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The Deep Sea Midnight Zone | Worlds of the Deep, a collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute Into the Midnight Zone: Secrets of the Ocean Void
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The Deep Sea Midnight Zone | Worlds of the Deep, a collaboration with Schmidt Ocean Institute Into the Midnight Zone: Secrets of the Ocean Void
#SeaDocumentary
#wooglobe
#heartsome
#pufferfishrescue
#oceanheroes
#goodhumans
#sealiferescue
#kindnessmatters
#marineanimals
#seahelp
#SpyInTheOcean
#Giantwaves
#ForYou
#SHARK
#ENCOUNTER
#Diving
#whaleshark
#Sea
#Atlantic
#northsea
#ship
#waves
#Deep sea creatures
Giant waves and ships at the North Sea,
Giant Mysterious Sea Creatures,
Most Awesome Underwater,
Deep sea creatures,
For you,
Giant waves,
Giant ships
wooglobe,
heart some,
puffer fish rescue,
ocean heroes,
good humans,
sea life rescue,
kindness matters,
marine animals,
sea help,
Viral sea animal,
amazing sea animal,
Planet Earth,
Blue Planet,
Spy In The Ocean,
Atlantic ocean View,
Mendenhall Glacier,
Explore Juneau we navigate through an Alaskan summer,
Atlantic ocean View,
Bermuda Triangle,
Category
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TravelTranscript
00:00Like this one.
00:04ROV Sebastian, a robot owned and operated by Schmidt Ocean Institute.
00:11It is the size of a small car.
00:18And depth rated to four and a half kilometers,
00:22its range covers the entirety of the Midnight Zone.
00:30Controlled from the surface vessel via a tether, Sebastian shines a light on the deep
00:40and reveals a glimpse at the veiled expanse beneath the ocean surface.
00:45As the ROV descends into the Midnight Zone, we begin to encounter obscurities unlike anything observed near the surface.
01:06Some are so small that they are barely visible to the naked eye.
01:20And others are giants.
01:29This is a place of pure darkness.
01:32Too deep for any light at all to penetrate.
01:34It's a harsh environment, where the large physical distance from the plankton that form the base of food webs limits the abundance of animals that the Midnight Zone can support.
01:45Life here must find a way to function in a cold, dark abyss, where temperatures do not exceed four degrees Celsius,
01:58and withstand extreme hydrostatic pressure that ranges from 100 atmospheres at the top of the zone to 400 at the bottom.
02:06In spite of these challenges, animals must make compromises and push their morphology and physiologies to the extreme,
02:17in order to avoid predators, find food, and locate mates amidst a massive pitch-black void.
02:24And so, a set of surreal adaptations are employed.
02:37Soft bodies, like that of the Cuskeel, can withstand the crushing pressures that would damage or kill most other creatures.
02:45Metabolisms are slowed dramatically.
02:56Time ticks to a slower tune here.
03:01It's the patient and the slow that grow old.
03:05Greenland sharks, belonging to the sleeper shark family, are known to live for centuries, 2,200 metres down in the cold depths of the Arctic Ocean,
03:21and growing longer than great whites, up to 7 metres.
03:24Like many animals down here, they exhibit a phenomenon called deep-sea gigantism,
03:35the tendency of deep-sea creatures to grow to sizes far exceeding those of their shallow water counterparts.
03:45Predators belong to a trophic niche you'd expect to be unsustainable in a place like this,
03:50where food is scarce enough already for the detritivores.
03:55So, to conserve energy, predators adopt sit-and-wait tactics, using the dark to their advantage.
04:04A comb jelly casts a net of tentacles lined not with stinging cells, but sticky collar blasts,
04:20that capture prey like a spider's web.
04:50Instead of feeding them, they produce the correct, they produce a Essie.
04:54They cause a lot of things to save, and become safe in spreading air.
04:55A lot of things to have been crucified...
