Evolution Diary

With a fearsome grin fit for a movie monster, this viperfish is a real-life predator that lurks in one of the world’s most remote locations.

An international team of 31 researchers found this and other strange animals while exploring the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range that runs from Iceland to the Azores islands west of Portugal.

Over the course of five weeks, the team cataloged a host of exotic worms, colorful corals, unusual sea cucumbers, and weird fish. Clearly, viperfish has plenty to eat.

Many of the species found on the ridge are rare and had only been discovered in recent years, scientists said. At least one species found during the survey—a tiny crustacean called a seed shrimp—is thought to be new to science.

“It was like going to a new country,” said expedition leader Monty Priede of Britain’s University of Aberdeen.

The survey was coordinated by the Norway-based MAR-ECO project and the Census of Marine Life program.

Despite its delicate, decorated appearance, this jewel squid was found 1,650 lung-crushing feet (500 meters) beneath the surface of the North Atlantic.

Scientists on a recent deep-sea expedition found the squid, called Histioteuthis, along with an abundance of other species thought to be very rare, if not unknown, elsewhere.

Jewel squid are known for their mismatched eyes, one of which is larger than the other to scope for prey in the deep’s darkness.

With its polka-dot mantle and cartoonish expression, this glass squid brings out a lighter side of the inky ocean deep.

Scientists found the squid and other species while mapping more than 1,500 square miles (3,900 square kilometers) of an undersea mountain range in the North Atlantic.

In an ironic strategy for survival, a tiny shrimplike creature called an amphipod shows everything it has, inside and out, in an attempt to disappear.

The unusual animal, called Phronima, is one of the many strange species recently found on an expedition to a deep-sea mountain range in the North Atlantic.

Many small deep-sea creatures are transparent, or nearly so, to better camouflage themselves in their murky surroundings, scientists say.

Story reposted from National Geographic