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Vampire Squid
Webbing joins the arms into a dark cloak that the animal can flip inside out when threatened. Two thin, sticky filaments collect drifting bits of food in low-oxygen water. Those delicate lines do a different job from the conspicuous cloak.
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Lampocteis
Bloody-Belly Comb Jelly
A red stomach sits in a largely transparent body. Red looks dark in its dim habitat, and the color can keep a freshly swallowed glowing animal from giving the comb jelly away. The glittering lines on the outside are rows of moving cilia.
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Mystery Mollusk
A clear hood opens at one end and a broad tail with fingerlike projections extends from the other. The hood helps trap small crustaceans in open water far below sunlight. Its swimming foot gave researchers a clue that the animal was a sea slug.
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Redhead Larvacean
A small, tadpole-shaped animal sits inside a much larger mucus filter that it makes for itself. The filter collects food from the water. A clogged house can be abandoned and replaced, leaving the actual animal to swim away.
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Chaetopterus pugaporcinus
Pigbutt Worm
Most of the visible bulk is one swollen middle section, with the other segments compressed toward the ends. The rounder shape may help this small worm remain afloat in midwater. It snares sinking food with a web of mucus.
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Stygiomedusa
Giant Phantom Jelly
Four flattened ribbons hang from the bell. They are oral arms, and MBARI has recorded arms more than 30 feet long. An exploration light can reveal them as a billowing curtain in the deep ocean.
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Whiptail Gulper Eel
The gaping mouth seems far out of proportion to the slender tail. In the deep open ocean, where meals are scarce, that mouth lets the eel swallow food of many sizes. The very end of the tail can produce light.
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Humpback anglerfish
Black seadevil
On a female black seadevil, a rod projects over a broad mouth full of long teeth. The glow at its tip draws curious prey within reach.
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Fangtooth
Huge fangs dominate the jaw of a surprisingly small deep-water fish. Its stubby fins and mottled body suggest a predator that waits for prey to come close. A dark sensory line along the body picks up movements around it.
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Bigfin Squid
The arms and tentacles bend outward, then trail threads far below the body. The squid moves on two broad fins and sometimes hangs near the deep seafloor with the long filaments spread out. What it catches with them is still poorly understood.
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Elephant Fish
The short, trunklike tip of the snout is covered in sensory pores. The fish uses it to detect prey hidden in seafloor mud. Its big winglike fins and nose can seem out of place together until you see it hunting near the bottom.
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Bathypterois grallator
Tripod Fish
Three long fin rays act like stilts, letting the fish perch above the deep seafloor. Other fins extend forward and carry sensitive tips that detect nearby prey. The posture lets the animal wait in one place above the mud.
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Japanese spider crab
The long, spidery legs can span about 12 feet from claw to claw, far wider than the main shell. They carry the crab over the sandy or rocky shelf and slope off Japan. Much of its food is whatever scraps it can find along the bottom.
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Bathynomus giganteus
Giant Isopod
Overlapping plates cover a deep-sea relative of pill bugs. The broad, flat body walks along the bottom searching for carcasses and other food that sinks from above. The legs and antennae make the resemblance clear when the animal moves.
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Gorgonocephalus eucnemis
Basket Star
Its arms split again and again until they resemble bare branches. A basket star can perch on a coral or rock, then unfurl the branches into a current to trap drifting food. When it folds them in, the whole basket seems to disappear.
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Sea Pig
Long tube feet make this sea cucumber look as if it’s walking on stilts. They carry it across soft, deep seafloor mud while it feeds on material that settles there. Its rounded body rides above the sediment on those fleshy legs.
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Flapjack Octopus
Two small fins near the head flap as this octopus moves. Webbing between its arms spans most of its body when the arms spread, and the octopus can flatten against the seafloor like a pancake.
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Headless Chicken Monster
A broad flap propels this translucent sea cucumber away from the seafloor. It can swim in search of a new feeding area, then descend to scoop up sediment with the tentacles around its mouth. The swimming posture is what earned it the nickname.
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Predatory tunicate
A rounded body stands on a stalk with the open mouth aimed into the current. The swollen lips can close quickly around passing prey, including animals larger than those caught by many filter-feeding relatives. The whole animal looks like an open trap.
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Harp Sponge
Rows of upright branches rise from the muddy deep seafloor. Tiny hooks snag drifting animals, giving this sponge a way to eat crustaceans. Its shape puts lots of those hooks in the path of food moving past.
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Giant Sea Spider
Most of the outline consists of eight long legs attached to a small central body. The legs carry it over the seafloor, and a tube-shaped proboscis takes in food. Some relatives have slender bodies too, but deep-water forms show the proportions especially clearly.
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