04:56Until they have been damaged, they produce light once they finally get back to their own stock.
04:57After all, the objects to go to the bleachers have been damaged after a certain time.
05:00When they do not look too high, they are still in the negative way.
05:02Strips of fine hair-like cilia run the length of the body,
05:06and are beat synchronously, allowing the jelly to swim,
05:10and refracting light in shimmering waves.
05:15They also produce light of their own from special cells called photocytes.
05:20Bioluminescence, perhaps as a means of lowering prey.
05:33A lubate comb jelly lacks sticky tentacles.
05:38It uses its cilia to create a feeding current, engulfing prey.
05:50While in the twilight zone, bioluminescence is used to hide.
06:04Here, it instead gives a voice to the lonely wanderers of this midnight world.
06:09A female anglerfish wields a lure called an esca, filled with bioluminescent bacteria,
06:22and poised at the tip of a modified dorsal fin ray called an elysium.
06:28Encounters between anglerfishes happen so rarely that many have gone to extreme lengths to maximise their reproductive success.
06:36They exhibit exceptional sexual dimorphism.
06:42The males display no esca, and are dwarfed in size by the females.
06:47Yet possess large eyes and nostrils that allow them to detect the species-specific pheromones of the female.
06:53And once he finds her, a male will develop a pincer-like pair of denticles in his jaw, and latch on permanently to the female's body.
07:06Their circulatory systems combine, and the male reduces to nothing more than a shrivelled, sperm-producing sac, nourished and sustained by the female's blood.
07:17Efficiency is key in the ocean, and every aspect of an organism's anatomy and behaviour is optimised to solve the challenges they face.
07:30Body shapes make a world of difference, depending on the environment they inhabit.
07:36In the sunlit waters of the high seas, predatory fish spend most of their lives on the hunt.
07:56Water is 800 times more dense and 50 times more viscous than air, making it a challenge to move through.
08:07For a predator, it helps to be streamlined, with a rigid forked tail like that of the tuna.
08:13This is a fusiform body type.
08:17It minimises inertial drag and allows tuna to migrate more than 15,000 kilometres in a year, at times reaching 43 miles per hour.
08:33Fishes of the reef are compressed.
08:36They require agility, not speed, and so are flattened side to side for quick accurate turns, and darting among coral and rock.
08:50On the sandy sea floor, fish are flattened, with depressiform bodies.
09:00On the sandy sea floor, fish are flattened, with the sea floor, with the sea floor, with the sea floor, with the sea floor.
09:14But what about here, in the ocean's midnight void?
09:18Food is too scarce to support streamlined predators.
09:22There is no rock to dart among for cover, nor any floor for miles.
09:30There are two body types that seem to dominate.
09:36Rounded globiform fish, like anglers, are suited not for sustained swimming, but floating in weight of prey to come within reach.
09:45Others, like the sawtooth eel, are elongate and flexible.
10:02Anguilliform.
10:05This form not only allows it to conceal its silhouette by hanging vertically when it ventures into twilight waters,
10:19but enables it to move in a series of sinuous waves that pass along the body,
10:25and produce propulsive thrust for efficient swimming.
10:28The snipe eel moves in a similar way, but is thinner and more thread-shaped, with a body type known as phyloform.
10:46The jaws of its bird-like beak curve away from each other at their tips,
10:52covered with tiny, hooked, backward-pointing teeth for trapping minute crustaceans like shrimp,
10:58as it sweeps through the water, permanently agape.
11:01The snipe eel also boasts the most vertebrae of any animal on Earth, with more than 700 along its metre and a half long body.
11:14As fishes like these move, flexible throughout their entire length,
11:28the undulatory wave passes backward with increasing amplitude and speed,
11:33producing the highest propulsive thrust in the tail.
11:38It offers the most efficient method of locomotion in a place so starved of energy,
11:59without compromising on speed as the anglers have.
