What are some of the strangest creatures from the sea?! Have you heard of the blob fish? Or the Gulper eel?! Find out all about the weirdest and strangest animals in the ocean!
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9 – Frilled shark
Conveniently considered as a “living fossil”, the frilled shark inhabits the depths of the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. It’s pretty uncommon to find it below 3,900 feet, although it’s been caught as deep as fifty one hundred feet below the surface! It reaches a length of around 6 and a half feet, and it has a body like an eel – dark brown, with the dorsal, pelvic, and anal fins placed far back. So why’s it called the Frilled shark? I’m sure you guys can figure it out by now, its name comes from the frilly or fringed appearance of its six pairs of gill slits, with the first pair meeting across its throat.
However, since the frilled shark shows several "primitive" features, it’s often been dubbed as a "living fossil" as I mentioned earlier. They certainly do have many of the same physical characteristics of their ancestors who swam the seas at the same time as dinosaurs.
Scientists speculate that frilled sharks capture prey by bending its body and lunging forward like a snake and then swallowing its victim whole. When I say you don’t want to be bitten by this thing, you REALLY don’t wanna be bitten by this thing! It’s mouth is lined with 25 rows of sharp, backward-facing teeth…..300 to be exact!
The long jaws of the frilled shark are extremely wide, which allow it to swallow whole prey over one-half its size. However, the length and articulation of its jaws means that it can’t deliver as strong a bite as more conventionally built sharks.
Squid comprise around 60% of its diet. How the weak-swimming frilled shark captures fast-moving squid is still up for debate. One possibility is that it takes advantage of injured squid. Alternatively, it may surprise its prey by curving its body and launching a quick strike forward in the manner of a snake. It may also be able to close its gill slits and create negative pressure to suck prey into its mouth. Hooooolllld upppp!! It’s able to slurp up fish like noodles?!
8 – Vampire Squid
You guys figure out how the vampire squid earned its name? The vampire squid was given its name because it’s comfortable living 10,000 feet below the surface of the water….well, that and plus its cloak-like webb annnnnnnd its red eyes. It usually reaches a maximum total length of around a foot, and its gelatinous body can vary in color. Depending on the location and the lighting conditions, the body of the vampire squid can be something in the shade of a velvety jet-black to a pale reddish color.
The vampire squid is able to live and breathe normally in the oxygen minimum zone, or OMZ, at oxygen saturations as low as 3%, which is an ability that no other cephalopod, and few other animals possess. A cool thing about it is that it manages to find its way in total blackness with eyes that are proportionately the largest of any animal on Earth. This guy knows a thing or two about lighting as well. The vampire squid is almost entirely covered in light-producing organs called photophores, which allows it to produce disorienting flashes of light ranging from fractions of a second to several minutes in duration! The intensity and size of the photophores can also be modulated.
There’s this cool threat response that the squid does called the "pumpkin" or "pineapple" posture, where it inverts its caped arms back over the body, making itself look like a large form covered in fearsome-looking but harmless spines. The underside of the cape is heavily pigmented, masking most of the body's photophores. The glowing arm tips are clustered together far above the animal's head, diverting attack away from critical areas. If a predator were to bite off an arm tip, the vampire squid would just say whatever dude and just grow a new one!