The underwater world is mysterious and unique. It contains secrets that have not yet been solved by man. We invite you to get acquainted with the most unusual sea creatures and plunge into the unknown depths water world and see her beauty.
1. Atoll Jellyfish (Atolla vanhoeffeni)
The unusually beautiful Atoll jellyfish lives at such depths where sunlight does not penetrate. In times of danger, it can glow, attracting large predators. Jellyfish do not seem tasty to them, and predators eat their enemies with pleasure. 
This jellyfish is capable of emitting a bright red glow, which is a consequence of the breakdown of proteins in its body. As a rule, large jellyfish are dangerous creatures, but you should not be afraid of the Atoll, because its habitat is where no swimmer can reach.
2. Blue Angel (Glaucus atlanticus)
This very tiny mollusk rightfully deserves its name; it seems to float on the water surface. To become lighter and stay at the very edge of the water, it swallows air bubbles from time to time. 
These unusual creatures have an unusual body shape. They are blue above and silver below. It is not for nothing that nature has provided such camouflage - the Blue Angel remains unnoticed by birds and sea predators. A thick layer of mucus around the mouth allows it to feed on small, poisonous sea creatures.
3. Harp sponge (Chondrocladia lyra)
This mysterious marine predator has not yet been sufficiently studied. The structure of its body resembles a harp, hence the name. The sponge is inactive. It clings to the sediment of the seabed and hunts by gluing small underwater inhabitants to its sticky tips. 
The harp sponge covers its prey with a bactericidal film and gradually digests it. There are individuals with two or more lobes, which are connected in the center of the body. The more blades, the more food the sponge will catch.
4. Dumbo Octopus (Grimpoteuthis)
The octopus got its name because of its resemblance to the Disney hero, Dumbo the elephant, although it has a semi-gelatinous body of rather modest size. Its fins resemble elephant ears. He waves them around as he swims, which looks quite funny. 
Not only the “ears” help to move, but also the peculiar funnels located on the octopus’ body, through which it releases water under pressure. Dumbo lives at very great depths, so we don’t know much about him. Its diet consists of all kinds of mollusks and worms.
Octopus Dumbo
5. Yeti Crab (Kiwa hirsuta)
The name of this animal speaks for itself. A crab covered with white shaggy fur actually resembles Bigfoot. It lives in cold waters at such depths where there is no access to light, so it is completely blind. 
These amazing animals grow microorganisms on their claws. Some scientists believe that the crab needs these bacteria to purify the water from toxic substances, others suggest that the crabs grow their own food on the bristles.
6. Short-snouted pipistrelle (Ogcocephalus)
This fashionable fish with bright red lips can't swim at all. Living at a depth of more than two hundred meters, it has a flat body covered with a shell and fin-like legs, thanks to which the short-snouted bat slowly walks along the bottom. 
It obtains food using a special growth - a kind of retractable fishing rod with an odorous bait that attracts prey. The discreet coloring and spiked shell help the fish hide from predators. Perhaps this is the funniest animal among the inhabitants of the world's oceans.
7. Sea slug Felimare Picta
Felimare Picta is one of the species sea slugs, living in the waters of the Mediterranean. He looks very extravagant. The yellow-blue body seems to be surrounded by a delicate airy frill. 
Felimare Picta, although a mollusk, does without a shell. And why does he need her? In case of danger sea slug has something much more interesting. For example, acidic sweat that is released on the surface of the body. It's really bad luck for anyone who wants to treat themselves to this mysterious mollusk!
8. Flamingo tongue clam (Cyphoma gibbosum)
This creature is found on the western coast of the Atlantic Ocean. Having a brightly colored mantle, the mollusk completely covers its plain shell with it and thus protects it from negative influence marine organisms. 
Like common snail, “Flamingo tongue” hides in its shell in case of impending danger. By the way, the mollusk received this name due to its bright color with characteristic spots. It prefers poisonous gongonaria as food. While eating, the snail absorbs the poison of its prey, after which it becomes poisonous itself.
9. Leafy sea dragon (Phycodurus eques)
The sea dragon is a true virtuoso of mimicry. It is all covered with “leaves”, which help it appear invisible against the backdrop of the underwater landscape. It is interesting that such abundant vegetation does not help the dragon move at all. Only two tiny fins located on its chest and back are responsible for its speed. The leaf dragon is a predator. It feeds by sucking prey into itself. 