12:01Not being restricted to sit and wait tactics unlocks an assortment of feeding behaviours for anguiliform fishes.
12:14Like the oversized mouth of the gulper eel, it is larger than the rest of the body,
12:20and can be opened wide enough to scoop up shoals of shrimp or swallow animals much larger than itself.
12:26A pouch-like lower jaw holds the prey, while its stomach distends within to accommodate and digest the feast.
12:37There is a clear trend too in the colour of fishes here compared to the twilight zone.
12:44The shimmering silvery fishes are fewer, and instead a host of dark brown or black fishes prevail.
12:56Many boast an adaptation called ultra-blackness, with a surface covered in melanosomes containing extraordinarily high concentrations of the pigment melanin,
13:08that reflects, in some instances, less than half a percent of the light that falls upon them.
13:17It's in stark contrast to the reflective guanine crystals that allow silvering in fishes of the twilight zone,
13:23where being so dark would only make their silhouettes stand out in the sun's residual glow.
13:31Down here, it's a superpower.
13:35Light organs, located beneath each eye of this shiny loose-jawed dragonfish,
13:42produce red bioluminescence that serves as a searchlight.
13:45Pray that a bright red in colour, which typically appear black down here, stick out like a sore thumb in the red glow.
14:00The black-bellied dragonfish forgoes ultra-blackness in favour of brassy bronze skin,
14:05using a bioluminescent barbell on its chin that acts like an angler's lure.
14:09The large, backward-facing teeth of the toothy viperfish are too large to fit inside its mouth,
14:26but they act like a cage, ensuring prey can't escape once captured.
14:41Its fangs are formed from crystal nanostructures so small that wavelengths of light pass through instead of scattering,
14:48rendering them invisible to prey.
14:58Adorning the undersides of dragonfishes are bioluminescent dots used for counter-illumination,
15:05matching any light above when seen from below.
15:08The Pacific black-gin, Scopolengis tristis, has only been filmed in its natural environment a small number of times.
15:27In many of these encounters, it remains motionless, perhaps to avoid being seen.
15:37Like the bronze dragonfish, its silvery scales only shine when illuminated by the lights of an underwater robot,
15:45but in the dark may scatter light and obscure the shape of the body.
15:49Very little is known about their life history, like many fishes that hail from such depths.
16:02Chimera is one of the oldest fish in the ocean.
16:07An ancient relative of sharks that diverged from a common ancestor 200 million years ago.
16:14Running along its entire length is a lateral line system resembling patchwork for sensing movements in nearby water.
16:24For every 10 meters we descend, pressure increases by one atmosphere.
16:30To survive, fish have evolved strengthened protein structures and more fluid cellular membranes that preserve their vital biological functions.
16:38For others, including many cephalopods, a soft gelatinous body is all they need to overcome the pressure and maintain neutral buoyancy.
16:52Water cannot be compressed, so being composed primarily of water helps out down here.
17:01The dumbo octopus flaps a pair of enlarged ear-like mantle fins to move gracefully,
17:11steering with webbed arms as it traverses the void.
17:16Reaching depths of 6,000 meters, it is the deepest living octopus of all.
17:28Pressure at the lower end of its range can be 600 times greater than at sea level, equivalent to the weight of 50 jumbo jets.
17:39Although, to us, the conditions of the deep appear extreme, the features that define a challenging environment are always relative.
17:47For many of the residents down here, the ocean's surface is an extreme environment, and the low-pressure conditions of the shallows would prove lethal.
17:57Of the deep's eclectic tapestry of animals, the cephalopods are perhaps the most enigmatic.
18:14Displaying physiological, morphological, and behavioral modifications to become masters of this world.
18:24Each of them ethereal dancers, pushing the boundaries of adaptation to sculpt an existence uniquely their own.
18:31They dominate in a range of forms, displaying unusual appendages for feeding.
