[VIDEO] New Deep Imaging System Reveals the Insides of the Sea's Weirdest Creatures

Deep within the sea lies creatures that are hard to see, study, and fathom. They live at icy temperatures and under crushing pressures in pitch darkness. Since the liquid environment is uncontrolled by the gravity and solid surfaces, it allows for natural selection to have an array of unfamiliar body parts and architectures that looks alien to human standards.

With the advances in technology, a new kind of laser illuminates some of these alien-like life forms that have soft bodies made of mucoid and gelatinous materials, somewhat like a jellyfish but stranger. Their bodies show translucent parts and gooey structures inside, such as the filaments, mucous housings, and fine-mesh filters for gathering food.

Recently, scientists filmed a gelatinous sea creature known as siphonophore in the depths of Western Australia. They estimated that the sea creature measure 150 feet in length and probably the world's longest example of marine life, The New York Times reports.

A team of seven people from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California and the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago described an imaging device for studying these sea creatures.

The new device emits a thin fan of laser light that scans through the animal and feed the data gathered into a computer that visually reconstructs them in staggering detail as described by Bruce H. Robson, a marine biologist at MBARI who participated in the research. This new device is called a DeepIV imaging system that reveals the animals' insides, similar to how CT scans work for humans.

Exploring the Deep Sea

The researchers conducted explorations of the California coast in Monterey Bay, which is known to have a deep canyon. A machine holds the imager while being lowered for up to a quarter-mile using a long tether.

According to the paper's lead author, Kakani Katija, an engineer at the marine institute, the new technique would help uncover the process at which these gooey creatures feed, move, procreate and protect themselves.

The team told Nature that they directed the device at an abyssal creature known as the giant larvacean, a creature that can secrete balloon-like mucus feeding structures as wide as three feet. Within that are smaller, fist-size filters that it uses to collect its prey and tiny particles.

The new device helped Dr. Katija and her team members to map the structure of the larvacean's inner fiber, identifying its precise shape and the exact function of its parts. With the computers' help, the scientists were able to create a movie that enabled them to fly through the filter and scrutinize its flows effectively.

The First of Its Kind

In history, no scientist has had the opportunity to examine such complicated structures in deep-sea animals, not until today. The visualization by the new technique can shed light on some of nature's most complex life forms, Dr. Katija and her collaborators wrote.

It is said that 99% of the world's biosphere resides in the oceans, making this new technique relevant to the field. Fishermen may be familiar with its surface, but compared to land, the Earth's ocean has more secrets to tell that are unknown yet.

Taking the example of the otherworldly creatures deep beneath the sea, Dr. Robinson has estimated that up to 50% of the sea remains undiscovered.