Ocean Monsters: What Lives At The Bottom Of The Sea? (Wildlife Documentary) | Real Wild

in the oceans of our planet lurk creatures weirder than our wildest dreams or our scariest nightmares the vicious devil scorpion fish with its lethal spines [Music] filmed for the first time ever a deep sea life and death struggle and this believe it or not is the longest animal in the world longer than a giant whale yet it doesn't even have a brain creatures that generate their own electricity this one kills its victims with a high voltage charge the strangest of sharks with a snout like a medieval weapon and we come face to face with one of the ugliest of all the ocean weirdos our journey into the realm of the ocean weirdo also takes us deep into the abyss where scientists are using the latest technology to explore uncharted waters never knowing what they will find next only recently has it been possible for science to explore the very deepest ocean abyss using remotely operated vehicles known as rovs the operator controls it remotely from onboard the mothership [Music] the images sent back from these deep sea spy ships have opened the eyes of science to the secrets of the deep [Music] picture quality from these industrial cameras isn't always the highest but to the scientists the images are invaluable in a unique collaboration called the serpent project scientists are able to access video footage routinely shot by the oil industry and ian hudson is one of the small team from southampton oceanographic institute studying the strange creatures of the abyss already the project has achieved groundbreaking results these exclusive pictures show a life and death struggle in the deep filmed for the first time ever it seems the lights of the rov have attracted great swarms of krill at a depth of about 400 meters these in turn bring in schools of cod the perfect prey for hungry monkfish lurking out of sight on the seabed [Music] monkfish are huge animals growing to three meters in length but until these pictures of this big mouthed animal trying to swallow a large cod no one had ever witnessed it feeding in its natural habitat [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] scientists could hardly believe their eyes the best thing we've seen so far is is a month fish everybody knows perhaps what a monkfish looks like but nobody's ever actually filmed the monkfish catching a fish in situ actually in the deep sea before we were lucky enough to actually film one of these monkfish stalker cod and capture it in the mouth and then wrestle with it for two or three minutes you can see that the cod is is kind of sideways across the mouth and it's swimming it's trying to escape whereby if the monkey should have caught it head first and actually got the head inside the mouth the only place the fish's efforts can take it is deeper into the monkfish's mouth having learned its lesson the hard way eventually the monkfish gets it right and manages to gulp down a whole cod head first and all on camera the monkfish goes to so much trouble to capture this one fish it may be the only meal it gets for three months so you know the the importance of that one fish to that monkfish could be the difference between life or death so it's quite amazing that we've seen something so unique [Music] but you don't need to go miles beneath the ocean to find our ocean weirdos and you don't need millions of pounds worth of equipment they can be found in the shallowest of waters by recreational divers using just scuba tanks [Music] this weird creature lives at just 20 meters below the surface of the pacific ocean this deadly predator is surely mother nature at her imaginative best a design worthy of a hollywood fantasy it's called an ambon scorpion fish and it can't even swim but why has fish design evolved these strange creatures that actually look nothing like we imagine a fish to be in the animal world design or form is referred to as morphology it's the theory that over millions of years fish shapes evolve to suit the specific environment in which they live resulting in some bizarre designs this is another type of scorpion fish which clearly demonstrates extremes of morphology having evolved the most vicious of spines again resident in shallow tropical seas this weirdo nominee is almost gothic in design a fishy concoction of spines and deadly poison it carries the scientific name in nemicus but turn back the clock to the mid 19th century when they first became freaks of the aquarium trade and you'll find much more suitable names for this scary looking character everything from sea goblin and bearded ghoul to demon and devil scorpionfish [Laughter] [Music] with its antiquated array of hairy appendages and gruesome fins it could so easily be the star in a fantasy film the undersea equivalent perhaps of the horrid orcs in lord of the rings fitting when you consider the real meaning of inimicus is the enemy often concealed just below the sand this is an enemy whose beady eyes are constantly on the lookout for poor unsuspecting victims which it disables with stingers that can cause excruciating pain no wonder they can amble a long gun glamorously using their fins like feet without worrying about becoming a meal themselves a very distant but equally menacing relative is to be found many thousands of meters down in the deep sea with teeth like twisted needles and looks to kill the anglerfish is the archetypal ocean [Music] weirdo this is one of the specimens collected from the ocean abyss that scientist tammy horton studies in the lab at southampton [Music] almost always the scientists have to study dead specimens as they rarely survive the long haul to the surface [Music] all of the animals i look at really apart from when i go away to collect