Deep Sea Fish

Deep sea fish are fish🐠🐡 that live in the darkness below the sunlit surface waters, that is below the epipelagic or zone of the sea . The lanternfish is, by far, the most common deep-sea fish. Other deepsea fishes include the flash light fish, anglerfish , viperfish , and some species of eelpout .

Only about 2% of known marine species inhabit the pelagic environment. This means that they live in the watercolumn as opposed to the benthic organisms that live in or on the sea floor.Deep-sea organisms generally inhabit bathypelagic (1000–4000m deep) and abyssopelagic (4000–6000m deep) zones. However, characteristics of deep-sea organisms, such as bioluminescence can be seen in the mesopelagic (200–1000m deep) zone as well. The mesopelagic zone is the disphotic zone, meaning light there is minimal but still measurable. The oxygen minimum layer exists somewhere between a depth of 700m and 1000m deep depending on the place in the ocean. This area is also where nutrients are most abundant. The bathypelagic and abyssopelagic zones are aphotic , meaning that no light penetrates this area of the ocean. 🐋🐋🐟🐠🐡

The epipelagic zone (0–200m) is the area where light penetrates the water and photosynthesis occurs. This is also known as the photic zone . Because this typically extends only a few hundred meters below the water, the deep sea, about 90% of the ocean volume, is in darkness. The deep sea is also an extremely hostile environment, with temperatures that rarely exceed 3 °C (37.4 °F) and fall as low as −1.8 °C (28.76 °F) (with the exception of hydrothermal vent ecosystems that can exceed 350 °C, or 662 °F), low oxygen levels, and pressures between 20.🐠🐟