Deep sea fish -like anything that lives in an environs completely void of light environment- tend to scare the crap out of me. It's not just that I'm more afraid of sea creatures than other kinds*, it's also because their appearance is something that looks like it was evolved into some sort of terror machine through years of battling the other creepies and crawlies down there. Giant fangs. Eyes that are somehow dead and luminous at the same time. Flesh that appears either rotting or slimy or both. Cases in point:
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See what I mean? Sure, my chances of ever seeing one of these things alive is virtually nil, and even if I did, my skull would be crushed by the enormous pressure of the depths long before it could ever reach me. Hell, even if I was down there and could manage to withstand the tons of ocean water on top of me, I still wouldn't be able to see anything**. Even with all of this, I'm still immensely frightened by these things***.So, you can imagine my relief today when I read that the deepest ever filmed footage of seep sea wildlife today revealed creatures that, while still slimy and probably fanged, were "cute". That's Monty Priede from the University of Aberdeen's description, not mine. But, it's nice to see them darting around and eating shrimp, as opposed to, I dunno, my extremities. So more power to these guys. I hope they dominate the murky depths, kept in check only by the feared and mysterious giant squid.
wait a minute, what the hell are shrimp doing that deep?
*sea snakes and horseshoe crabs: my living nightmare.
**What makes you think I'd hold on to a light down there if I had one?
*** an, as with all things I'm immensely frightened of, I can't help but wonder how it would taste when properly cooked
2 comments:
I ate salmon last night. I couldn't even eat more than a mouthful because well, I hate sea food! Sort of off topic.
But I'm also skeptical of anything that crawls out of the ocean and sea snakes? Are you kidding me? Terrifying.
Secondly, what are those fish with the hanging light bulbs in front of their jaws called that dangles like a fishing rod (Rhetorical. I'll google that later)? Still scary but sort of cute. At least in cartoons.
These things are making a great case for filming Peter Watts' Rifters books - I used to think the torture scenes in the last two made that un-doable (certainly would make them unwatchable for me), but now it's pretty clear that Americans are down with torture, so, uh, yay?
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