Creatures from The Deep
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| Toad fish: The bulbous body and gaping mouth of Chaunax suttkusi has earned it the common name toad fish. It was found on the shores of an extremely salty underwater pool in the Gulf of Mexico, which stays in place because the extra salt makes it heavier than the water around it. Courtesy of Sonke Johnsen lab, Duke University |
Duke biologist Sonke Johnsen collects photos of strange ocean creatures. He studies the role of vision and light in the lives of animals, particularly those living in the deep sea, beyond the reach of sunlight. On research cruises at sea, Johnsen captures photos of the strange and wonderful creatures he encounters, some of which are presented in the slideshow below.
When there's nothing to hide behind in the water column, sea creatures use a variety of strategies to survive in their eat-or-be-eaten world, including transparency, fast-changing camouflage and artificial lights. Johnsen says nature's weird and wonderful diversity never fails to make him smile, and he thinks it all comes back to light.
"Essentially indefinable, (light) is the ultimate food for our planet’s life and allows us to perceive the world in nearly magical detail and diversity," Johnsen writes in the introduction to his new text, The Optics of Life, A biologist's guide to light in nature, (Princeton University Press).
"Via warmth, vision, and photosynthesis, and its darker aspects such as radiation damage, light interacts fundamentally with nearly all forms of life,” he says. “Only certain subterranean species may be free from its influence."
View slideshow: http://today.duke.edu/2012/01/johnsenslideshow#slideshow
