美国国家公共电台 NPR Explorers Probing Deep Sea Abyss Off Australia's Coast Find Living Wonders

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

We're going to speak now with someone who has spent the last month exploring a largely uncharted world, discovering some bizarre creatures that have never before been seen by humans. Dr. Tim O'Hara is a marine 1 biologist, and we are calling him on board the research vessel 2 known as The Investigator 3. Dr. O'Hara, welcome. And tell us where you are right now.

TIM O'HARA: Hello, Ari. Right now we're in the Coral Sea, which is an area off northeast Australia. People probably familiar with the Great Barrier Reef - and we're about 100 kilometers offshore 4 of the Barrier Reef. But this is our final site. And after this, we head to Brisbane and home.

SHAPIRO: The Barrier Reef is relatively 5 shallow. You have been exploring quite the opposite, someplace very, very deep.

O'HARA: That's right. That's right. Most people think of the sea as something that's surrounding the coastline. And perhaps if you're a scuba 6 diver, you dive down to 50 meters. But we've been surveying 4,000 meters beneath the sea. So that's two nautical 7 miles straight down. So it's very deep. It's a place of crushing temperatures and no light and very little food. And it's kind of one of the great extreme environments of the planet.

SHAPIRO: And yet, despite those extreme temperatures and pressure and darkness, you have found extraordinary things down there. Tell us about it.

O'HARA: Yeah. There's lots of amazing things. I mean, it's a completely different environment that demands different things of the animals. There's not a lot of food, so that means everything's kind of long and jelly-like in a lot of ways. A lot of the fish look like eels 8. And that's because they don't need as much magical energy to function. And a lot of animals just stay still for long periods, just waiting for prey 9 to come along.

SHAPIRO: You've been doing this research for the last month in this abyss. How many new species do you figure you've discovered in that time?

O'HARA: Well, you know, that's going to take another couple of years to kind of give you a precise figure. But, you know, I think a good rule of thumb is at least a third of everything we see would be new.

SHAPIRO: Is that, like, dozens or hundreds or what?

O'HARA: Yeah, it would be hundreds.

SHAPIRO: Hundreds of new species just in the last month.

O'HARA: Yeah, easily. You know, we haven't explored this environment much in the Southern Hemisphere at all. And around Australia, this is really the first dedicated 10 trip to study the abyss. So it is really a voyage of discovery. It's quite amazing in the 21st century you can still do that. But, yes, you can.

SHAPIRO: I've been following along on your blog, where you have videos and photos. And there are more extraordinary creatures there than I can count. Will you tell us about one of your favorites?

O'HARA: Sure. I mean, I actually study a group of animals called brittle 11 stars. And, believe it or not, they dominate the deep sea, and yet hardly anyone's heard of them. So kind of they're my sentimental 12 favorite.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

O'HARA: But, you know, there's been lots of other amazing animals, the crustaceans 13. You know, they've got extraordinary spines 14 all over the bodies. And lots of the worms have petal 15 and hair-like structures all over them. And then there's the fish, as well. They're always the outstanding favorites - you know, the tripod fish, which are sitting on three kind of processes coming from their fins 16 like a camera on a tripod. We've had faceless fish. It's a fish that almost has no eyes. The eyes, perhaps, are very deep. No one's really quite sure, but...

SHAPIRO: Because when you're in the pitch-black depths of the ocean, why would you need eyes?

O'HARA: Exactly, exactly.

SHAPIRO: And so the mouth is on the underside of its body, so it has, really, no eyes. This is why it's called the faceless fish.

O'HARA: That's right because, really, you look at the thing, and it's just kind of a round end for the animal. The mouth is underneath 17. And what it uses it for is sucking. So it would go along the sea floor, sucking up little worms and crustaceans and shells and that sort of stuff.

SHAPIRO: Describe what you're actually doing to get these creatures.

O'HARA: So we're relying on a good, old-fashioned, you know, metal box on the end of a very, very long rope. We have video cameras that we take down. We also have small nets to take some fish and other sort of invertebrates 18 from the sea floor. Some people are a bit disturbed that we go in there and we actually bring the animals back to the surface to look at. But, really, kind of science demands that we really need to see animals in detail. We want to see the DNA 19. We need to sort of bring them to the attention of people. Otherwise, it's just another hidden world.

SHAPIRO: When we're talking about hidden worlds like this, it's easy for the imagination to run wild. Is there any chance that the collection techniques you're using would miss the leviathans, the fast creatures, a type of species that might not be caught in your net?

O'HARA: Yeah, sure, the megalodons. Yeah.

SHAPIRO: (Laughter).

O'HARA: I mean, all those things - yeah, absolutely. You know, our nets and sleds are very small. So, yes, anything big, smart and intelligent would just move easily out of the way. And you've got to pitch it down. You know, it's an area completely without lights. No sunlight can penetrates 20 that far. And, you know, our cameras go down there - and this huge ball of kind of iridescent 21 light. To a deep-sea creature, we're the aliens, really. I'm sure the intelligent ones just swim out of the way. So, yes, maybe. Maybe there's that big monster just waiting out there. Who knows?

SHAPIRO: Well, Dr. O'Hara, congratulations, and thank you for telling us about the expedition.

O'HARA: And thank you for having me.

SHAPIRO: Dr. Tim O'Hara is wrapping up his month-long exploration of the abyss off Australia's eastern coast.