© anoXmous @ http://thepiratebay.sx/user/Zen_Bud
Away from all land
the ocean.
It covers more than half the surface of our planet
and yet for the most part it is beyond our reach.
Much of it is virtually empty
a watery desert.
All life that is here is locked in a constant search to find food
a struggle to conserve precious energy
in the open ocean.
The biggest of all fish
thirty tons in weight, twelve meters long
a whale shark.
It's huge bulk is sustained by mere microscopic creatures of the sea
Plankton.
Whale sharks cruise on regular habitual routes
between the best feeding grounds.
In February, that takes them to the surface waters
far from the coast of Venezuela.
Others are already here.
Baitfish have come for the same reason to feed on the plankton.
The whale shark has timed it's arrival exactly right.
Oddly, the tiny fish swarm around it.
They're using it as a shield.
Other predatory fish are lurking nearby.
Yellowfin tuna. They seem wary of the giant.
The shark dives, as if to escape from such overcrowding.
Now the tuna have a chance to attack the unprotected baitfish
but then
back comes the giant.
It has taken a vast mouthful of the baitfish itself.
Plankton, it seems, is not the only food for a whale shark.
Both shark and tuna feast together
but the tuna must be wary.
Even they can end up in the whale shark's stomach.
Predators here must grab what they can, when they can
for such events do not last long.
The dense shoals, on which so many depend
gather only when water conditions are perfect.
Many predators spend much of their time cruising the open ocean
endlessly searching.
Plankton feeding rays do so, gliding with minimum effort.
The oceanic whitetip shark
another energy efficient traveler.
It specializes in locating prey in the emptiest areas of the open ocean
patrolling the top one hundred meters of water.
Taste in water, is the equivalent of smell in the air.
An oceanic whitetip is able to detect even the faintest trace.
Small pilot fish swim with it.
The shark can find prey far more easily than they can
and they'll be able to collect the scraps from it's meals.
It's long, fixed pectoral fins
enable it to soar through the water, with the least expenditure of energy.
This shark has found a school of rainbow runners.
It would eat one, given the chance
but rainbow runners are swift and agile and not easily caught
so, it bides it's time.
There's a chance that, eventually, it may spot a weakened fish that's catchable.
The hunter
endlessly waiting.
Excitement far from land.
A school of dolphin five hundred strong.
They've sensed there's food around, and they're racing to catch up with it.
The news has spread. Now a number of schools are on their way.
They're heading towards the Azores
volcanic islands a thousand miles west of Portugal.
The dolphin scan the water ahead with their sonar.
They're close to their target.
This is it.
Scad mackerel.
It's difficult for a single dolphin to catch the fish.
To avoid wasting energy the work as a group.
They drive the fish upwards, trapping them against the surface
and there, other predators await them.
Cory's shearwaters.
They're waiting for the dolphin to drive the prey closer to the surface.
Now the shearwaters can dive down on them, descending to twenty meters or more
and the dolphins block the baitball's retreat.
The dolphins leave as soon as they've had their fill
and, at last, the mackerel sink below the diving range of the birds.
As the Sun disappears, a profound change takes place in the ocean.
Deep water plankton start to rise from the depths
and another hungry army prepares to receive it.
Every night, wherever conditions are right,
countless millions of creatures from the deep migrate to the surface, seeking food.
A baby sailfish, fifteen centimeters long
snaps up everything in it's path.
In three years' time, it'll be one of the oceans most formidable hunters
weighing sixty kilos.
Just now, however, it's very vulnerable.
These manta rays are giants.
Eight meters across and weighing over two tons.
The blade-like projections on either side of the head help to steer plankton into the manta's mouth.
Dawn returns, and the plankton sinks back into the depths.
If we are to follow, we must use a submarine.
As we descend into the darkness, the pressure builds, the temperature falls.
Below five hundred meters, new, mysterious animals appear.
Their bizarre shapes help them to remain suspended in the dark space.
Some resemble creatures familiar from shallower waters
others defy classification.
All around, organic particles drift downwards.
Marine snow, detritus from the creatures swarming in the sunlit waters above.
The snow is food for many animals here, like the sea spider
a small relative of shrimps and crabs.
Those strange leg-like appendages are feathered, to stop it from sinking.
They can also enmesh marine snow
which it wipes carefully into it's jaws.
A sawtooth eel hangs upright and motionless.
Gazing ever upwards, it watches for prey, silhouetted against the faint
glimmerings of light from the surface.
Days may pass before prey swims close enough for it to strike.
Farther down still, the blackness is complete.
No vestige of sunlight can penetrate as far as this.
Food is very scarce and nothing can afford to waste any energy.
A dumbo octopus simply flaps a fin
no need for the jet propulsion used by it's shallow water relatives above.
The weirdest, in this world of the strange, vampyroteuthis
the vampire squid from hell.
Disturb it and it only retreats a little distance.
Go after it, and it has a special defense.
To see what it does, you must switch off the lights.