them at sea are dead already but that doesn't matter to me because what i'm actually seeing is the new designs um of animals or the intricacy the detail in in just a leg or an eye and when when you manage to find out that it's a new species that's that's a real moment of elation some of the creatures from the depths have been the inspiration of hollywood filmmakers [Music] it's not surprising when you meet these mini marine monsters that the deep provide such fertile reserves to feed our wildest imagination [Music] this tiny specimen is an amphipod the very creature that inspired one of cinemas most terrifying creations [Music] they burrow into deep sea salp a jelly-like creature and eat their insides before bursting out through the stomach wall exactly like the monstrous alien [Music] ugly bizarre lumpy hairy warty just a few of the names of one of our star ocean weirdos [Music] this is the frogfish a tropical marine critter that lurks in among the rocks and reefs just waiting for a meal the frogfish is one of the best examples of morphology in action a fish that no longer looks anything like a fish [Music] they come in many varieties all with strange but subtle variations most can barely swim so have to walk everywhere they have no shell or spines to defend themselves so rely on their amazing camouflage as disguised from potential predators and as they can't move fast enough to catch their prey the camouflage fools their victims even their fins have developed more like feet and toes they've almost entirely lost their ability to swim like normal fish so actually they prefer to walk [Music] some have strange appendages which help them blend seamlessly into the background they might look like little grumpy old men of the sea but when it comes to conserving energy they're the supreme masters frog fish like this hairy pinkish specimen take camouflage to new extremes almost every square centimeter of its body is covered with fleshy nodules enough to make our skin crawl but to the hairy warty or spiny or whatever kind of frogfish you are it's likely that the hairier wartier or spinier the more attractive you are to other like-minded frog fish when you see those fantastic adaptations that they have when you see animals which have really pushed their morphology away from that standard fish shape towards something really extraordinary that at first sight doesn't look like a fish but actually it's because it's evolved from that standard fish form to to do a particular task for example the frog fish the weights body shape is no longer looks like a fish for its its aggressive mimicry for its camouflage so that it can stalk prey and approach it so it can feed on it [Music] this frogfish has evolved in a completely different way to the rest of its family it makes its home among the sargassum weed and other flotsam at the surface it's camouflage making it almost impossible to spot as it preys on other small sea creatures that themselves seek shelter in the weed yet another weird quirk of nature in a sea full of surprises to ensure survival in the dangerous tropical waters of australia the leafy sea dragon has perfected the art of camouflage with the exquisite and delicate prowess of an eccentric fashion designer [Music] perfectly at home disguised among the lush foliage the sea dragon even appears to play to the camera as befitting a true fashion model [Music] the crab is a voracious predator and others lurk close by a sea dragon would make a tasty meal for this cuttlefish itself something of a weirdo [Music] it's only in the sea dragon's outlandish design that it finds protection it's fronds breaking up the lines of its body so that rather than standing out it blends perfectly into the weedy seafloor that it has made its home [Music] if you just saw one removed from the environment that it lives in in a empty in a plain aquarium you it would look the most fantastic and unbelievable creature as soon as you see one in their natural environment in amongst all the the kep the fronds of the celt that they live in um it suddenly all makes sense and these these appendages that it's evolved off its body from a sort of basic pipefish shape um where it started out and it evolved into this this very elaborate um body structure um it makes perfect sense sea dragons are among the best camouflaged animals in the ocean they're also protected by law in australia ironically the very design that gives them camouflage in their undersea environment has made them desirable collectors items to man [Music] you understand the uh the general look of a fish it's it's got that shape with the tail and normal eyes yet when we go into the deeper waters particularly into the twilight zone and the pelagic realm we get some real weirdies down there [Music] these pictures of a bright pink sea cucumber in full rhythmic display are among the latest to be beamed back from the depths thanks to the serpent project [Music] with its umbrella-like head it's able to move elegantly in the currents in search of food which is in scarce supply [Music] this is a classic example of a deep sea creature perfectly evolved to make the most of its environment that's the kingdom of the sea cucumber really 3000 metres down that's where you'll get starfish and sea cucumbers and sea urchins and animals which really have a very slow pace of life they move around very slowly everything that they do is very ponderous and i guess that's the reason that they're so successful at those depths that they require little energy to actually to move around so when the sea cucumber does decide it's time to move on it takes little more than a gentle flick to propel itself into an effortless swim they live on the plankton that falls like seasonal heavy rain to the bottom of the