Who lives at the bottom of the ocean?

Who lives at the bottom of the ocean, it is known: fish, mollusks, sea worms, crustaceans and other fauna, characteristic of shallow water. But only the conditions of existence at depth are very different from the conditions of the continental shelf and the upper layers of the oceanic sequence. Therefore, the inhabitants of the depths developed protective mechanisms, thanks to which their existence became possible.

The light emission of the solar spectrum penetrates into the oceanic depth at different depths. Rays of red and orange light - no more than thirty meters, up to one hundred and eighty - yellow, up to three hundred twenty - green, to half a kilometer - blue. And although the most sensitive modern instruments have registered traces of sunlight at a depth of up to one and a half kilometers, we can state: below five hundred meters in the ocean, there is pitch darkness. All those who live on the ocean floor below this mark, have adapted to the absence of light in different ways. Some have supersensitive eyes of a telescopic type, capable of capturing a few quanta of light available to the instruments. And maybe their sensitivity is even higher and allows them to navigate where even human equipment falls. Other animals generally abandoned vision and are quite well at the same time feel themselves. And some inhabitants of the bottom have acquired the ability to radiate light on their own.

A characteristic feature of the ocean floor is poverty by food. Because of the low temperature (2-4 degrees above zero), all processes are leaking there, so the inhabitants of the ocean depths do not have a high speed of movement or increased activity in obtaining food. Almost all animals there are predators. Because of the small amount of food, deep-sea fish have acquired the ability to swallow creatures larger in size than themselves.

The ocean floor is covered with a thick layer of silt. In this regard, some of the deep-sea animals (for example, sea spiders) have long limbs, allowing them not to fall into the bottom sediments. Since many fish regularly carry out migration from the bottom up and back, it is sometimes difficult to understand where one lives. At the bottom of the ocean, huge pressure, little light, food, low temperature. Therefore, some deep-sea species meet periodically in the upper water, becoming a prey to fishermen and surprising them with their unusual appearance. Thus, for example, a drop-fish often comes into the net, having on its "face" a funny outgrowth resembling a hanging nose.

Fish on the bottom of the ocean quite often become an object of fishing, but large specimens there for understandable reasons (lack of food) are rare. For example, coal fish. Although she lives at depths of up to 2,700 meters, she often finds herself on the shelves of stores. In different countries the fish has different names. We have it - coal, in Canada - black cod, in the USA - fish-sable, in Australia - oil a fish. Among those who live on the ocean floor, this creature is simply a giant. The length of the largest specimens reaches 120 centimeters.

Life on the ocean floor is very poorly studied, and it is possible that great discoveries await us. Periodically the information that fishermen have met in the middle of ocean open spaces the unknown animal, and some even became a prey of the monster pops up. Of course, most of these messages are rumors or usual sea bikes, but not all. A hundred years ago, hardly any of the serious scientists could believe that the coelacanth - a fish that appeared long before the dinosaurs - is our contemporary. However, a little later, its existence was proved by African fishermen, who introduced scientists to a living specimen.