UNTITLED
Editors Note: Hawthorne R. ('18) wrote this assignment for extra credit
On an existential scale, human beings are narcissistic. When most people
reach a certain age, they are able to gain enough perspective to understand that
other humans’ lives have as much value as their own, and we call this empathy and
pat ourselves on the back. Still, one only has to look as far as climate change to see
that we have difficulty understanding that the planet does not belong to us, that it is
not ours to destroy. We account for an infinitesimal fraction of life on earth, so why
do we act like we own the place? Scientists put the ocean’s share of the biosphere at
more than 99 percent, and about 70% of our planet is composed of water. Despite
this, the deeper parts of the ocean are generally unexplored and unfamiliar to us. In
all our self-absorption, we launch ourselves into space and dream of
extraterrestrials to communicate with, but forget that there is so much life in the
depths of our oceans to be discovered. This is why I was excited when in 2015 the
incredible abundance of the bristlemouth fish was discovered. It vastly outshines in
number all land animals characterized by their spine. At a count of at least trillions,
perhaps quadrillions, scientists honor the bristlemouth as the most populous
vertebrate on earth. This means that for every person you know and every person
you don’t know, there might be one billion bony little needle-fanged fish living in the
twilight zone, the lowest level of the ocean to which light can penetrate.
Dr. Robinson, a senior marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute in California, says, “the deeper you go, the stranger things get”.
While bristlemouth are difficult to observe due to the depth of the water they
occupy, scientists have managed to collect some key information about their
behavior. As it turns out, they have a few tricks to compensate for being
approximately the size of a human finger. In addition to its incredible reproductive
power, the bristlemouth also has a novel style of camouflage. While the twilight
zone is relatively dark, some predators are able to locate fish from their silhouettes,
if they are swimming above their prey at daytime. In response, the bristlemouth has
developed a strategy called counter illumination—bioluminescent spots allow them
to blend in with the surrounding semi-light, so that their shadows cannot be seen.
Another unusual aspect of the bristlemouth is that it is protandrous. This
means that it starts life as a male and, in some cases, switches to become a female. In
“Hermaphroditism,” by John C. Avise, it says a male bristlemouth is usually smaller
than a female. The male also has a more developed sense of smell, which helps it
find mates in the semi-darkness.
By now scientists know quite a bit about the bristlemouth, even if there are
still questions, and 2015 was a great year for marine discoveries. Still, there are
millions more species living in the planets main biosphere — in the sunless depths
of the ocean. Let’s hope that 2016 is a year of continued research, and that our
curiosity and respect for these alien species is strengthened. The human race must
learn stop putting ourselves at the center of the universe and recognize that we are
a tiny part of an enormous ecosystem. That creatures like the bristlemouth, who
differ from humans in just about every way except for our spines, have their own
world below the surface of the ocean that we are lucky enough to be able to observe,
but must refrain from contaminating.
reach a certain age, they are able to gain enough perspective to understand that
other humans’ lives have as much value as their own, and we call this empathy and
pat ourselves on the back. Still, one only has to look as far as climate change to see
that we have difficulty understanding that the planet does not belong to us, that it is
not ours to destroy. We account for an infinitesimal fraction of life on earth, so why
do we act like we own the place? Scientists put the ocean’s share of the biosphere at
more than 99 percent, and about 70% of our planet is composed of water. Despite
this, the deeper parts of the ocean are generally unexplored and unfamiliar to us. In
all our self-absorption, we launch ourselves into space and dream of
extraterrestrials to communicate with, but forget that there is so much life in the
depths of our oceans to be discovered. This is why I was excited when in 2015 the
incredible abundance of the bristlemouth fish was discovered. It vastly outshines in
number all land animals characterized by their spine. At a count of at least trillions,
perhaps quadrillions, scientists honor the bristlemouth as the most populous
vertebrate on earth. This means that for every person you know and every person
you don’t know, there might be one billion bony little needle-fanged fish living in the
twilight zone, the lowest level of the ocean to which light can penetrate.
Dr. Robinson, a senior marine biologist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium
Research Institute in California, says, “the deeper you go, the stranger things get”.
While bristlemouth are difficult to observe due to the depth of the water they
occupy, scientists have managed to collect some key information about their
behavior. As it turns out, they have a few tricks to compensate for being
approximately the size of a human finger. In addition to its incredible reproductive
power, the bristlemouth also has a novel style of camouflage. While the twilight
zone is relatively dark, some predators are able to locate fish from their silhouettes,
if they are swimming above their prey at daytime. In response, the bristlemouth has
developed a strategy called counter illumination—bioluminescent spots allow them
to blend in with the surrounding semi-light, so that their shadows cannot be seen.
Another unusual aspect of the bristlemouth is that it is protandrous. This
means that it starts life as a male and, in some cases, switches to become a female. In
“Hermaphroditism,” by John C. Avise, it says a male bristlemouth is usually smaller
than a female. The male also has a more developed sense of smell, which helps it
find mates in the semi-darkness.
By now scientists know quite a bit about the bristlemouth, even if there are
still questions, and 2015 was a great year for marine discoveries. Still, there are
millions more species living in the planets main biosphere — in the sunless depths
of the ocean. Let’s hope that 2016 is a year of continued research, and that our
curiosity and respect for these alien species is strengthened. The human race must
learn stop putting ourselves at the center of the universe and recognize that we are
a tiny part of an enormous ecosystem. That creatures like the bristlemouth, who
differ from humans in just about every way except for our spines, have their own
world below the surface of the ocean that we are lucky enough to be able to observe,
but must refrain from contaminating.
