow flowing movement.
MBARI’s robotic submersibles often spot this little octopus resting on the mud, its orange body resembling a flat, fluffy pancake. When startled by a predator, a flapjack octopus perks up and swims to safety by flapping its stubby fins, pulsing its webbed arms, pushing water through its funnel for jet propulsion—or all three at once. When the coast is clear, it stretches its webbed arms and parachutes back to the seafloor.
Flapjack octopuses (Opisthoteuthis spp.) can grow up to 20 centimeters (20 inches) across. They’re typically found at depths between 130 and 2,350 meters (430 and 7,710 feet) where they feed on small worms, crustaceans, and other invertebrates.
When you show up to the mud-themed party wearing head-to-tentacle red.
Gelatinous zooplankton like this Ptychogastria jellyfish are common in the deep ocean, especially where the water column meets the seafloor. There are many different species of little red jellies like this one, and it’s often difficult to tell them apart. MBARI scientists have spent years collecting and analyzing data that would help to distinguish these species from one another based on their shape and form. They developed a key to help scientists tell these look-alike species apart through their physical differences, depth distribution, and behavior.
These pillows may be a little harder than your average square of fluff! Pillow lavas look like rounded blobs of solidified lava. They are formed as lava pours slowly out of the seafloor, and the outer edge is cooled very quickly by the cold seawater. Think about squeezing toothpaste out of a tube, but instead of it flowing freely, the outer skin of the toothpaste hardens as soon as it touches air. Pillow lavas come in various sizes and shapes, and each of these shapes can tell us a bit about the eruption that formed them.
This Valentine’s Day, we have one very important question for you: Who’s your favorite deep-sea duo?
Tell us who your pick is in the comments, and Happy Valentine’s Day, deep-sea squad! In order of appearance in this video, we have some pretty epic deep-sea couples:
Pandea rubea and pycnogonid
Deepstaria enigmaticaandAnuropusamphipod
Scotoplanes sea pig and Neolithodes crab
Tomopterisworms
Phacellophora sp. (egg-yolk jelly) and Icichthys lockingtoni
Floating along with one of the most remarkable residents of the deep sea—a Pantachogon haeckeli jelly.
There are only three known species of jellyfish in the genus Pantachogon. Sometimes called the cupcake jelly, we most often observe these tiny jellies from 1,000 to 2,000 meters (3,280 to 6,560 feet) deep in the Monterey Bay. We know very little about this species, but thanks to our remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), we can capture video footage of these incredible animals in their natural habitat. These videos and images let us capture the true magnificence of many delicate deep-sea animals so we can share them with you! This individual was filmed by the ROV Doc Ricketts in the Monterey Bay at 873 meters (2,865 feet) deep.
These eyeless, mouthless worms lurk in the dark, settling onto dead animals and sending out green “roots” to devour their bones. In fact, such “boneworms” do exist in the deep sea. After planting several dead whales on the seafloor, MBARI biologists found that more than 20 different species of boneworms may live in Monterey Bay alone.
Since 2004, scientists worldwide have discovered 32 species of Osedax occurring at depths from 10 to 4,000 meters (30 to 13,125 feet). Various species can colonize a broad array of bones from fish, marine mammals, birds, turtles, and terrestrial mammals. These worms can quickly consume bones, removing visual evidence of a sunken whale skeleton in as little as a decade.
Nothing says Mother’s Day like killing a salp and eating its insides to lay your eggs. #momlife
The barrel amphipod, Phronima sedentaria, uses its sharp claws to snag a salp, then rips out the soft tissues inside. But that salp is more than a meal—the amphipod carries around the carved-out carcass as its home. It even “remodels” its shelter by reshaping the barrel and secreting chemicals to toughen its tissues. Female barrel amphipods lay their eggs inside the salp and their hatchlings feast on the salp’s tissues.These tiny deep-sea treasures are about four centimeters (1.5 inches) long and are typically found from the surface to 600 meters (2,000 feet) deep.
During a recent expedition aboard our research vessel Western Flyer, MBARI’s science team encountered a beautifully bronze deep-sea dragon. Meet the highfin dragonfish, Bathophilus flemingi.
MBARI researchers have observed a few different dragonfishes in the depths of Monterey Bay, but this one is the rarest we’ve encountered. We’ve only seen this particular species four times in more than three decades of deep-sea research and more than 27,600 hours of video! We spotted this individual just outside of Monterey Bay at about 300 meters (980 feet).
Bathophilus flemingi can be up to 16.5 centimeters (6.5 inches) long. Its fins have long, thin rays. Scientists suspect those wing-like filaments may sense vibrations in the water, alerting the fish when predators or prey are approaching. They likely provide stability and keep the fish from sinking while it lies in wait for food. These dragons don’t have scales—they have smooth, dark skin. Research by MBARI and our collaborators has revealed the pigments in the skin of some deep-sea dragonfishes are some of the blackest blacks found in nature, all the better to camouflage in the ocean’s midnight zone. Learn more on our Creature feature.
This fluffy flapjack was captured on camera snooping around one of our smart boulders or benthic event detectors (BEDs). MBARI engineers designed the rough-and-tumble BEDs to measure the near-seafloor conditions inside an underwater sediment gravity flow.
These boulder-like instruments rest on the seafloor and contain a package of motion-sensing tools. They were engineered to replicate the behavior of boulders in sediment gravity flows while collecting information about their own motion. These rugged devices can collect data within the densest part of a sediment gravity flow, where most of the mass is being carried. Buried BEDs have an acoustic homing beacon so they can be recovered by one of MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles or an autonomous vehicle, such as a Wave Glider, which can wirelessly download the data.
