This hardy grass grows on the dunes just above the beach. By anchoring shifting sands, it creates a place where other plants can grow more easily. A bat ray flaps its batlike wings pectoral fins to swim gracefully through the water — and help it uncover prey hiding in the sand. As a scavenger, the bat star plays an important role in the ecosystem, helping to clean dead animals and algae from the seafloor. A resident of marine sloughs and bay flats, the ghost shrimp burrows in seafloor sediment to protect its soft translucent body.
With its long, slim body and greenish color, you might not notice a bay pipefish gliding through the swaying eelgrass. Bell jellies are probably vertical migrators — they remain in dark, deep waters during the day and come to the surface at night. The big skate has two large, black spots on its fins. With its large purplish bell, long, lacy arms and stinging tentacles that can reach 25 feet 7. A graceful bird with uncommonly long red legs, the black-necked stilt prefers to run about and feed in shallow water — but can swim if necessary.
The blacktip reef shark patrols its territory in shallow lagoons and reefs, its triangular, black-tipped fin often protruding above the water's surface.
The bloody-belly comb jelly has a blood-red stomach, but at the dark depths where it lives, it's nearly invisible to predators. The blubber jelly comes in colors ranging from very light blue to dark purple and burgundy. Its bell pulses in a distinctive, staccato like rhythm.
The blue whale is the biggest animal in the world. Yet, it feeds on teeny weeny prey and has a throat smaller than your hand. Discovered in , this new species of tube worm feeds on the bones of dead whales that fall to the bottom of the deep sea. These corals get their common name from the grooves and channels on their surfaces that look like the folds of the human brain.
This majestic bird has a distinctive large pouch that hangs from the lower half of its long, straight bill. Bryozoans are small invertebrates that expand from a party of one to a colony of thousands, which might encrust an entire kelp blade.
Bull kelp forests offer protective shelter for young fishes and invertebrates like sea urchins, sea stars, snails and crabs.
Known for their powerful jaws and large mouths full of sharp, fanglike teeth, barracuda are aggressive hunters. The California moray has no gill covers. It must constantly open and close its mouth to breathe, which gives it the appearance of gasping for breath. When exposed to air, mussels clamp shut and become protective fortresses. Under water, their shells open to draw in tiny particles of food. This pinniped is adept at leaping out of the water. A sheephead hunts actively during the day, but at night it moves to crevices and caves and wraps itself in a mucus cocoon.
With their bases anchored to rocks, these anemones spread their crowns of stinging tentacles wide, up to three feet 1m across. This cousin of the octopus is a living link to the past — little about it has changed for more than million years.
A clownfish stays close to an anemone for protection. As the comb jelly swims, rows of tiny, beating "combs" break up light, producing a shimmering rainbow effect. The common bottlenose dolphin uses pulses of sound emanating from its forehead to locate and possibly stun prey animals. When a shrimp or fish is in range, the cuttlefish shoots out its two tentacles to seize its prey. The tentacles move so fast that they're difficult to see. When a fish or shrimp swims nearby, a fangtooth simply opens its big mouth and sucks the animal inside.
These iridescent, commercially-fished animals migrate in huge schools from Mexico to southeastern Alaska. A murre chick leaves the cliff in dramatic style. Even without proper flight feathers, it hurls itself off the edge and glides down to the sea. And, once its unfortunate victims are suitably perplexed, it dispatches them with its massive mouth, which is capable of swallowing fish, molluscs and crustaceans whole.
From lionfish to sole, sea snakes to stonefish, biologists have recorded the mimic octopus impersonating lots of species to avoid detection. The cuttlefish may not receive as much attention as its cephalopod counterparts, which include squid and octopuses, but these remarkable creatures have some of the most unique methods of disguise in the animal kingdom.
In fact, their camouflage abilities are so good, the US military has studied the animal in efforts to bolster its own methods of camouflage! This remarkable colour change ability happens almost instantly, with biologists remarking that the cuttlefish is the HD TV of the seas. At Tynemouth Aquarium, we have a whole host of amazing creatures of the deep.
Pay us a visit and see if you can spot some of our camouflaged masters of disguise! Your browser does not support the video tag. List of Partners vendors. Continue to 2 of 9 below. Telescope Goldfish. Continue to 3 of 9 below.
Continue to 4 of 9 below. Continue to 5 of 9 below. Continue to 6 of 9 below. Continue to 7 of 9 below. Continue to 8 of 9 below. Continue to 9 of 9 below. Hermit Crabs. Related Topics. Read More. Your Privacy Rights. Sustainable seafood. Climate change. California's ocean ecosystems. Conservation stories. Read the story. Shop Two Trees pencils. For educators For educators Learning at home.
Online courses. Parent-led activities. Video lessons. Teacher development. Teacher programs. Project-based science examples. Book a field trip. Online courses for teens. Teen programs. Teen career resources. See all courses. Learn more and sign up. Search through the site content. Animals Habitats Deep sea.
The largest ecosystem on Earth lies between the ocean's sunlit upper layers and the distant floor of the deep sea Here in the midwater, beginning at a depth of about feet m , species must adapt to a world with little to no light, and no solid boundaries. Related exhibits Into the Deep. From midwater to deep sea. How species adapt. Unusual shapes and sizes Large mouths and sharp teeth help fangtooth fishes and black swallowers gulp whatever food crosses their paths. Bioluminescence The majority of midwater species and almost half of all seafloor species in the deep sea produce their own light.
Things to look for and notice. How to enjoy and protect this habitat. Who lives here Apple anemone. Bloody-belly comb jelly. Bone-eating worm. Common fangtooth. Deep sea anglerfish. Deep sea brittle star. Fanfin anglerfish. Filetail catshark. Fragile pink sea urchin. Giant isopod.
Giant ostracod. Giant siphonophore. Hula skirt siphonophore. Johnson's sea cucumber. Midwater eelpout.
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