Dragons feel comfortable in the shallow waters of warm seas. And these sea inhabitants are also known as excellent fathers, because it is the males who bear the offspring and take care of them.
10. Salps (Salpidae)
Salps are invertebrates Marine life, which have a barrel-shaped body, through the transparent shell of which are visible internal organs. 
In the ocean depths, animals form long chains of colonies, which are easily broken even by a minor wave shock. Salps reproduce by budding.
11. Piglet squid (Helicocranchia pfefferi)
This strange and little-studied underwater creature resembles “Piglet” from the famous cartoon. The completely transparent body of the piglet squid is covered with pigment spots, the combination of which sometimes gives it a cheerful appearance. Around the eyes there are so-called photophores - organs of luminescence. 
This mollusk is leisurely. It's funny that the piggy squid moves upside down, which is why its tentacles look like forelocks. He lives at a depth of one hundred meters.
12. Ribbon moray eel (Rhinomuraena guaesita)
This underwater inhabitant quite unusual. Throughout its life, the ribbon moray eel is capable of changing sex and color three times, depending on the stages of its development. So, when the individual is still immature, it is colored black or dark blue.The ocean is a boundless expanse of trillions of liters of salt water. Thousands of species of living beings have found refuge here. Some of them are heat-loving and live at shallow depths so as not to miss the rays of the sun. Others are accustomed to the cold waters of the Arctic and try to avoid warm currents. There are even those who live at the bottom of the ocean, adapting to the conditions of the harsh world.
The latest representatives are biggest mystery for scientists. After all, just recently they could not even think that someone could survive in such extreme conditions. Moreover, evolution has awarded these living organisms with a number of unprecedented features.
Beneath the oceans
For a long time there was a theory that there is no life at the bottom of the ocean. The reason for this is the low water temperature, as well as high pressure, capable of compressing submarine, like a soda can. And yet, some creatures were able to withstand these circumstances and confidently settled at the very edge of a bottomless abyss.
So who lives at the bottom of the ocean? First of all, these are bacteria, traces of which were found at a depth of more than 5 thousand meters. But if microscopic creatures are unlikely to surprise ordinary person, then giant clams and monster fish deserve due attention.
How did you find out about those who live at the bottom of the ocean?
With the development of submarines, diving to a depth of two kilometers became possible. This allowed scientists to look into a world hitherto unprecedented and amazing. Each dive provided an opportunity to discover yet another and see more and more new species.
A fast development digital technologies have made it possible to create ultra-durable cameras capable of filming underwater. Thanks to this, the world saw photographs depicting animals living at the bottom of the ocean.
And every year scientists go deeper and deeper in the hope of new discoveries. And they happen - for last decade many surprising conclusions have been made. In addition, hundreds, or even thousands of photographs depicting the inhabitants of the deep sea were posted online.
Creatures living at the bottom of the ocean
Well, it's time to go on a little journey into the mysterious depths. Having passed the threshold of 200 meters, it is difficult to distinguish even small silhouettes, and after 500 meters pitch darkness sets in. From this moment begins the possessions of those who are indifferent to light and warmth.
It is at this depth that you can find polychaete worm who drifts from place to place in search of profit. In the light of the lamps it shimmers with all the colors of the rainbow, the word is made of silver plates. There is a row of tentacles on its head, thanks to which it orients itself in space and senses the approach of prey.
But the worm itself is food for another inhabitant underwater world - angelfish. This amazing creature belongs to the class gastropods and is a predator. It gets its name from the two large fins that wrap around its sides like wings.
If you go even deeper, you can stumble upon the queen of jellyfish. Hairy Cyanea, or Lion's Mane- the largest representative of its species. Large individuals reach 2 meters in diameter, and their tentacles can stretch almost 20 meters.
Who else lives at the bottom of the ocean? This is a squat lobster. According to scientists, it can adapt to life even at a depth of 5 thousand meters. Thanks to its flattened body, it can easily withstand pressure, and its long legs allow it to move along the muddy ocean floor without any problems.