19:00The long, sticky feeding tentacles of the whiplash squid, Mastagopsis, are draped like flypaper into the water below, termed the tuning fork position, as it basks in a cloud of its own ink.
19:24Cutting out of its ink.
19:25dasher
19:28out of its own ink.
20:01When it's time to move on, the tentacles are retracted into membranous sheaths within the squid's arms.
20:31When it's time to move on, it's time to move on.
21:00The large eye of the strawberry squid allows it to spy the silhouettes of animals above against the deep blues of the twilight zone.
21:08By day, it resides at the very bottom of this zone, at around a thousand meters down, where a backdrop of fading light transitions to pitch black.
21:36It positions itself by turning or ratcheting its body, so that a second, smaller eye peers down into darkness, looking for luminous prey.
22:18It's time to move on.
22:20It's time to move on.
22:22It's time to move on.
22:24It's time to move on.
22:30It's time to move on.
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23:34Now, let's journey back down into the depths.
23:43The boundaries of the ocean zones are not clear-cut.
23:46The twilight and midnight regions both belong to the aphotic zone, defined as the depths beyond which less than 1% of sunlight penetrates.
23:57A place often referred to as the dark ocean.
24:01While some animals are adapted to either the twilight zone, tailored to a place where light is diminished but not absent,
24:09or the midnight zone, swallowed by pitch black, others are able to span both.
24:16In such cases, it helps to be born with an invisibility cloak.
24:23Aside from the eyes, optic nerves and a long, narrow digestive system, this glass octopus is almost entirely see-through.
24:39This one is a male.
24:47The small, hook-like tip of one tentacle is a modified sexual organ called the hectococculus, used to pass sperm to the female.
24:58A mature female.
24:59A mature female, reaching around 45 centimetres.
25:13A mature female, reaching around 45 centimetres.
25:26Her body is speckled with colour-producing cells called chromatophores that she uses for camouflage.
25:45Small muscles can expand to pull open the pigment sacks, darkening her body.
25:58It's the same mechanism behind the colour-changing abilities of many other cephalopods, laid bare by a transparent body.
26:10In the midnight zone, the feeding behaviours of squids and octopuses differs greatly from those of twilight animals.
26:23Above, in the mesopelagic, life is fast-paced, owing to the higher abundance of prey.
26:31Squids here hunt in groups, swarming and inking to confuse scores of fish.
26:46Among the largest to do so, are the Humboldt squid.
27:01Launching tentacles lined with barbed suckers to grab silvery lanternfish.
27:05Fğaziope.
27:06Nasa помàssara.
27:07And in the short of the sea.
27:08Magnet panicking.
27:09Unsungest in the fundamental taken by cloak-dropping, coming to the sea.
27:10Fough, the final dark of the sea.
27:11In the dark of the sea.
27:12To the sky is a very strong, a safe day.
27:13For a very good day.
27:14Keep in contact with ships.
27:15And in the dark of the sea.
27:16In the dark of the sea.
27:18In the dark of the sea.
27:19Rang smokers.
27:20He's a beautiful man.
27:21To the sky is a special secret.
27:22He's a beautiful man.
27:23That's a beautiful man for the world.
27:24In the dark of the sea.
27:25The Amaury of the sea.
27:27That's 100% anything.
27:28Oh man.
27:29You see the sun.
27:30Scenes like this are a nightly occurrence in the Twilight Zone,
27:46initiated by the slightest changes in ambient light as the sun sets,
27:50calling forth great swarms of twilight fish
27:53that gather to migrate vertically under the cover of darkness.
27:57This phenomenon is one of the only reasons why large active hunters like Humboldt squid
28:05are able to sustain such an energetic lifestyle.
28:18In the bathypelagic, you must be opportunistic to succeed.
28:23Schooling fish are few, but sinking organic debris is plentiful.
28:32Marine snow.
28:34The scraps left over from the feasts above.
