Tripod Fish

            Lurking deep, down in the bathypelagic zone of the ocean are all sorts of aquatic organisms. Some large ones, but mostly small ones which can decrease the amount of energy they use, some float through the water, while others lightly step on the bottom, being careful not to sink into the mud like ooze formed by detritus. This zone, which is about 1000m to the bottom of the ocean, is completely dark, and is also called the zone of darkness. In this zone, the water is tremendously cold at temperatures down to 10 C. An advantage to living in this depth is that many nutrients fall to the bottom and accumulate. Also, the oxygen levels are astoundingly high and have about a 5-6% oxygen count. The cold water allows gases to dissolve much better. A disadvantage of this depth is that it cannot be studied very well, due to the pressure, the darkness, and the depth. Therefore, the region is not understood very well, and only now have scientists been able to start trying to explore the zone of darkness. This zone carries organisms that must be able to live in this darkness. Some species use bioluminescence, ability to produce light, to obtain food, attract a mate, camouflage, or to stay in their school. The pressure in this zone is unremarkable, and is a wall for humans because our bodies would be crushed at these high pressures. We have large air sacs inside our bodies, and when the pressure becomes higher and higher against the outside of our body, the sacs burst. Decomposition sickness, "the bends", is when the bubbles inside your body expand when traveling into deep waters with high pressure, and one can die from this sickness. The reasons that the organisms can live in such a high pressured zone is because they have adapted to it. The pressure on the inside of their bodies is adapted to be close to the pressure pushing in on their bodies in order to reach a degree of equilibrium for the pressures.