ocean after it dies in the upper layers as for how they reproduce more study is needed but it's thought some are hermaphrodites possessing both male and female sex organs [Music] this one has been captured on video here in the gulf of mexico at more than three thousand meters from its shallower relatives whose equally bizarre designs continue to intrigue the world of science [Music] sea cucumbers are also found in the shallows here at least their spawning is easy to [Music] observe [Music] as a favored weirdo the sea cucumbers alien-like tentacles which it uses to feed are only a part of an extraordinary story remarkably considering that it does nothing but go around eating the waste of everything in the sea the sea cucumber has most of fear from man however unappetizing they may appear to millions they're actually eaten as a delicacy [Music] but you wouldn't want to eat another weirdo which similarly spends its life crawling over the seabed devouring everything in its way this is known in the scientific world as the melee nudibranch it's the strange expanding head that makes it so weird it goes round using its stretchable mouth like a vacuum cleaner to hoover up its prey literally anything that gets in its way but mostly it lives on small crustaceans fish and plankton people who've kept them in fish tanks often reported a strange fruity smell in the room scientists have now shown that the malibu nudibranch produces a chemical compound as a defense mechanism making it very unpleasant to eat weirdness isn't always about the look of an animal some creatures develop ingenious ways of defense and attack which are literally shocking these are the animals which have managed to harness the power of electricity take the example of the electric scallop they use pulses of electricity as an effective deterrent to predators but if it's real power you want watch out for the electric num ray not only can it strike with deadly effect but the poor unfortunate victim is zapped with more than 200 volts of electricity the equivalent of most domestic supplies scientists believe such creatures are able to generate and store electricity thanks to some very clever use of bacteria it seems we still have a lot to learn about how and why the sea creates such a diverse range of creatures to this day we know more about the surface of the moon than we do about our oceans the chances of seeing something that nobody else has ever seen before is high i think it's probably the only job in the world where you can guarantee that perhaps you might see something new that day even working round the clock the remotely operated vehicle of southampton oceanographic institute can only ever explore a minuscule proportion of the vast and still virtually unknown seabed theirs is a quest to discover the weirdest inhabitants of the undersea world and not only in the depths of the abyss but even in the ocean shallows there's so much to discover almost daily the remotely operated cameras that routinely film the deep structures of the oil industry are revealing new species and catching fleeting glimpses of marine life rarely seen [Music] in the pioneering collaboration of the serpent project the scientists are being given access to the footage from these cameras it's a kind of undersea neighborhood watch to help science make sense of the least explored part of our planet and provides many more electronic eyes scouring the ocean thousands of meters down hunting for new species if we can even get a small amount of images and footage back from say half of these vehicles across the world the chances are we'll stumble across some things which are quite amazing so i think it's just increasing the chances of seeing something weird or increasing the chances of finding something new and the project is paying dividends at a depth of around 400 meters near the shetlands of scotland the remote camera belonging to bp is again being put to scientific use this time they stumble across what the scientists are calling the murderous crab [Music] it's devised a brutal way of devouring its prey having caught one of the krill attracted by the lights of the submersible the murderous crab uses its small but powerful pincers to decapitate its victim only then can it manage to eat its meal scientists who watch this grizzly feeding method found that the murderous crab were successful in one strike out of every ten once the krill is caught death appears to be a certainty there's always this arms war going on with as the prey development better defenses so the predators have to invent more ingenious ways of catching them and become more highly evolved in order to grab those those prey and make the most of the opportunity with the video slowed down we can see just how violent and deliberate the execution is [Music] but it's not only in the cold ocean depths that strange and unusual crabs are found who would have guessed that this is in fact a crab only one with hair not surprisingly it's been given the name of orangutan crab and these weird skeletal creatures are also species of crab that have evolved over time to fill a specific and specialized undersea niche another crab carries on its head pieces of the seaweed on which it feeds so that it becomes indistinguishable from its surroundings morphology is the buzzword of science the study of how species evolve very differently depending on their environments take the shark this is the classic shape that people believe a shark to be streamlined bodies sharply pointed head containing rows of sharp teeth gliding through the ocean on fins like the wings of a fighter plane [Music] in many ways the shark is the pinnacle of evolution the perfect predator [Music] but there are many variations on the shark theme the hammerhead shark