THE BEAUTY OF NATURE’S UGLIES

Most of the sea is neither at the surface nor on the ocean bed. In scientific speak, it is the mesopelagic layer (200m to 1km deep), or in plain English the middle. It’s also the most important habitat, with 95 per cent of all fish hiding here. They include such horrors as angler, dragon and fangtooth fish (left), all with teeth so big they can hardly shut their mouths. Here too are nature’s uglies, like the gulper eel, the spook fish, the sea pig and the vampire squid. But as solutions to living in dark, cold water under high pressure they’re also beautiful. Many were here long before humans, and are more representative of life on Earth than us.

Getting clear shots of these creatures from a submarine porthole is difficult, because seawater is horrible stuff to film through. The main rule is to come up close to your subject.