Deep-sea fish representatives
Over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, fish living on the ocean floor have been able to adapt to existence without sun rays. Moreover, some of them have even learned to produce their own light.
So, at around 1 thousand meters there lives a monkfish. There is a process on its head that emits a slight glow that attracts other fish. Because of this, it is also called the “European anglerfish”. At the same time, it can change its color, thereby merging with the environment.
Another representative deep sea creatures is a blob fish. Her body resembles jelly, which allows her to withstand pressure at great depths. It feeds exclusively on plankton, which makes it harmless to its neighbors.
At the bottom of the oceans lives a stargazer fish, the second name is the celestial eye. The reason for this pun was that the eyes are always directed upward, as if looking out for the stars. Her body is covered with poisonous spines, and near her head there are tentacles that can paralyze the victim.
DEEP-SEA ANIMALS, inhabitants of the World Ocean at depths from 200 to 11,022 m (Mariana Trench). There are faunas of the slope (bathial), the ocean floor (abyssal) and oceanic trenches (ultra-abyssal, or hadal, with a depth of more than 6000 m). The ocean floor accounts for about 55% of the Earth's surface and is the largest and least studied biotope. Great depths are characterized by high pressure (increases by 1 atmosphere every 10 m), lack of light, low temperature (2-4 ° C), lack of food and a bottom covered with thin silty sediment. The main source of nutrients coming from the upper horizons of the water column are flows of organomineral particles and lumps (“sea snow”), as well as the remains of (pelagic) animals living in the water column (“rain of corpses”); in high latitudes, the sedimentation of phytodetritus plays an important role, especially intense during the period of “blooming” of water (in 3-4 days its flow reaches the bottom, forming a continuous layer up to 3 cm thick). The characteristics of the animal world of great depths are determined by living conditions. Thus, the most striking difference between deep-sea animals is the simplification of their organization and the presence of devices for holding on semi-liquid soil (flat body shape, long limbs - stilts, etc.). Among planktonic organisms there are many transparent forms. Bioluminescence is widely used for illumination and lure of prey (angler fish), camouflage, warning, scaring off or distracting predators (shrimp from the genus Acanthephyra and cuttlefish from the genus Netherotheutis release clouds of luminous liquid as a smoke screen), as well as to attract individuals of the opposite sex (barnacle crustaceans, octopuses of the genus Japetella). There is counter-illumination - “illumination” from below, making the organism invisible in dim lighting from above (in squid, shrimp, fish). Many pelagic crustaceans have a red coloration, which performs a protective function, since the visual organs of deep-sea predators do not perceive red color.
Among the large forms living on the bottom, echinoderms, crustaceans, mollusks, and polychaete worms dominate. Maximum species diversity (perhaps even greater than in humid tropical forest) are distinguished by small animals (meiobenthos) with a size of 30-500 microns, among which nematodes and crayfish from the order Harpacticoids dominate. For macrobenthos there is an increase species diversity with depth. For example, in the North Atlantic greatest number species of polychaete worms, gastropods and bivalves and cumaceous crayfish occur at a depth of 2000-3000 m.
Below 10,000 m there are foraminifera, scyphoids of the genus Stephanoscyphus, sea anemones of the genus Galatheanthemum, nematodes of the genus Desmoscolex, polychaetes of the subfamily Macellicephalinae, echiurids of the genus Vitjazema, harpacticoids of the genus Bradya, isopods of the genus Macrostylis, amphipods of the genus Hirondella, bivalves of the genus Para yoldiella and Vesicomya, holothurians of the genus Prototrochus. At a depth of 6000-7000 m, long-tailed and lipariform fish live; at a depth of over 8000 m, erroneous fish are noted. Population density per great depths usually small, but aggregations of animals are known, for example, the holothurian Kolga hyalina in the North Atlantic at a depth of 3800 m. Most deep-sea animals settle with the help of larvae: either self-feeding (planktotrophic) or possessing a supply of nutrients (lecithotrophic). Floating high above the bottom (sometimes for kilometers), they are transported by deep-sea currents. Some deep-sea animals have developed viviparity and gestation of young. See also Hydrothermal fauna.