28:36In a velvet cloak, the vampire squid dangles a long filamentous tentacle,
28:51covered in adhesive mucus, to trap these fine particles.
28:54It is well-suited to a place starved of not just food, but oxygen.
29:08Its blood contains a respiratory pigment, hemocyanin,
29:12that has the highest affinity for oxygen of any known cephalopod.
29:16Thus, the vampire squid can reduce competition from other detritivores
29:21by occupying the ocean's oxygen minimum zones.
29:33Reproducing in the midnight depths can be as challenging as feeding.
29:38A mother black-eyed squid pulls a clutch of more than 2,000 eggs through the ocean,
29:48held in membranous sacks that more than double her length,
29:52at a depth of 2 kilometers.
29:56She will carry them for up to 9 months,
30:00clinging tightly with clawed hooks,
30:02and never letting go, not even to feed.
30:05It is a once-in-a-lifetime feat,
30:10and a perilous one.
30:16As the eggs mature and the mother weakens,
30:19her body begins to deteriorate,
30:22and her muscles waste away.
30:25Unable to jet away,
30:27she is an easy target for predators.
30:31Swimming is a burden, yet essential.
30:35Through her movements,
30:37the mother flushes water through the eggs,
30:39and oxygenates them.
30:41If she survives the last few months,
30:44her final act of motherly love won't have been in vain,
30:47her sacrifice bearing new life,
30:50as the young embark on their own journeys through the void.
30:54Even so,
30:56it's unknown just how many,
30:58from her clutch of thousands,
30:59will survive to brood eggs of their own.
31:02Of the more than 700 cephalopods known to science,
31:10the black-eyed squid is one of just a few
31:13that dare to carry their progeny through the dark.
31:21But they're not the only single parents.
31:23A barrel amphipod,
31:32or phronema,
31:33carves out a gelatinous protective home
31:35from the carcass of a salp.
31:40Imagine a squirrel
31:42taking over the corpse of a cat.
31:44She repurposes the body as a mobile home
31:48and nurtures her offspring
31:50on the lingering remnants of flesh.
31:54Some larvae must brave the dark alone,
31:57like this benthic lobster larvae,
31:59or leptocephalus,
32:02the transparent larval form of elopomorphs.
32:04One of the most diverse taxonomic groups of fish,
32:14containing tarpons,
32:16bonefish,
32:17and all-known eels.
32:20More than 800 species of fish
32:22begin their lives this way,
32:24feeding on sinking particles of marine snow.
32:27Some remain at this life stage
32:37for more than a year
32:38before they metamorphose.
32:42Generally,
32:43the more complex a structure or environment,
32:46the more biodiversity it's able to support.
32:49But in deep midwaters,
32:51where there are no structures at all
32:53and no solid surfaces,
32:55the only form of shelter to be found
32:57is other animals.
33:00Large organisms become drifting arcs,
33:03lifeboats,
33:04hosting a troop of smaller animals.
33:07Some are simply hitchhikers.
33:10The crustaceans on this blob-top jelly
33:11cause little harm or hindrance to the host,
33:14yet they benefit by securing a hiding place.
33:17Others are parasites,
33:20like these amphipods,
33:21feeding on a selp.
33:27This pelican eel
33:30sports a parasitic copepod
33:32that has wrapped itself around the internal organs
33:34and pierced the digestive tract
33:36with barbed mouthparts.
33:39The two streamer-like structures
33:41that trail behind it
33:42are strings of eggs.
33:44Within the bag-like veil
33:52of a shape-shifting deep star-ear jelly,
33:55an Aneuropus amphipod
33:57eats away at its host's delicate skin.
34:00It must strike a careful balance,
34:04ensuring it doesn't overindulge
34:06or it risks eating itself out of its hiding place.
34:13Deep star-ear is unusual among jellies,
34:17belonging to a group known as the ulmarids,
34:21many of which lack true tentacles.