The dazzling deep-sea dweller Beroe forskalii is a fierce predator. Comb jellies, or ctenophores, are gelatinous animals that swim by waving tiny hair-like projections called “ctenes.” Beroe also has tiny hairs along its wide mouth that act like teeth and help it grab onto its prey. When it bumps into another comb jelly, it holds on using these “teeth,” opens its mouth wide, and tries to swallow its prey whole.
In the deep sea, our remotely operated vehicle (ROV) pilots have to use large robotic manipulator arms to recover delicate organisms like these carnivorous sponges, Cladorhiza evae.
Sitting in the ROV control room (some 2,400 meters or 7,870 feet above the vehicle), there are two ROV pilots, one flying the ROV and the copilot in charge of managing the tether and operating the vehicle’s manipulator arms. The copilot uses devices called masters to precisely control the movements of the arm. These masters are small representations of the manipulator arm on the ROV, and proportionally control each of the corresponding joints. The manipulator arms on both MBARI ROVs have collected all sorts of unique deep-sea organisms and objects—from glass sponges, clams, benthic ctenophores, and other organisms to volcanic ash, pillow lava, and different sediment samples—for our scientists to study.
These arms are incredibly powerful tools for learning more about the habitats and organisms that make up the deep sea!
Feather stars are echinoderms like the more familiar members of that group—sea stars, sea cucumbers, and sea urchins. Also known as crinoids, these graceful invertebrates can be found at depths ranging from shallow waters to deep areas on the seafloor from the Aleutian Islands off Alaska to Baja California, Mexico. Unlike their sea lily relatives, feather stars can swim away at the slightest disturbance.
Atolla is one of the most common residents of the ocean’s midnight zone. This deep-sea crown jelly is found worldwide and can be abundant in deep water. Its bell has a signature scarlet color and bears one tentacle much longer than the rest. When MBARI researchers spotted a jelly that looked likeAtolla, but lacked the telltale trailing tentacle, their curiosity was piqued.
MBARI researchers have published the scientific description of a large new species of Atolla. They’ve named their discovery Atolla reynoldsi in honor of Jeff Reynolds, the first volunteer @montereybayaquarium, MBARI’s education and conservation partner. Learn more about the new species on our website.
High tech “smart boulders” give us a closer look at an underwater landslide.
The sediment that pours out of coastal rivers accumulates at the head of Monterey Canyon. Periodically, it collapses and forms a sediment gravity flow that surges through the submarine canyon like an underwater landslide. Because these flows move quickly and powerfully along the seafloor, they are challenging for scientists to study. Motion-sensing “smart boulders” developed by MBARI engineers have provided the first detailed look inside sediment gravity flows. MBARI researchers and our collaborators have learned that sediment gravity flows don’t just move along on top of the seafloor. These powerful landslides actually mobilize the top three meters (10 feet) of the seafloor, a finding with major implications for underwater infrastructure like cables carrying data and power to coastal communities. Learn more on our website.
The balloon worm (Poeobius meseres) hardly looks like a worm at all. It lives in the midwater—the vast expanse of open water deep below the surface and far above the seafloor. Most marine polychaete worms—the more elaborate relatives of earthworms and leeches—have a clearly segmented body. Their bodies are divided into many nearly identical, repeated parts. Typically, each of those repeated parts is studded with several stiff bristles. Poeobius, however, has a bag-like body filled with fluid that, together with its thick gelatinous coat, provides buoyancy to help it stay up in the water column effortlessly.
Poeobius is a common and very abundant resident of the midwater of Monterey Bay. It drifts through the water, collecting and eating bits of sinking organic matter in a mucous net. This little worm is actually an important part of cycling nutrients like carbon from the ocean’s surface to its depths. Learn more about these wondrous worms on our website.
Monday moment of zen with the relaxing rhythm of our favorite gelatinous zooplankton. 〰️
Sit back and relax with these soothing jellies. From tiny, delicate drifters, to giant deep-sea denizens, jellies come in a variety of beautiful and mesmerizing forms. There are many different kinds of gelatinous animals in the deep, but here we are featuring the umbrella-shaped animals that swim by pulsing a bell and usually have tentacles trailing behind their mellow flowing movement. Most people underestimate the true diversity of this dazzling group of animals. Taxonomically, they are far more varied than a handful of the most common examples used to represent “jellyfish.”
When MBARI’s remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) dive into the deep sea, we descend through flurries of tiny particles that look like snow. We call this “marine snow”—a mixture of dead plankton, waste, mucus, and other organic material slowing sinking from the ocean’s surface. In 2021, MBARI welcomed biological oceanographer Colleen Durkin to MBARI’s science team. Durkin’s research takes a closer look at marine snow to reveal the ecology of carbon export from the surface ocean into the deep sea. Her lab seeks to fill in the gaps in our understanding of the ocean’s carbon cycle by taking a closer look at marine snow. Read more about her research in this year’s Annual Report.
The latest edition of “if we don’t move Monday can’t see us."
Green bomber worms (Swima spp.) have specialized organs that explode with a burst of green bioluminescence. This impressive display is likely used to startle predators while the animal makes a speedy getaway. They live just above the seafloor and are vigorous swimmers, able to maneuver both backward and forwards.Each worm carries up to eight “bombs.” If they lose one, they can grow it back. The “bombs” may have been gills that evolutionarily transformed over time. Although these worms lack eyes, they have developed a novel bioluminescent defense mechanism. MBARI research has shown that approximately three-quarters of the animals living in the dark ocean depths are capable of producing bioluminescence.
Been watching Blue Planet documentary and got inspired to do a deep sea submarine sketch. Also a homage to Jules Verne! #sketch #sketchoftheday #artwork #sketchbook #inkdrawing #deepsea #submarine #nautical #nautilus #scifi #scifiart #ship #drawingoftheday #drawing #julesverne #artist #artoftheday #instaartist #instaart #submersible
