Image 1: At 2,000 to 2,500 meters: A bizarre, elongated orange animal identified as Neocyema -- only the 5th specimen of the fish ever caught and never before on the mid-Atlantic Ridge. Photo courtesy of David Shale.
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Image 2: At 1,700 – 4,300 meters: Coryphaenoides brevibarbis, with tiny bones in its ear, known as otoliths, that have growth bands countable like tree rings to reveal the fish’s age. Comparison of age with size shows its growth rate and thus the amount of food in the neighborhood. Called the rat-tail, the fish lives on crustaceans it catches just above the seafloor. Photo courtesy of Rebecca Hunter.
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Image 3: Cute Dumbo (Grimpoteuthis discoveryi). Photo courtesy of Mike Vecchione.
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Image 4:‘New’ Dumbo (Grimpoteuthis sp.). Photo courtesy of David Shale.
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Image 5: Jumbo Dumbo (Cirrothauma magna). Photo courtesy of Mike Vecchione.
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Image 6: At 1000 meters: an “indescribable” catch of “invertebrates of all colors, including corals, sea cucumbers and sea urchins. It's hard to believe that such exuberance of life exists a kilometer deep into the ocean.” Photo courtesy of MAR-ECO: South Atlantic.
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Image 7: At 2,750 meters in the Northern Gulf of Mexico: an odd transparent sea cucumber, Enypniastes, creeping forward on its many tentacles at about 2 cm per minute while sweeping detritus-rich sediment into its mouth. Photo courtesy of Larry Madin, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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Image 8: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution engineers recover the new hybrid underwater robot Nereus aboard the 135ft RV Cape Hatteras in deteriorating weather conditions above the Mid-Cayman Spreading Center in Oct.-Nov. 2009. Although ChEss scientists aboard ship were able to track water column signals of hydrothermal venting to within a few hundreds of meters on the seafloor at close to 5000m depth, final discovery was thwarted by the arrival of Tropical Storm Ida and will now be resumed using the UK ROV Isis aboard the RRS James Cook in 2010. Photo: Chris German, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
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Image 9: At 1,000 meters and below: abundant colorful coral. Photo courtesy of NIWA, New Zealand's Ministry of Fisheries & Foundation for Research Science and Technology, and Land Information New Zealand.
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Image 11: What appears to be an ancient gold treasure is a magnified crustacean, a tiny copepod collected this year from the Atlantic abyss (© Büntzow/Corgosinho)
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Image 12: Diagram of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Image courtesy of Monty Preide.
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