Wonders

The "Manta Ray" is a giant fish that lives in great depth. It is eight meters across and two tons in weight. What's interesting is that it has a blade-like projection on its head that directs the planktons to the manta's mouth.

Our night ends and dawn returns back to the ocean. Planktons go back to the depths. As known, the more you go deep pressure builds and temperature decreases. Below 500 meters, mysterious animals appear. Their bizarre shapes help them to survive in the dark space. Some looks like creatures from shallower waters and others defy classifications.

Like winter on the land, there is a "Marine Snow" in the deep ocean. The difference is that in summer and spring, when life flourishes in the ocean, there is more amounts of snow. Why? The marine snow is the result of the debris from the swimming creatures in the sunlit waters above.

It is also kind of food for animals down there, for example, the "Sea Spider". It has strange legs-like appendages which are feathered to prevent it from sinking.

Food is seldom there and nothing can afford to waste away energy. The more you go deeper, the more you find more mysterious creatures that are living around 300 and 400 meters. Here comes the weirdest of the animals "Vampyroteuthis", the vampire squid from hell. It has special defense. Besides, it has its own light. This light is produced because of the bioluminescent bacteria that shine from pockets on its arm in order to confuse its hunter.

Finally, we reach the sea floor, two miles down and the pressure is 300 times at the surface. It takes several months for the marine snow to reach this great depth. Although people think that no way life can exist at such unbelievable depth and blackness, the faint trails signs that there is life. There are the "Sea Urchins" and the "Shrimps" that stand on an elegant tiptoe to select the particles that appeal to them.

According to the rule of life, wherever there is a grazer, there are hunters. One of those hunters is the "Monkfish". It is indistinguishable from the sand it lies on. The monkfish doesn't exert any effort to get its food. So it can wait for days until the right size prey comes to it.

Unlike the monkfish, the "Scavengers" crabs have to move in order to find its food. And when this happens (find a corpse of a fish), there is a frenzy competition between all kinds of crabs takes place to have a share.

Here we come to the end of our journey in these vast, empty oceans that we don't know about. Hope that you start to discover the wonders around you and enjoy the pleasures of knowing. As at some point you must stop and see what you are missing.