From Sea to Shining Sea (Creatures)

California's Monterey Bay contains North America's largest and deepest submarine canyon, about the size of the Grand Canyon, with depths approaching 12,000 feet. The Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution is using an innovative new camera system and a lighted jellyfish lure to get previously impossible footage of animals and their behaviors in these lightless, watery realms.

Deep-towed nets can shred animals like jellyfish or damage captured animals to the point that their natural behaviors cannot be observed in the lab. Manned submersibles and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) can deliver humans to the depths in person or virtually to observe some animals in their natural environment. However, they typically do not allow researchers to see animals' natural behaviors because the lights, motors and electric fields such vehicles bring with them are more than enough to either scare animals away before they're ever seen or frighten them into unnatural behavior.

To get around such problems, Dr. Widder dreamed of and then, in partnership with the institution's Engineering Division, created an innovative camera system to record life in the abyss unobtrusively. Called "Eye in the Sea," the system is designed to operate on the seafloor automatically and, most importantly, unnoticed by animals. The system can detect animals nearby when they give off bioluminescent light, trigger a video camera to record the light being produced, then turn on a red light out of the animals' normal vision range to take illuminated footage. The system can also be programmed to film surrounding areas at scheduled intervals, for instance when the team places the system on the bottom along with bait to attract animals. In the past camera systems used on the seafloor have relied on bright and, for those creatures accustomed to the darkness of the depths, frightening lights.

The Eye in the Sea has been tested alone during brief deployments, and has already captured unusual interactions, such as a primitive hagfish annoying a shark. Widder now plans to take the deep-sea observation work one step further by deploying the camera system along with a simple electronic device designed to mimic the various bioluminescent light patterns given off by jellyfish known as Atolla. Various Atolla species are common in the deep sea and look something like a tie-dye splotch when their round bodies are viewed from above. The artificial jellyfish lure is a round disc about six inches across with a ring of blue LED lights around its outer edge that can be programmed to light up in patterns similar to those created by the jellyfish.

Interesting enough, but the main course of this meal is HBOI's photo gallery of bioluminescent ocean life. I've shrunk down a few of my favorites, but there are 20 thumbnail pages of higher resolution images at the site, and paging through them is pretty amazing.