While there are no herbivores there, many animals at that depth are suspension feeders or deposit feeders, i.e. they filter the water or the mud for either alive micro-organisms or for organic substances that come from the decomposition of dead animals or algae.
At that depth an important food source is formed by the dead bodies or parts of bodies of various big or small animals, which fall from shallower water after their death.
Because at high depths there is no primary production in most places (with the exception of vents where free dihydrogen or dihydrogen sulfide may feed bacteria), most animals must eat the dead organic matter that falls from above.
Predators that eat alive animals from that depth must be much fewer than the animals which eat dead matter, otherwise they will die of hunger.
Suspension feeders/deposit feeders, thanks that makes a lot of sense: the local food chain does need some base, that base can't be solar powered as there really isn't enough light down there. Some scraps from the solar-powered layers making it down all the way because of gravity, that's a logical explanation to have any life down there at all.
Tangent: makes me wonder if fossil fuel depots that accumulated under the oceans might have a similar "they don't make them anyone as they used to" as the lignin/fungus imbalance of the carboniferous (I know that there are studies questioning that link, or at least suggesting that this can't be the whole story): before those feeders evolved, there would have been undisputed accumulation, and the first few evolutionary matches might have died out after burning through deposits in waves of overpopulation and extinction, before stochastics hit a stable balance. But, well, I'm just a speculation layman, experts will still have enough uncertainty for a wide range of speculation (see the wide range of uncertainty in the lignin hypothesis, and I'd assume that our knowledge of land biohistory is far more detailed than what we know about the oceans), lots of science to be done!
Not really. It seems to me term filter feeder exists outside the whole carnivore/herbivore dynamic, which seems like less of a dietary thing and more of a behavioral thing anyway (though of course many animals are simply unable to digest stuff like cellulose, so it is also dietary... but then again these things are messy)
Is just an Amphipod. A sea flea. Is showing the typical shape in the group. For people without taxonomic knowledge, we could say that is "a type of shrimp" There are thousands of species in its group.
> At nearly 4 centimeters in length, this crustacean uses specialized raptorial appendages to capture and prey upon smaller amphipod species in the Atacama (Peru-Chile) Trench's food-limited realm.
Referenced paper https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772000.2024.2...
Predator sounds dramatic, but there really isn't much non-microscopic life in the oceans that isn't predatorial. Large herbivores are land-evolved.
While there are no herbivores there, many animals at that depth are suspension feeders or deposit feeders, i.e. they filter the water or the mud for either alive micro-organisms or for organic substances that come from the decomposition of dead animals or algae.
At that depth an important food source is formed by the dead bodies or parts of bodies of various big or small animals, which fall from shallower water after their death.
Because at high depths there is no primary production in most places (with the exception of vents where free dihydrogen or dihydrogen sulfide may feed bacteria), most animals must eat the dead organic matter that falls from above.
Predators that eat alive animals from that depth must be much fewer than the animals which eat dead matter, otherwise they will die of hunger.
Suspension feeders/deposit feeders, thanks that makes a lot of sense: the local food chain does need some base, that base can't be solar powered as there really isn't enough light down there. Some scraps from the solar-powered layers making it down all the way because of gravity, that's a logical explanation to have any life down there at all.
Tangent: makes me wonder if fossil fuel depots that accumulated under the oceans might have a similar "they don't make them anyone as they used to" as the lignin/fungus imbalance of the carboniferous (I know that there are studies questioning that link, or at least suggesting that this can't be the whole story): before those feeders evolved, there would have been undisputed accumulation, and the first few evolutionary matches might have died out after burning through deposits in waves of overpopulation and extinction, before stochastics hit a stable balance. But, well, I'm just a speculation layman, experts will still have enough uncertainty for a wide range of speculation (see the wide range of uncertainty in the lignin hypothesis, and I'd assume that our knowledge of land biohistory is far more detailed than what we know about the oceans), lots of science to be done!
Would you consider the blue whale to be a carnivore, then?
Considering they eat crustaceans, predominantly, wouldn't you?
Not really. It seems to me term filter feeder exists outside the whole carnivore/herbivore dynamic, which seems like less of a dietary thing and more of a behavioral thing anyway (though of course many animals are simply unable to digest stuff like cellulose, so it is also dietary... but then again these things are messy)
blue whales eat krill, almost exclusively. so... yeah, definitely carnivores. i don't think there are any herbivore whales.
It's unfortunate that there's no in situ pictures included. It looks like the blob fish which is only blob shape when not under ocean deep pressure.
Is just an Amphipod. A sea flea. Is showing the typical shape in the group. For people without taxonomic knowledge, we could say that is "a type of shrimp" There are thousands of species in its group.
The title is unnecessarily dramatic.
Is its head on the left or the right?
Head is at the same side than the antenna and the eyes. Left.
it looks like a shrimp, so its the left
Left
> At nearly 4 centimeters in length, this crustacean uses specialized raptorial appendages to capture and prey upon smaller amphipod species in the Atacama (Peru-Chile) Trench's food-limited realm.
Very unappetizing
I presume on the surface it looks nothing like in the ocean depths where it's under enormous pressure.
Life is so diverse and beautiful!
I wonder what they taste like.
Show them who the real apex predator is :)
Getting Lovecraftian vibes.
two nice words in there that are new to me; 'hadal' and raptorial'
Didn’t notice ‘hadal’! Kind of glid by. Thanks!
Looked up the meaning and the roots of the word. Feel compelled to mention that the etymology is pretty wild.
hadal: “of or relating to the deepest ocean; beyond 6000 meters” ← Hades, Greek god of the underworld ← ᾍδης (Hā́idēs)
which is
‘Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *n̥- (“not”)+ *weyd- (“see”) + *-ēs (“adjectival suffix”), literally “that which is unseen”’
or
← ‘from *sm̥weyd-(from *sm̥- (compounding stem) + *weyd-(“see”) + *-ēs (“adjectival suffix”), literally “see-together” or “uniter”)’
… according to Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ᾍδης
That’ll be one exploding-head emoji for me please.
They must have reached R’lyeh