Lit.: Belyaev G.M. Deep-sea oceanic trenches and their fauna. M., 1989; Gage I. D., Tyler R. A. Deep-sea biology: a natural history of organisms at the deep-sea floor. Camb., 1991; Ecosystems of the deep ocean / Ed. R. A. Tyler. Amst.; L., 2003.
In the depths of the sea and ocean there is great amount all kinds of creatures that amaze with their sophisticated defense mechanisms, the ability to adapt, and, of course, their appearance. This is a whole universe that has not yet been fully explored. In this rating, we have collected the most unusual representatives of the depths, from beautifully colored fish to creepy monsters.
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Our rating of the most unusual inhabitants of the depths opens with the dangerous and at the same time amazing lion fish, also known as the striped lionfish or zebra fish. This cute creature, about 30 centimeters long, spends most of its time among the corals in a motionless state, and only from time to time swims from one place to another. Thanks to its beautiful and unusual coloring, as well as long fan-shaped pectoral and dorsal fins, this fish attracts the attention of both people and marine life.
However, behind the beauty of the color and shape of its fins are hidden sharp and poisonous needles, with which it protects itself from enemies. The lion fish itself does not attack first, but if a person accidentally touches it or steps on it, then one injection from such a needle will sharply worsen his health. If there are several injections, then the person will need outside help to swim to the shore, as the pain can become unbearable and lead to loss of consciousness.
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This is a small sea bony fish family of sea pipes of the order Acicularis. Seahorses lead a sedentary lifestyle; they attach their flexible tails to stems, and thanks to numerous spines, outgrowths on the body and iridescent colors, they completely blend into the background. This is how they protect themselves from predators and camouflage themselves while hunting for food. Skates eat small crustaceans and shrimp. The tubular stigma acts like a pipette - the prey is drawn into the mouth along with water.
The body of seahorses in water is located unconventionally for fish - vertically or diagonally. The reason for this is the relatively large swim bladder, most of which is located in the upper part of the body seahorse. The difference between seahorses and other species is that their offspring are carried by the male. On its abdomen it has a special brood chamber in the form of a sac, which plays the role of a uterus. Seahorses are very fertile animals, and the number of embryos borne in a male’s pouch ranges from 2 to several thousand. Childbirth for a male is often painful and can result in death.
13
This representative of the depths is a relative of the previous participant in the rating - the seahorse. Foliar sea Dragon, rag picker or sea pegasus is an unusual fish, so named for its fantastic appearance - translucent delicate greenish fins cover its body and constantly sway from the movement of water. Although these processes look like fins, they do not take part in swimming, but serve only for camouflage. The length of this creature reaches 35 centimeters, and it lives in only one place - off the southern coast of Australia. The rag picker swims slowly, its maximum speed is up to 150 m/h. Just like seahorses, the offspring are carried by males in a special pouch formed during spawning along the lower surface of the tail. The female lays eggs in this pouch and all care of the offspring falls on the father.
12
The frilled shark is a species of shark that looks much more like a strange sea snake or eel. From the Jurassic, the frilled predator has not changed at all over millions of years of existence. It got its name from the presence of a brown formation on its body, which resembles a cape. It is also called the corrugated shark due to the numerous folds of skin on its body. Such peculiar folds on its skin, according to scientists, are a reserve of body volume to accommodate large prey in the stomach.
After all, the frilled shark swallows its prey mainly whole, since the needle-like tips of its teeth curved inside the mouth are not capable of crushing and grinding food. The frilled shark lives in the bottom layer of water in all oceans except the Arctic Ocean, at a depth of 400-1200 meters; it is a typical deep-sea predator. The frilled shark can reach 2 meters in length, but the usual sizes are smaller - 1.5 meters for females and 1.3 meters for males. This species lays eggs: the female gives birth to 3-12 young. Gestation of embryos can last up to two years.
11
This type of crustacean from the infraorder crabs is one of the most major representatives arthropods: large individuals reach 20 kilograms, 45 centimeters in carapace length and 4 m in the span of the first pair of legs. Lives mainly in Pacific Ocean off the coast of Japan at a depth of 50 to 300 meters. It feeds on shellfish and leftovers and is believed to live up to 100 years. The survival rate among the larvae is very small, so females spawn more than 1.5 million of them. During the process of evolution, the front two legs turned into large claws that can reach a length of 40 centimeters. Despite such a formidable weapon, Japanese spider crab non-aggressive and has a calm character. It is even used in aquariums as an ornamental animal.
