Mesopelagic. Bathypelagic. Abyssopelagic. Barbaric names for a barbaric world. A world below 200 meters deep. An area where light disappears. It represents 85% of the total ocean. It is dark, cold, day never succeeds to night, seasons do not exist, there is no landmark, no left nor right, no more than high and low. Life seems impossible. And yet… 30 million species still are to be discovered: this area is the largest living space on the planet. The creatures that live down there are often gelatinous, sometimes have no brain, are blind, are all carnivorous. There is no light, so no photosynthesis, so no plants : it is an animal and mineral world. And yet, life might have started there. Maybe at 8000 meters deep. Thanks to the enormous pressure and hydrothermal vents of the depths, spewing toxic gases at 800 degrees, life would have found a way.
And for 760 millions years, nature slowly brought life up to the surface, to what we know: turtles, barracudas, trevallies, octopusses, lionfishes.
Shells for turtles, eight arms for octopuses, venomous feathers for lionfishes: what a journey!
Beneath fins, scales, fangs, legs of these animals, there are thousands of meters of unknown.
This is the story of life. So ours.