34:24As a result,
34:25it feeds in an unusual manner,
34:27engulfing prey,
34:29before pulling the opening of its bell closed
34:32like a drawstring bag.
34:33Its digestive system
34:36adorns the bell in a mesh-like pattern,
34:39spread thin
34:40to distribute nutrients
34:41across its great surface.
34:55Other ulmarids without tentacles
34:57have developed their own feeding strategies.
35:00The big red jelly,
35:04Tiburonia,
35:05has a bell like a beach ball
35:07and stubby finger-like arms,
35:10lined all over
35:11with tiny wart-like concentrations
35:13of stinging cells.
35:14The giant phantom jelly,
35:36Stygio Medusa Gigantea,
35:38has arms like curtains
35:40that can reach 10 metres in length,
35:43draped through the water column.
35:50This is the largest of the ulmarids,
35:54and one of the largest
35:55of all known jellyfish in the ocean,
35:59sometimes found as deep
36:01as 6,700 metres
36:03in the ocean's
36:04hadal zone.
36:16The arms are thought
36:17to lack stinging cells altogether
36:19and are used
36:21to swathe and engulf prey
36:23within the enormous bell,
36:24which it can expand
36:25by up to five times.
36:31The phantom jelly participates
36:45in another form
36:46of ecological relationship.
36:50It forms a partnership
36:52with a fish
36:53called a pelagic brocula,
36:55seen here,
36:56orienting to the jelly's surfaces.
36:58The great bell of Stygio Medusa
37:08provides shelter for the fish,
37:10which in turn removes parasites
37:12from the surface of its protector.
37:13Studies into this relationship
37:26have found evidence
37:27that this fish can return
37:28to its partner if separated,
37:31for its body is lined
37:32with specialised neuromasts,
37:34sensory organs,
37:36highly sensitive
37:36to low-frequency water movements,
37:39like those created
37:40by the pulsing
37:40of the Medusa's bell.
37:43In a sense,
37:46they work together
37:47through a mutualistic
37:49symbiotic association.
37:56It's a way of life
37:58shared by countless pairings
37:59throughout the natural world.
38:04In the ocean depths,
38:06the collaborative confluence
38:07of life through symbiosis
38:08is especially important,
38:10for the perils of this great expanse
38:12pose a challenge for all.
38:13However, the jellyfish
38:18and other gelatinous organisms
38:20appear to have mastered this place.
38:24They are almost perfectly adapted
38:26to a three-dimensional watery world,
38:29without structure,
38:30beyond the reach of time.
38:33One of very few animal groups
38:35helped and not hindered
38:36by the lack of complexity.
38:38In this void,
38:41the plasticity of their basic morphology
38:43means they can grow
38:44to extraordinary sizes
38:45and take on a multitude of shapes
38:48that allow them to move and hunt
38:49in ways other more complicated animals cannot.
38:54The life cycles
38:55of deep-sea gelatinous organisms
38:57are still largely unknown.
39:00While some survive the expanse
39:02by finding shelter in others,
39:04there is one group
39:05that seems to have found a solution
39:07to being tiny
39:08in a place so vast.
39:17Siphonophores
39:18This is not truly
39:22a single organism.
39:24It is closer to a colony.
39:28A modular being,
39:30composed of tiny individuals
39:31called zoids.
39:34These are each clones,
39:36genetically identical,
39:38but their functions and anatomy
39:39are altered through mutations
39:41so that different zoids specialize
39:43and take on specific tasks
39:45to ensure the survival of all.
39:49Along a central stem,
39:52these zoids attach,
39:54confined to set regions
39:56where they remain
39:57and carry out their role.
40:01Gastrozoids are the feeding polyps.
40:04These zoids each dangle a tentacle
40:06for capturing and digesting food
40:08and nourish the other zoids
40:10via the stem.
40:13Nectophores resemble tiny jellyfish.
40:18These zoids are the swimming bells
40:20responsible for coordinating
40:21the movement of the entire colony.
