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Ocean Survey Reveals Weird Creatures
According to the scientists reports on Sunday, the permanent darkness of the ocean depths, which are completely untouched by sunlight, is found to harbors greater range of animals like tubeworms, luminous jellyfish, creatures known as “Dumbos”, living off the oil seeping from the seabed.
by Priyanka - November 23, 2009 - comments
These depths are home for nearly a 17,650 weird looking species of animals like corals, crabs or starfish, shrimps etc, which have been identified living under the water measuring down to 5 kilometers (3 miles) deep.
These findings are the latest update on 10 year survey of marine life due for completion in Oct 2010.
Robert Carney, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University, who co-leads the study of the ocean depths as part of a wider international Census of Marine Life (COML) said, “The diversity of life in the deep sea is much, much greater than we've believed.”
He told Reuters, “The abyss is not the dark hole anymore.”
5,600 new species found
There are thousands of species in depths who survives in the pitch-black darkness of the ocean depths by feeding on the snow like decaying matter.
Methane and oil or food falling from the surface like whale carcasses are also the possible source of energy for the bottom-dwellers’, as told by the reports.
The recently discovered deep-sea creatures are luminous jellyfish and creatures known as finned octopods or “Dumbos”.
Some 5,600 new species have been found on top of 230,000 already known species. According to scientists there are still million more species unknown to us.
"The deep sea was considered a desert until not so long ago; it's quite amazing to have documented close to 20,000 forms of life in a zone that was thought to be barren," said Jesse Ausubel with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a sponsor of the census. "The deep sea is the least explored environment on earth."
They also mentioned to have found 5,722 species living in under extreme depths of the water somewhere around 3,280 feet.
There are not many creatures from the above surface of the ocean depths that visit these sun deprived zone; one southern elephant seal was once registered to go 2,388 meters deep.
Tubeworms could lead to oil discovery
A team of experts in the part of the Gulf of Mexico have found a tubeworm at 990 meters deep in the sea.
With the help of a robotic arm it was lifted from the hole on the seabed, gushing out oil, because it was feeding on the decomposing oils chemicals.
"You certainly have a source or methane or liquid petroleum nearby if you find these tube worms," said Robert Carney.
Still according to him many of the scientists were “bothered by the prevalence of the view that the deep sea is of no concern" and the ongoing drive to exploit the resources in the depths are way more advanced than the knowledge of the depths or the creatures inhabiting the depths.
There’s a good chance that the Global Warming triggered by the human activities’, might also be having affects on the frigid depths.
This new discovery by the scientists is definitely big news in the world of science.