5 of the Spookiest Animals in the Deep Sea

Imagine living in a cold, dark world where the sun never rises. For much of the ocean, that’s what life looks like.

Sunlight only reaches the upper layers of the ocean, leaving the vast majority of the deep sea in permanent darkness. Waters this deep aren’t just cold, they can be near freezing. And to add to that, the pressure from the waters in these areas is absolutely crushing.

From that description alone, you’d think that the deep sea would be a completely lifeless place. But somehow, life doesn’t just survive there — it thrives.

So how do some animals manage to live in one of the most extreme environments on Earth?

Deep-sea animals have evolved some incredible ways to make it work, from producing their own light with bioluminescence to having enormous eyes that capture every last bit of available light. Some are camouflaged, have specialized bodies, or other adaptations to find food and avoid becoming food themselves. 

They may look like aliens — but they are cleverly equipped to live in this seemingly inhospitable world. Below, we’ve rounded up 5 of the spookiest creatures in the sea.

Rhinochimaera

What do you get when a shark dresses up as a ghost? Meet the Rhinochimaera! Also known as spookfish or ghost sharks, these deep ocean dwellers are relatives of sharks and rays.Their light sensitive eyes help them seek out prey like shrimp and crabs in the darkness. It’s thought that their long snout may help increase sensory input to further gain information about their deep-sea environment.

Rhinochimaeras belong to a group of cartilaginous fishes called chimaeras.  Like sharks, the skeletons of chimeras are made entirely of cartilage rather than bone. But they’re more like distant cousins, having split from a common ancestor around 400 million years ago. And unlike sharks, chimaeras use their front fins to propel themselves in the water rather than their tails. They’re named after a monster from Greek mythology composed of the parts of different animals, referring to their odd mix of characteristics. These deep-sea lurkers can also be equipped with a unique defense mechanism: a large, venomous spine on their first dorsal fin.

Goblin Shark

This mysterious and rarely seen shark gets its fearsome name from its long snout and protruding jaws, which give it a “goblin-like” appearance. Goblin sharks are thought to live mostly in the deep ocean near continental slopes and seamounts, although some small individuals have also been spotted near the ocean surface.

Due to the dark depths at which they live, it is thought that goblin sharks do not rely on eyesight as much to find their prey, instead likely relying on smell, sound, and special organs called ampullae of Lorenzini, which can sense electric fields produced by other animals.

Their narrow teeth suggest that they likely feed on a variety of prey, including octopuses, fish, shrimps, squids, and crabs. These sharks may swim slowly waiting for animals to come within striking distance before they quickly extend their unusual jaws to snap up prey.

Sea Spider

If you thought the deep sea couldn’t get spookier, you should know it also has spiders! Despite a close resemblance, sea spiders aren’t arachnids like land spiders, they are known instead as pycnogonids. Some sea spiders are small, but others — especially in the deep ocean — can get much, much bigger than you may expect, with some boasting a leg span approaching 30 inches! This size is just one adaptation that helps them survive in the deep.

Sea spiders feed in a similar manner to a mosquito, piercing their prey with their tube-shaped mouth, called a proboscis. Then, they siphon bodily fluids from their target. Interestingly, sea spiders are among the few marine invertebrates that experience paternal care! These dads carry their egg masses around until they hatch.

Vampire Squid

With its dark, cloak-like webbing, the vampire squid may look like something out of a Halloween story, but it actually spends most of its time quietly surviving in one of the ocean’s most extreme environments. Its name comes from its dark coloration and the webbing that stretches between its arms, which resembles a vampire’s cloak when spread. Despite being called ”vampire squid”, it is actually not a squid at all, although its closest relatives are octopuses.

These cephalopods thrive in low oxygen zones where almost no light is present, and the water is just above freezing. Their large eyes are perfect for gathering light in these pitch-black ocean depths. However, it finds its meals — plankton, marine snow, crustaceans, fish, and squid — mostly by drifting along until one of its sensory filaments makes contact with its prey. To defend itself, the vampire squid can illuminate the tips of its arms, and then release a cloud of luminous mucous that lets it slip away and disappear into the dark waters.

Faceless Cusk Eel

The aptly-named faceless cusk eel, which seems to lack a face altogether, has taken a different approach to surviving in the deep. Despite being blind, it does have tiny eyes buried beneath its skin — the eye-like indents on the side of its face are actually nostrils.

This eel also has a small mouth underneath its head, which can extend to catch food, making it easier to find a meal in muddy sediment. The unusual look of this fish is likely because of the depths at which it lives. With so little light reaching this zone of the ocean, being able to see isn’t much help to these fish.  

Conclusion

We can’t lose deep-sea creatures before we even discover them. The race to mine the deep sea is on, but so is the fight to protect it. We can’t allow mining companies to destroy an ecosystem we hardly understand. Learn more about Oceana’s work to defend the deep.