10
These large deep-sea crayfish can grow more than 50 cm in length. The largest recorded specimen weighed 1.7 kilograms and was 76 centimeters long. Their body is covered with hard plates that are softly connected to each other. This armor design provides good mobility, so giant isopods can curl up into a ball when they sense danger. Rigid plates reliably protect the crayfish’s body from deep-sea predators. Quite often they are found in Blackpool, England, and they are not uncommon in other places on the planet. These animals live at depths from 170 to 2,500 m. Most of prefers to keep the entire population at a depth of 360-750 meters.
They prefer to live on the clay bottom alone. Isopods are carnivorous and can hunt for slow-moving prey at the bottom - sea cucumbers, sponges, and possibly small fish. They also do not disdain carrion, which sinks to the seabed from the surface. Since there is not always enough food at such great depths, and finding it in pitch darkness is not an easy task, isopods have adapted to do without food for a long time. It is known for sure that cancer is capable of fasting for 8 weeks in a row.
9
The purple tremoctopus or blanket octopus is a very unusual octopus. Although, octopuses in general strange creatures- they have three hearts, poisonous saliva, the ability to change the color and texture of their skin, and their tentacles are able to perform certain actions without instructions from the brain. However, the purple tremoctopus is the strangest of them all. For starters, we can say that the female is 40,000 times heavier than the male! The male is only 2.4 centimeters long and lives almost like plankton, while the female reaches 2 m in length. When the female is frightened, she can expand the cape-like membrane located between the tentacles, which visually increases her size and makes her look even more dangerous. It is also interesting that the blanket octopus is immune to jellyfish venom Portuguese man of war; Moreover, the intelligent octopus sometimes tears off the jellyfish's tentacles and uses them as weapons.
8
Drop fish - deep-sea bottom fish sea fish family Psycholuteaceae, which due to its unattractive appearance often called one of the most scary fish on the planet. These fish supposedly live at depths of 600-1200 m off the coast of Australia and Tasmania, where they are found Lately Fishermen began to increasingly reach the surface, which is why this species of fish is endangered. The blobfish consists of a gelatinous mass with a density slightly less than the density of water itself. This allows the blobfish to swim at such depths without expending large quantities.
Lack of muscles is not a problem for this fish. She swallows almost everything edible that floats in front of her, lazily opening her mouth. It feeds mainly on mollusks and crustaceans. Even though the blobfish is not edible, it is endangered. Fishermen, in turn, sell this fish as a souvenir. Blobfish populations are recovering slowly. It takes 4.5 to 14 years for the blobfish population to double.
7 Sea urchin
Sea urchins are very ancient animals of the echinoderm class that inhabited the Earth already 500 million years ago. On this moment known around 940 modern species sea urchins. The body size of a sea urchin varies from 2 to 30 centimeters and is covered with rows of calcareous plates that form a dense shell. According to body shape sea urchins divided into correct and incorrect. U the right hedgehogs body shape is almost round. U wrong hedgehogs The body shape is flattened, and the anterior and posterior ends of the body are distinguishable. Spines of various lengths are movably connected to the shell of sea urchins. The length ranges from 2 millimeters to 30 centimeters. Spines often serve sea urchins for movement, nutrition and protection.
Some species that are distributed mainly in tropical and subtropical regions of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic oceans have poisonous needles. Sea urchins are bottom crawling or burrowing animals that usually live at a depth of about 7 meters and are widespread on coral reefs. Sometimes some individuals can crawl onto. Correct sea urchins prefer rocky surfaces; incorrect - soft and sandy soil. Hedgehogs reach sexual maturity in the third year of life, and live about 10-15 years, up to a maximum of 35.
6
Largemouth lives in the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans at depths from 500 to 3000 meters. The body of the largemouth is long and narrow, in appearance it resembles an eel 60 cm, sometimes up to 1 meter. Due to the giant stretching mouth, reminiscent of the beak bag of a pelican, it has a second name - pelican fish. The length of the mouth is almost 1/3 of the total body length, the rest is thin body, passing into the caudal filament, at the end of which there is a luminous organ. The largemouth does not have scales, a swim bladder, ribs, an anal fin or a full-fledged bone skeleton.