The vampire squid has lights of it's own.
Bioluminescent bacteria shine from pockets on it's arms to confuse it's predators.
Are those eyes?
In fact they're spots at the end of it's mantle.
A bite there, would leave the head unscathed.
The threat diminishes, and vampyroteuthis disappears into the blackness.
At last, the sea floor.
Over two miles down, the pressure here is three hundred times that at the surface.
It takes several months for marine snow to drift down as far as this.
As you travel away from the rocky margins of the continents
an immense plain stretches ahead.
It extends for thousands of miles
gradually sinking downwards.
There are faint trails in the ooze, signs that even here there is life.
These are what made some of them
sea urchins sifting the accumulating drifts.
Shrimps standing on elegant tiptoe
fastidiously select the particles that appeal to them
but, in the deep sea, as everywhere else if there are grazers, there are hunters.
A monkfish, almost indistinguishable from the sand on which it lies.
Why waste energy chasing around, if you can attract prey towards you with a lure?
Maybe that one was a bit big.
The monkfish can wait, for days if necessary, until the right sized meal turns up.
Scavengers on the other hand, have to move around to find their food.
Crabs can detect the faintest of tastes in the water
and that helps them locate the latest body to drift down from above.
Eels are already feeding on the corpse.
Isopods, like giant marine woodlice a third of a meter long
are ripping into the rotting flesh.
Over the next few hours there'll be frenzied competition
between scavengers of all kinds to grab a share.
Just occasionally, there is a gigantic bonanza.
The remains of a sperm whale.
It died five months or so ago.
There's little left but fatty blubber clinging to it's bones.
It's flesh has nourished life for miles around
but now the feast is almost over.
Spider crabs, a meter across, still pick at the last putrid remains.
A few weeks more, and nothing will be left, but bare bones.
The crabs will have to fast, until the next carcass drifts down.
But not all food comes from the sunlit world above.
The floor of the Atlantic Ocean is split in two by an immense volcanic mountain chain
that winds unbroken for forty five thousand miles around the globe.
In places, it's riven by great fissures, from which superheated water
loaded with dissolved minerals blasts into the icy depths.
Clouds of sulfides solidify into towering chimneys, as tall as a three story house.
At four hundred degrees this scalding cocktail of chemicals
would be lethally toxic to most forms of life
but astoundingly, a particular kind of bacteria thrives here
and feeding on the bacteria, vast numbers of shrimps.
So, beyond the farthest reach of the Sun's power
a rich independent community exists, that draws all it's energy
directly from the Earth's molten core.
On the other side of the planet, in the western Pacific bordering Japan
the dragon chimneys, another series of hot vents, erupting in the darkness.
Here, more, but different bacteria thrive in a similar way.
And here, too, more crustaceans, but quite different species
from those around the hot vents in the Atlantic.
These are squat lobsters, clad in furry armor
jostling with one another beside the jets of superheated water
for the best places, from which to graze on bacteria.
These vents, too, like those in the Atlantic are isolated oases
so widely separated, that each community is unique.
Cross to the other side of the Pacific, to the deep near the Galapagos Islands
and there are yet other fissures venting superheated water.
One and a half miles down, at a site known as Nine North
towering chimneys support a spectacular display of giant tubeworms.
These vents give off so much energy
that some of the worms reach three meters in length.
They're the fastest growing marine invertebrates known.
All told, over fifty different species have so far been found living here.
The inhabitants of these bustling communities may grow at speed
but their existence can also be short, for the vents do not erupt indefinitely.
Suddenly, unpredictably, they may become inactive.
Nine months have passed at Nine North.
What were only recently chimneys teeming with life
have turned into cold, sterile mineral monuments.
Some eddy, deep in the Earth's crust
diverted the volcanic energy elsewhere
and, an entire microworld was extinguished.
In places, volcanoes have erupted to build great submarine mountains.
There are thought to be around thirty thousand such volcanoes
some, measured from the sea floor, are taller than Everest.
Sheer cliffs soaring to drowned volcanic peaks.
Powerful currents sweep up the mountains' flanks
transporting nutrients from deep water towards the summits.
The hard rock provides excellent anchorage
for communities of great variety and stunning color.
Soft corals, several meters across collect the marine snow as it drifts past.
Whip corals stretch out into the current.
Giant sponges filter nourishment from the cold water.
A richly varied community flourishes here
sustained by the nutrients and detritus in the icy currents that flow around the peak.
Yet it is all blossoming on an extinct volcano
a mile below the reach of the Sun.
A nautilus. It spends it's days hiding four hundred meters down
But as night falls, it ascends up to the reefs, to look for food.
It's graceful shell contains gas filled floatation chambers, that control it's depth.
It's powered by a jet of water, squirting from a siphon
but it travels shell first, so it can't see exactly where it's going.
It's nearest living relatives are squid and octopus
which, over evolutionary time, have both lost their shells
and the octopus has become one of the nautilus' major predators.
