These images from recent deep sea exploration show how weird and wild it is under the sea.
Some of the pictures taken by remote cameras of never-before-seen areas, especially off the eastern Pacific, show what looks like an imaginary world. There’s a delicate jellyfish, an eel with a strange head and a purple disco ball-like critter. And just in time for Halloween, there’s a rare purple vampire squid, nicknamed for its red eyes and deep color. The images are being shown as part of the National Ocean Exploration Forum, October 2016, in New York.
“We’re continually surprised by the variety of life that we find and what we’re seeing,” said Nicole Raineault, science operations director at the Ocean Exploration Trust. “It just underscores what little we know about the ocean and how much more there is to discover out there.”
Photo: A bioluminescent jellyfish during a deepwater exploration of the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument area in the Pacific Ocean near Guam and Saipan, April 24, 2016.