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October 6, 2020: Cutthroat Eel

A cutthroat eel, Synaphobranchid, caught on video using the Medusa lander. Medusa uses red light illumination that is invisible to most deep-sea animals and an intensified camera that amplifies both this dim illumination as well as any bioluminescence. Unlike a remotely operated vehicle, Medusa is silent and has near-infrared light, which allows it to capture organisms in the deep-sea on film with very little impact, providing phenomenal footage of deep-sea animals in their natural environments, acting the way that they normally do.

Image courtesy of NOAA Bioluminescence and Vision on the Deep Seafloor 2015. Download larger version (jpg, 93 KB).

A cutthroat eel, Synaphobranchid, caught on video using the Medusa lander. Medusa uses red light illumination that is invisible to most deep-sea animals and an intensified camera that amplifies both this dim illumination as well as any bioluminescence. Unlike a remotely operated vehicle, Medusa is silent and has near-infrared light, which allows it to capture organisms in the deep-sea on film with very little impact, providing phenomenal footage of deep-sea animals in their natural environments, acting the way that they normally do.

From: Medusa Deep in the Gulf of Mexico.