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Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Deep sea fish is a term for fish that live below the photic zone of the ocean. Examples include the lantern fish, flashlight fish, cookie cutter shark, bristlemouths, anglerfish, and viperfish. Because the photic zone typically extends only a few hundred meters below the water, about 90% of the ocean volume is invisible to humans. The deep sea is also an extremely hostile environment, with pressures between 20 and 1,000 atmosphere (between 2 and 100 megapascal), temperatures between 3 and 10 degrees Celsius, and a lack of oxygen. Most fish that have evolved in this harsh environment are not capable of surviving in laboratory conditions, and attempts to keep them in captivity have led to their deaths. For this reason little is known about them, as there are limitations to the amount of fruitful research that can be carried out on a dead specimen and deep sea exploratory equipment is very expensive. As such, many species are known only to scientists and have therefore retained their scientific name.0 Comments:
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