You’ve probably seen footage of giant squid, but what about the translucent glass squid? The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used a deep diving submersible to observe these intriguing creatures, which live in the twilight, or mesopelagic, zone.
Glass squids are covered in tiny pigment sacs called chromatophores, and when closed, their skin is essentially translucent, hiding them from both predators and prey. If a predator sees past their invisibility cloak, these squid expand their chromatophores to darken themselves. Some of them even fill their body cavity with ink instead to blend in with the darkness. If all else fails, a glass squid may squirt ink into the water and jet away.
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But the future of midwater animals is in jeopardy. The deep seafloor holds buried treasure: nodules of precious minerals critical to modern technologies. Mining these metals will release plumes of wastewater that will cloud the ocean’s twilight zone. Investigating how deep-sea animals sense their surroundings will help us predict how much harder mining will make their day-to-day lives,” said MBARI.