has evolved with eyes protruding at the most extreme points of their bizarrely shaped heads [Music] one of the biggest fish in the sea is the giant basking shark although coming from the same branch of the shark family as the ocean's deadliest predator the great white meat is not a part of its diet instead it survives on plankton strained from the ocean [Music] then there's the thresher shark with its long sweeping tail as long as its body we still can't explain why these sharks have evolved in this particular way strangest of all is the saw shark this rarely seen deep water shark is believed by science to kill its prey by slashing them with its sharply spiked snout but this is just theory as no one has ever witnessed them feed [Music] [Music] the warm shallow tropical reef is a kaleidoscope of color but take a closer look hiding beneath a table coral is one of the ocean's most brightly patterned weirdos [Music] the rhinopias is the holy grail of fish for underwater photographers it's another member of the scorpion fish family while other scorpion fish rely on their protective spines as defense the rhinopius's bright and varied colour patterns and lacy appendages help it to blend into the rich colors of the reef [Music] it's an astonishing fact that more people have been into space than have visited the ocean abyss two and a half miles below the atlantic ocean a submersible is going to visit the world's most famous shipwreck the titanic which a deep-sea weirdo has made its home this large ugly fish gets its name because its tail looks like that of a rat that's why it's called a rat tail it patrols the deep oceans of the world in search of animal carcasses rotting on the seafloor it's one of the weirdos that continues to haunt the rusting remains of the titanic the rat tail even made a cameo appearance in the blockbuster hollywood movie now here's a weirdo fact some scientists reckon there are 10 billion rat tails trawling the deep sea that would mean there are three times more rat tails than people from the grey colorless depths of the ocean where sunlight never penetrates to the bright vibrant colors of the reef nudibranchs are some of the brightest coloured creatures of the ocean believe it or not there are societies all around the world dedicated to studying these strange but unintelligent life forms which come in a range of exotic shapes and sizes the name nudibranch literally means naked gill [Music] this is the part of the animal that looks like a small flower they actually carry their gills outside their bodies rather than protected within their diet helps them perform another weird evolutionary trick immune to the poisons in the sponges on which they feed they use the toxins in their prey as part of their defense and copy the colours for camouflage purposes another bizarre twist in their morphology has resulted in the solar-powered nudibranch it looks like a piece of soft coral and in fact does something very similar it provides a home to dozens of single-celled algae which converts sunlight into energy so the algae get a free home and the nudibranch benefits from a cheap source of energy and it probably needs the energy and big supplies when it comes to mating nudibranc sex can take up to five days and some species end up laying hundreds of thousands of eggs even millions now this weirdo is one of the ugliest and deadliest fish in the ocean it's bad enough that the stonefish is almost impossible to see when camouflaged on the reef when lurking hidden just below the surface of the seabed it's impossible to spot unless it moves but make the mistake of standing on one and the consequences can be as dreadful as falling victim to a medieval plague that's because these obnoxious looking critters have venom to match their cosmetic disfigurement a venom so toxic it can cause liver failure paralysis even hemorrhaging they say beauty is only skin deep but the stonefish seems to have gone out of its way to defy the laws of attractiveness in the realm of the ocean weirdo isopods are primitive creatures that in various forms are found both on land and in the ocean in the lab at southampton oceanography institute is a deep sea giant of the species nicknamed darth vader because it looks so much like the evil character in the film star wars darth vader he's our our famous big isopod and we've had him in uh the collections here for a long time he's become a bit of a favorite specimen he's about 40 45 centimeters long and these animals uh these isopods as they're called these the ones that are the common relative of um your wood lice in your garden now as you can tell from looking at the specimen it's very very different in size to the isopods that you would find in your back garden under a rock or something this is a very good example of abyssal gigantism it's when an animal whose relatives in shallow water or on land in this case are a lot smaller than um than this particular specimen it's fantastic to see something so big and to know that um these animals can survive and be too such great sizes that they've been successful swimming through this swarm of jellyfish may seem crazy but these are in fact non-stinging jellyfish other relatives of the jellyfish have evolved even more bizarrely believe it or not this creature can grow to a greater length than any of the big whales some of the biggest grow to around 40 meters making them the longest creatures in the [Music] world it's called a siphonophore a twisting swirling mass of individual animals all joined together in one long colony of transparent jellies [Music] amazingly they all seem to have specific roles from those at the head and tail whose job it is to create movement to the dozens of other body parts which are responsible for eating and [Music] [Music] reproduction and just like its more common relatives the siphonophore is equipped with deadly stinging cells which cover its body providing an excellent defense against the myriad of would-be predators a weird and rare giant of the ocean at the other extreme we have weird and beautiful in the shape of a sea creature best known because its head looks like a miniature horse [Music] seahorse is a gorgeous delicate little animals whose weirdness comes from their unusual anatomy in the dim and distant past seahorses were considered freaks of the sea even mythical beasts that transported the gods on their horse-like backs they are in fact fish who just happen to have evolved heads uncannily like their terrestrial namesakes but today their strangeness is more attributed to their highly unusual breeding behavior not only are they devoted couples who pair for life there is another quirky twist in the seahorse tale for it is the male who takes on the motherly role of pregnancy which lasts for up to three weeks at the end the pouch of the male seahorse bursts with life [Music] as many as 150 tiny identical replicas of their parents flood into the sea it's very much a sort of a division of labor between the males and the females the young actually come out as fully formed ready to go tiny tiny little versions of the adults [Music] you stare in wonder at how well-evolved they are to their particular niche in the ocean and how that they're able to get the most out of that um just for example the frog fish the frogfish is indeed one of the best examples of how animals have evolved in a specialized way [Music] slow moving creatures instead of pursuing their prey they entice them with a built-in lure an ingenious adaptation which is really a part of the dorsal fin that scientists call the elysium [Music] in fact it works exactly like a fishing [Music] rod some lures resemble shrimps some are more like fat juicy worms [Music] and when their victim has been drawn in by the law they pounce with the lightning speed of the fastest mouth in the sea to feed it doesn't need to be able to swim so why bother why waste yourself being a generalist get very specialized and become very good at it the way it hunts is to stay still wait for the fish to come into the target at range and of course the frog fish have their own special way of encouraging fish to come into that target range and then to pounce [Music] this frogfish is making the most of a stroke of luck the camera lights have attracted a small school of fish and the frog fish is gorging himself on this unexpected feast and look at its stomach so fast is the speed of the strike that its victim is still alive wriggling around inside its belly [Music] despite being gorged the frogfish still tries for more and you can see how something like a lure would it would evolve on a frog fish frog fish perhaps many many thousands millions of years ago would have had a slightly longer first dorsal spine and actually as their dorsal fin waved in the current that that was attracting fish those frog fish did better and the ones with longer and longer dorsal spines evolved into the wonderful structure you see today its success rate isn't especially high but when the frog fish does manage to catch a fish it does so in the blink of an eye almost too fast for the camera [Music] only by slowing down the picture do we get an idea of just how fast the frogfish can gulp its prey a true ocean weirdo in every sense another dividend from the serpent project is causing the team great excitement life may be sparse in the deep ocean but every now and then something very unusual comes along [Music] the common squid hunts just below the surface of the nighttime sea but it has strange relatives that live in the darkness of the deep ocean spotting something moving near the leg of an oil installation the camera zooms in for a closer look could it be a major discovery the fact is this deep sea squid has only been seen a handful of times before it's called the dumbo squid because its fins resemble the ears of the character dumbo the elephant you've always got a good idea perhaps what you might expect to see so when something does come past the screen that is unique i think everybody just gets so excited because you know that what you're capturing is unique and you know that what you're seeing is the first time that it's ever been seen before growing to several metres in length the dumbo squid now ranks among the previously unknown giants of the deep for the scientists it's another priceless discovery which helps inspire the continued exploration of the deep we've perhaps explored one percent of the seabed below a few hundred meters deep so the deep sea really is the largest and biggest untouched frontier left on the planet who knows what weirdos are prowling the world's oceans never before seen by human eyes perhaps even stranger than anything we can muster in our wildest dreams or scariest nightmares [Applause] you

Channel: Real Wild

Views: 2,634,649

Rating: 4.5724087 out of 5

Keywords: nature documentary, full documentary, documentary movie, animals attack, wildlife documentary, english, hd, deep sea, discovery channel, national geographic, bbc, natgeo wild, Nature documentaries - topic, Animals - topic, sharks - topic, hammerhead shark, marine biology, bottom of the ocean, sea horses, weird fish, creepy sea creatures, unusual animals, abyss documentary, living on the ocean floor, crabs, Real life pokemon, electric ray, stonefish, frogfish, seadragon

Id: 74rl19ooMpA

Length: 47min 7sec (2827 seconds)

Published: Wed May 17 2017

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[u/iheartbaconsalt]

This is just a clip from a 2008 documentary called "Wonders of the Deep: Ocean Weirdos."