Few human beliefs are more basic and time-honored than the idea that monsters lurk in the deep. As the extent of our knowledge of the known limit of the deep sea has grown over the centuries, the supposed sea monsters have changed, but the overall length of the list has not diminished. Whales were once considered sea monsters. One translation of kētos, the Greek origin of the word cetacean—the name for all whales, dolphins and porpoises—is “sea monster.” For the whale, the change from sea monster to friendly sea mammal occurred in the late 20th century, as people began to learn more about whales and embrace them.
A similar transition is happening for many of the sharks and rays. At one time, sailors were terrified of the basking and whale sharks’ open-mouth feeding strategy, which looks like an attack posture, but now such plankton-eating sharks have become objects of curiosity rather than hated and misunderstood creatures. The elegant manta ray, once known as the devilfish, was reputed to grab ships by their anchors and drag them into the deep. Swimmers were terrified that they would be surrounded by the manta ray’s large fins and swallowed whole. Today, however, divers play with mantas and other rays and marvel when they burst out of the water and perform as aerial artists.
Certain sharks, such as the white, tiger and hammerhead, remain in the sea-monster category for most people, although even these animals are increasingly evoking sympathy. The 1975 movie Jaws, based on the best-selling Peter Benchley novel, may have been good entertainment, but it instilled a widespread fear and hatred of sharks and encouraged their slaughter—hardly a sympathetic portrait. Still, the book and the film sparked a curiosity about sharks, and some of this attention produced a backlash of sympathy. In any case, the conservation of sharks has become crucial in the post-Jaws era. As more and more people learn about sharks—as they did about whales a decade or two earlier—they come to realize that only a few individual animals attack people and that even with the white shark, such attacks are rare. Once known as the “great white shark,” this species is increasingly referred to simply as the “white shark,” partly in an effort to defuse the negative connotations that have long been attached to its original common name. Each year over the past few decades, despite the presence of millions of sea swimmers, divers, surfers and boaters, there have been roughly 75 recorded shark attacks on humans worldwide and an average of fewer than five fatalities.
In the late 1970s, unbeknownst to most of the public, a new bestiary of monsters began to appear in the form of giant tubeworms and strange crabs, snails and other creatures that flourish deep in the sea, in the absence of sunlight, at hydrothermal vents spewing sulfur-rich water. The tubeworms actually draw their energy from sulfur-eating bacteria that live in their stalks. As the discovery of life at these hydrothermal vents made scientific headlines, new monster stories began circulating, this time told by the scientists themselves.
Since then, scientists have searched for and begun to study many other deep-sea creatures. In 1995, Time magazine proclaimed the new frontier of deep-sea research with a cover photo of a vicious-looking deep-sea anglerfish sporting a mouthful of needle teeth, bioluminescent lures and saucer eyes. Every few years since then, popular magazines and aquarium exhibits have tried to raise the profile of the deep sea with mixed success—the public’s intense curiosity is stimulated, but is that enough to produce a true understanding of the ocean? The Census of Marine Life’s ambitious 10-year project (2000–2010) to find and identify new species in the deep, for example, brought many thousands of deep-sea species to the public’s attention. It’s a start. But there are still hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of species yet to be discovered, named and studied.
Some “sea monsters” are both age-old and current, yet we still know little about them. The giant squid tops the list. First photographed alive in September 2004 off Ogasawara, Japan, the giant squid continues to be the subject of scientific expeditions attempting to study it in its natural habitat and unlock the secrets of how it makes its living, despite the hundreds of thousands of sperm whales that are ever in hungry pursuit. A sperm whale eats an estimated one or two giant squid a week, but no one has yet documented the ultimate giant squid/sperm whale contest. In addition to giant squid, there are supposed monsters of every size, description, demeanor and depth: oarfish, sea snakes, gulper and snipe eels and colossal squid among them.
Humans traditionally reserve the greatest awe, fear, hatred and even contempt for sea monsters that are big predators. While many big-toothed or poisonous sea creatures deserve arm’s-length respect, that hardly renders them monsters or odious.
The idea of what makes a “monster” changes over time. Perhaps that perception reflects a fear of the unknown or the poorly known. Misunderstanding or a certain lack of knowledge leaves room for the human imagination to fill in the blanks, less encumbered by science and real natural history, thus elevating some creatures to sea-monster status.
The word monster comes from the Old French/Middle English monstre, which, in turn, is derived from the Latin monstrum (“portent”), from monēre (“to warn”). The key dictionary definition of monster is: a creature with a strange or frightening appearance. But strange is relative, and therefore, a monster takes form, at least partly, in the eye of the beholder. Secondary definitions are: a very large animal, plant or object [note: size, too, is relative]; an animal, a fetus, a plant or other organism having structural defects, deformities or grotesque abnormalities [note: normality is also relative]; one that inspires horror or disgust, a monster of selfishness [note: horror and disgust are even more relative]; and an imaginary or legendary creature, such as a centaur, that combines parts from various animal or human forms.
Part of the fascination with sea monsters is the enduring mystery of the deep and murky places they inhabit. The surface waters accessible to boats, divers and swimmers represent just a thin top layer, the skin of the world ocean, less than 1 percent of its 336-million-cubic-mile (1.4 billion km3) habitat, which averages 2.3 miles (3.7 km) deep.
In earlier times, people had as many misconceptions about the sea as they did about sea monsters. Some thought that the water on the bottom was so cold, it must be frozen or that the water there was eternally, fatally stagnant. Others imagined that the pressure was so great, dead animals or even ships which sank into the depths would be unable to fall to the bottom and would remain, forever constrained, in a suspended state in the great abyss.
In the mid-19th century, as expeditions were launched to explore life in the depths, one of the more popular theories suggested the absence of life below 1,800 feet (550 m), or 300 fathoms. With a growing scientific understanding of the conditions needed to sustain life, the mid- to deep waters were considered sunless and too cold to support living organisms. That idea was based on limited research in unproductive regions of the Mediterranean and ran counter to the prevailing idea of deep-sea monsters. If no life existed below 300 fathoms, where would the putative sea monsters live and what would they eat? The late-19th-century Challenger Expedition demonstrated widespread life in the deep sea, and in the mid-20th century, life was eventually shown to extend from the surface to the very bottom of the sea, in trenches seven miles (11 km) deep. It was cold and dark on the bottom, and things moved slowly. But even here, there were monsters of a kind, yet those who discovered them were not so much frightened as heartened to find anything at such depth.
The deep sea refers to the layers of water nearest the bottom of an ocean basin, although it is sometimes used casually to refer to the vast open, or pelagic, ocean—the offshore waters lying off the continental slope, where the deepest seas are found.
In this guided tour of the deep and pelagic ocean, we will journey through the various layers, ever deeper and to more remote corners, and meet some of the fascinating creatures of the deep that loosely make up the group of former and current “sea monsters.” This book not only presents a rogues’ gallery of deep-sea monsters but also explores the kind of world that gives rise to such creatures. It is my fervent hope that this introduction to the deep will turn a few more sea monsters into sea friends, animals worthy of our respect, curiosity and admiration, as well as our care and concern. It’s time to make fast friends with sea monsters. The ocean that gave them and us the gift of life is changing in ways that humans are trying to understand. Will that understanding come too late?