Their skeleton consists of several deformed bones and light cartilage. Therefore, these fish are quite light. They have a tiny skull and small eyes. Due to poorly developed fins, these fish cannot swim quickly. Due to the size of its mouth, this fish is capable of swallowing prey that is larger than itself. The swallowed victim ends up in the stomach, which can stretch up to huge size. The pelican fish feeds on other deep-sea fish and crustaceans that can be found at such depths.
5
The sac-eater or black eater is a deep-sea representative of perciformes from the suborder chiasmodidae, living at a depth of 700 to 3000 meters. This fish grows up to 30 centimeters in length and is found throughout tropical and subtropical waters. This fish got its name from its ability to swallow prey several times its size. This is possible due to the very elastic stomach and the absence of ribs. A bagworm can easily swallow fish 4 times longer and 10 times heavier than its body.
This fish has very large jaws, and on each of them the front three teeth form sharp fangs, with which it holds the victim when it pushes it into its stomach. As the prey decomposes, a lot of gas is released inside the bagworm's stomach, which brings the fish to the surface, where some black gobblers have been found with swollen bellies. It is not possible to observe the animal in its natural habitat, so very little is known about its life.
4
This lizard-headed creature belongs to the deep-sea lizard-heads that live in the tropical and subtropical seas of the world, at depths from 600 to 3500 meters. Its length reaches 50-65 centimeters. Outwardly, it is very reminiscent of long-extinct dinosaurs in a reduced form. It is considered the deepest sea predator, devouring everything that comes in its way. Bathysaurus even has teeth on its tongue. At such a depth, it is quite difficult for this predator to find a mate, but this is not a problem for it, since the bathysaurus is a hermaphrodite, that is, it has both male and female sexual characteristics.
3
Smallmouth macropinna, or barrel eye - species deep sea fish, sole representative of the genus Macropinna, belonging to the order Smelt-like. These amazing fish a transparent head through which they can watch prey with their tubular eyes. It was discovered in 1939, and lives at a depth of 500 to 800 meters, and therefore has not been well studied. Fish in their normal habitat are usually motionless, or move slowly in a horizontal position.
Previously, the principle of operation of the eyes was not clear, since the fish’s olfactory organs are located above the mouth, and the eyes are located inside transparent head and can only look up. Green color The eyes of this fish are caused by the presence of a specific yellow pigment in them. It is believed that this pigment provides special filtering of light coming from above and reduces its brightness, allowing the fish to discern the bioluminescence of potential prey.
In 2009, scientists found that thanks to special structure eye muscles, these fish are able to move their cylindrical eyes from the vertical position in which they are usually located, to the horizontal position when they are directed forward. In this case, the mouth is in the field of view, which provides an opportunity to capture prey. Zooplankton was found in the macropinna's stomach different sizes, including small cnidarians and crustaceans, as well as siphonophore tentacles along with cnidocytes. Taking this into account, we can come to the conclusion that the continuous transparent membrane above the eyes of this species evolved evolutionarily as a way of protecting cnidarians from cnidocytes.
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The first place in our ranking of the most unusual inhabitants of the depths was taken by a deep-sea monster called an anglerfish or devil fish. These are scary and unusual fish They live at great depths, from 1500 to 3000 meters. They are characterized by a spherical, laterally flattened body shape and the presence of a “fishing rod” in females. The skin is black or dark brown, naked; in several species it is covered with transformed scales - spines and plaques; ventral fins are absent. There are 11 known families, including almost 120 species.
The anglerfish is a predatory sea fish. A special growth on his back helps him hunt other inhabitants of the underwater world - one feather from dorsal fin during evolution, it separated from the others, and a transparent sac formed at its end. In this sac, which is actually a gland with liquid, surprisingly, there are bacteria. They may or may not glow, obeying their master in this matter. The anglerfish regulates the luminosity of bacteria by expanding or contracting blood vessels. Some members of the anglerfish family adapt even more sophisticatedly, acquiring a folding fishing rod or growing one right in their mouth, while others have glowing teeth.
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