Dark, Glowing Fishes

Can you imagine a fish whose "teeth are all on the outer edge of the lips?," "The Depths of the Sea: Strange Life Forms a Mile Below the Surface", William Beebe, National Geographic Magazine, January, 1932, photo caption, p. 64.  I've seen some comical and unbelievably weird sea creatures, but the painting of  "A new species of Lasiognahus tops them all!

Mr. Beebe admits that "When all is told of what we know at present of this no-man's-place, the combined knowledge is relatively of kindergarten amount and quality" (p. 64).  By our 2014 methods of exploration, using windowed mini-subs at depths of several miles, Mr. Beebe's work was primitive.  He took a tug boat off the coast of the Island of Bermuda (Caribbean Sea) and in three year's time, "made 271 trips and. . . hauled 1344 nets" (p. 64).  He found many species new to science.

Beebe went to the same area daily, when the weather permitted.  Depths of the ocean varied from 800 feet to 1426 feet.  After he and his crew pulled in the nets, they preserved the contents of the catch and sped toward shore.  "Some of the creatures - crustaceans and fish - are amazingly still alive, and these are at once immersed in ice water, for temperature is more important than pressure in keeping them alive."  Then, they studied "the bodies and fantastic appendages and sense organs" (p. 66) of their catch.

Conditions one mile below the surface of the ocean include darkness, cold near the freezing point of water, and a pressure of one ton per square inch.  In the darkness, Mr. Beebe notes that many fish have either developed organs for feeling, or patterns of illuminating organs, for the purposes of attracting food or mates.

"The majority of these deep-sea chaps have dislocatable jaws and a stomach capacity which may exceed by three times the total dimensions of the entire fish" (p. 69).  "Next to fish, the most amazing group of deep-sea animals are the squids, first cousins of the snail. . . so varied are their shapes, color, intricate masses of light organs, and most astonishing of all their eyes, which are large and as well developed as those of a bird or deer" (p. 70).

"Numerically, the dominant forms of life below water are the crustaceans - shrimps, prawns," etc. (p. 70).  Due to the absence of all plant life at the depth of one mile, all species are carnivorous.

The paintings Mr. Beebe contributed to the article are truly unique.  In color, the creatures are depicted feeding on smaller fish from several different angles.  A black fish, Lamprotoxus flagelibarba, possesses a string-like appendage extending from the center of its chin "seven times its entire length' (photo caption, p. 75).  A zebra-striped starfish showed five arms so long and thin they appeared to be octopus arms.  Some of the fish in the 8-page colored section were transparent.

FYI: What is an "ichthyologist?": a zoologist who studies fishes.

The last photograph in this article displayed a "Transparent Leaf Larva of a Spiny Lobster.  This creature is thin as paper, transparent as glass, and beautiful as a snow crystal" (photo caption, p. 88).

Certainly I appreciate these articles devoted to animal life, and appreciate our modern methods of science even more now that I have learned of their primitive sources and development.