It's not an easy thing to see what's down on the sea floor at around 100 fathoms, so sometimes you have to settle for bringing the bizarre up to you. A longliner is actually a fairly selective means of catching fish, but other lifeforms than cod were still unintentionally caught. Most of the animals probably didn't survive a trip up from those depths (except the halibut, they are extremely tough for some reason). As a biologist, it was a great opportunity to nerd out however. There are strange fish and bizarre invertebrates down there. Here's a few.
A very strange looking sponge
This looks like it is straight out of a Dr. Seuss book
By far the smallest skate I saw
The beautiful atka mackerel
One of my favorite fish, a searcher
4 comments:
From Max:
Do you use a net, or a line on your boat?
My favorite is the same as yours: the searcher fish with the big eyes.
What is that funny thing that looks like a weird octopus at the top?
Oliver's favorite is the weird octopus thing.
I like your fish pictures.
Hi Max,
The boat fished with lines, the captain and crew would lay out very long sections of rope with hooks on it and let it sink to the bottom. Sometimes these were over 15 miles long!
The searcher was my favorite, it has blue eyes just like aunty Rachel.
The funny looking thing on top is called a Basket Star. It is sort of a cousin of a star fish (or a sea star) but has many more arms.
From Max:
Whoa! The lines are as long as 15 trips to the library from my house! Whoa!
I don't know who has prettier eyes: the searcher fish or Auntie Rachel.
I think that basket stars might live just in the deep water, or maybe they live in shallow water, too. We've never seen them in the shallow water. Do you know where they live?
That is a good guess Max. I've never seen basket stars in shallow water, which makes me think that they are a deep water creature only. There are some very strange and beautiful things on the bottom of the ocean. Scientists are still finding new things!
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