40:24On the tip,
40:25a gas-filled float
40:26called a pneumatophore
40:27aids buoyancy.
40:30Those that bear all three structures
40:32are Fisonect siphonophores.
40:37One of three suborders,
40:38each defined by a distinct body plan.
40:43The second are the calicoferens,
40:46possessing just two nectophores
40:48and no pneumatophore.
40:52This is the giant siphonophore,
40:54Praia jubia,
40:55one of the longest animals in the ocean,
40:59reaching 50 meters.
41:00Cisternets possess a float
41:06and a long stem of gastrozoids,
41:08but lack swimming bells,
41:11resembling little more than frayed rope,
41:14drifting only at the mercy of the currents.
41:16Meno,
41:35in the sea.
41:45This siphonophore is about to do something bizarre.
42:15It casts off portions of its own colony, splitting its stem in several places.
42:27We don't yet fully understand why.
42:31It might be dying, its structure deteriorating, but it seems too purposeful.
42:38Perhaps it's shedding weight to increase its speed and flee.
42:42Perhaps it's cloning itself, forming new colonies from the fragments.
42:59The portion that retains the nectosome swims away.
43:10The karst portions can only sink.
43:20Their zoids are still alive, but without any means of locomotion, it's uncertain for how long they will endure.
43:28Whether or not these fragments will grow new nectophores remains a mystery.
43:58In another colony, a great cloud of zoids appear to shed and break away.
44:05one by one.
44:22More than likely, these shed zoids will die.
44:35It's thought to be a defense mechanism, a reaction to the lights of the underwater robot to distract from the central colony.
44:43One by one.
45:01Gelatinous animals are so successful that they may account for as much as 40% of the biomass of the water column.
45:08A fact that eluded the scientific community until recent decades,
45:12when submersibles and remotely operated vehicles at last allowed us to witness the lives of deep sea animals with our own eyes.
45:19And the
45:49The deep sea is, without a doubt, alien to us.
46:08This great void extending far beneath the surface and at the very bottom, a place resembling another planet, colonized by the bizarre and beautiful.
46:17But there are parallels with the places we might visit in our everyday lives that just might help us to understand it.
46:24Take, for example, the forest. The cycles of life, death and nutrients are distilled here.
46:34The trees in life provide structure and complexity, like the corals and sponges of deep sea mounts or the giant jellies of the midwater.
46:42All of them a place of shelter for life.
46:47There are layers here, too. The sun-bathed canopy, like the ocean's epipelagic zone, the sunlight zone, is where the majority of photosynthesis takes place.
47:02Sunlight energy being converted into chemical energy, food that, through death, falls down, down, down through subsequent layers to nourish those living underneath.
47:14Very little goes to waste here. The rotting deadwood and leaf litter provides homes and a niche for countless detritivores, whose entire evolutionary histories tailored their form and physiology to survive on this stuff.
47:38And in the deep sea, just like here, it's the detritivores that triumph.
47:53They cycle nutrients through food webs.
47:57After death, they sink and provide a modest feast to the deep sea floor.
48:04Each year, jellyfish alone are thought to sequester two billion metric tons of carbon away from the atmosphere.
48:12This is Pelagothuria.
48:22It's not a jellyfish or a siphonophore, but a sea cucumber, related to starfish and urchins, that feeds on marine snow.
48:33Modified tube feet form a ring of feeding tentacles around the mouth and are used to capture and bring debris towards the central orifice.
48:50It is the only member of its genus and the only known species of truly pelagic sea cucumber, spending its entire life in the water column.
49:09Others spend only part of their life swimming.
49:16Anipniastes eximia, dubbed the headless chicken monster.
49:21Not all sea cucumbers can swim, but the ones that do form a crucial link between the midnight expanse and the ocean bottom beneath.
49:40Projection
49:43Day
50:01Day
50:05Way
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