Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Every night at sundown, a great mass of mostly small sea creatures rises up from the depths into the topmost layers of the planet’s oceans. This daily vertical migration is the largest on Earth—an estimated 11 billion tons of animal biomass travels miles upward each night and then, before the sun rises, returns back to the dimly lit “twilight zone” below. The animals make this journey to feed on the organic material closer to the water’s surface and do so at night to avoid being eaten by the larger predators swimming there.
The nighttime migration was first discovered in the 1940s by the U.S. Navy, whose new sonar technology began pinging congregations of objects in the water column. Since then researchers, hobby divers and photographers have gone out to scuba dive at night and observe these nocturnal creatures.
www.scientificamerican.com
These are so cool looking.
And creepy looking.
The nighttime migration was first discovered in the 1940s by the U.S. Navy, whose new sonar technology began pinging congregations of objects in the water column. Since then researchers, hobby divers and photographers have gone out to scuba dive at night and observe these nocturnal creatures.
See the Mysterious Sea Creatures that Only Come Up at Night
“Blackwater” divers photograph the largest migration of animals on the planet
www.scientificamerican.com
These are so cool looking.
And creepy looking.