It's a master of disguise.
The nautilus keeps well clear of them.
It's small tentacles carry highly developed chemical sensors
which can detect traces of both predators and prey.
It uses it's water jet to dig in the sand.
Because it devotes so little energy to swimming, it only needs a meal once a month.
Got something. And just as well. Dawn is approaching and it has to puff it's way
back, to deeper waters.
Thirty miles away, shoals of squid are jetting upwards towards the surface.
By night, they seek small fish among the plankton, but they're cautious.
Pacific spotted dolphin.
They're guided by their sonar.
The dolphin, as so often, are working as a team, synchronizing their attacks
to confuse their prey.
As dawn approaches, squid and fish and plankton retreat downwards, to shelter in the darkness.
Some of these isolated volcanoes
rise as much as nine thousand meters from the sea floor, reaching close to the surface.
Around these peaks invigorated by daily sunshine
marine life flourishes in spectacular abundance.
Fish crowd here, because the volcano forces nutrients to the surface
encouraging the plankton to bloom.
An oceanic wanderer, a mola mola
stops by to be cleaned by reef fish, at the sea mount edge.
Butterfly-fish pluck string-like parasites from it's flanks.
The huge fish lives on jellyfish over a thousand meters down
where the water is twenty degrees colder
so, a brushup near the surface, allows it to warm up
before making more deep water forays.
The summit of this volcanic mountain rises above the surface of the sea.
It's Ascension Island
eight hundred miles from any other land, a welcome vital haven for long distance travelers.
Frigatebirds spend months continuously airborne at sea
but at nesting time, they come to Ascension from all over the ocean.
The island's barren slopes of volcanic ash and lava
might seem to offer perfectly good sites for a nest
but the frigates choose an even more isolated site
Boatswain Bird Island, a lonely pillar, just of Ascension's coast.
Frigates are the world's lightest bird, relative to their wingspan
and they can soar for weeks on end with minimal effort.
They seem much more at home in the skies, than in a crowded colony on land
but nest, they must.
They come from all over the Atlantic to this, their only colony.
There are boobys here, too.
To raise their young, seabirds worldwide seek such remote islands.
Swimmers also come to Ascension to breed.
A female green turtle approaches the coast.
She's not eaten once, in two months.
She may have traveled one thousand miles from her feeding grounds
the greatest journey of her kind.
Many others are here, too, resting on the sandy sea floor
awaiting the darkness of night, when it'll be safer to visit the beaches.
Eggs that were laid a few weeks ago, at the start of the season
are beginning to hatch.
Most hatchings happen at night.
Now, in the light of day, the young are extremely vulnerable.
They must get to the sea as soon as possible
but their trials have only just begun.
Many will drown in the pounding waves.
During the next twenty years, the vast majority will inevitably die
but those that survive will, eventually, as their mothers did before them,
return to the very same beach where they were hatched.
How they find their way back
across thousands of miles of open ocean, we still have no idea.
A frigate soars.
Somewhere, beneath the surface below,
there is the food it must have.
But where?
Those that fly above the ocean
must be able to read the signs of fresh supplies, or perish.
A hundred miles from the Mexican coast, and keen eyes have spotted movement.
Sailfish, three meters long, are closing in on prey.
They will only use just enough energy to make their kill
never wasting a fin stroke.
Nearly a hundred sailfish have surrounded a single school of baitfish.
It's very rare to see so many of these hunters in one place.
To herd their prey, the predators raise their huge dorsal fins.
A mistimed strike by one sailfish, could fatally damage another
but each continually changes it's color, from blue, to striped, to black
that warns it's companions of it's intentions and also confuses the prey.
As the shoal is driven nearer the surface, it comes within the range of the seabirds.
Out here, in the open ocean, there is nowhere for the baitfish to hide.
Sailfish live a high obtain life.
To survive, they must find prey daily
so their entire existence will be spent on the move.
Over ninety percent on the living space for life on our planet, is in the oceans
Home to the biggest animal that exists
or has ever existed.
the blue whale.
Some weigh nearly two hundred tons
twice the size of the largest dinosaur.
Despite their great size, we still have little idea of where they travel in the vast oceans
and none at all of where they go to breed.
The largest animal on Earth feeds almost exclusively
on one of the smallest krill, shrimp-like crustaceans.
They take many tons of water into their ballooning throats in a single gulp
and sieve out what it contains.
Every day, each one swallows some four million krill.
Such gargantuan harvests depend on the continuing fertility of the oceans
But global changes now threaten the great blooms of plankton
on which the whales depend.
Once and not so long ago
three hundred thousand blue whales roamed the oceans
now, less than three percent of that number remains.
Our planet is still full of wonders.
As we explore them, so we gain not only understanding, but power.
It's not just the future of the whale that today lies in our hands
it's the survival of the natural world in all parts of the living planet.
We can now destroy, or we can cherish.
The choice is ours.
© anoXmous @ http://thepiratebay.sx/user/Zen_Bud