What is Midnight Zone?

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About Midnight Zone:

The ocean water column is made up of five zones: the sunlight zone (epipelagic), the twilight zone (mesopelagic), the midnight zone (bathypelagic), the abyssal zone (abyssopelagic), and the hadal zone (trenches).
Sunlight is rapidly absorbed as it travels through water. Red, orange, and yellow are absorbed quickly, leaving water a brilliant blue, but even these wavelengths disappear as light travels deeper.
By about 1,000 meters (about 3,300 feet) depth, even the faintest light has been extinguished, leaving these deep ocean waters in perpetual darkness.
The resulting bathypelagic, or midnight, zone extends to about 4,000 meters (about 13,100 feet), which reaches the ocean floor in many places.
The midnight zone is the single largest habitat on the planet, accounting for 70% of all seawater.
In addition to the lack of light, the midnight zone is characterized by a steady temperature of around 4° Celsius (39° Fahrenheit).
Life that exists in this zone must be able to function in cold temperatures and withstand extreme hydrostatic pressure.
Pressure varies with depth, and in this zone, it ranges from 100 to 400 atmospheres.
Organisms here have special adaptations including well-developed visual systems, bioluminescence used both to lure prey and attract mates, and well-developed auditory systems that allow them to hear other animals moving nearby.

Key Facts about Bathydevius Caudactylus:

It is a new species of mollusk discovered within the ocean’s midnight zone.
Although the apple-size species is classified as a sea slug, the marine animal is unlike any sea slug scientists have seen before.
It is a swimming sea slug that glows with bioluminescence and has a body with a paddle-like tail and a large gelatinous hood, and it’s the first sea slug found to live in the deep ocean.
- Typically, sea slugs live on the seafloor or in coastal environments like tide pools, while only a few are known to live in open water near the surface.
Bathydevius moves up and down the water column by flexing its body or drifting in the currents.
It is hermaphrodite, which includes both male and female reproductive organs.

Q1: What is bioluminescence?

Bioluminescence is the production and emission of light by a living organism. Bioluminescent creatures are found throughout marine habitats, from the ocean surface to the deep seafloor.

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