Erich Hoyt - Creatures of the Deep: In Search of the Seas Monsters and the World They Live in

First, I must thank the scientists who are slowly uncovering the secrets of these deep-sea creatures. For without the steady procession of new discoveries, there would be no need for another journalistic expedition across the ocean expanses and to the deepest waters of our planet. In essence, we all need to thank the creatures themselves for inspiring such wonder and for turning up at a surprisingly steady rate year after year2,000 new species per year since 2000.

In addition, I would especially like to thank two of my favorite editors, Tracy C. Read and copy editor Susan Dickinson, along with Lionel Koffler and Michael Worek at Firefly, for making this book possible. All were involved in the first edition of Creatures of the Deep, so there is a strong continuity. I would also like to thank Fireflys Pippa Kennard for coordinating the photos and for facilitating every aspect of the books production, designer Hartley Millson, illustrator George A. Walker, indexer Gillian Watts and all the photographers, especially David Shale, for his unfailing help with background details on his deep-sea images, and Sandra Storch, who provided the background for Solvin Zankls photos. Erika Fitzpatrick provided enormous help with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution images. I owe my passion and some of my thinking on biodiversity, protected areas and whale conservation in the books final section to a number of friends and colleagues, including Tundi Agardy, Jeff Ardron, Regina Asmutis-Silvia, Brad Barr, Mike Bossley, Alexander Burdin, Chris Butler-Stroud, Sarah Dolman, Nicolas Entrup, Ivan Fedutin, Olga Filatova, Naoko Funahashi, Kristina Gjerde, Nicola Hodgins, Miguel Iguez, Tanya Ivkovich, Kristin Kaschner, David Mattila, Naomi McIntosh, Cara Miller, Mikhail Nagaylik, Peter Poole, Margi Prideaux, Patrick Ramage, Randall Reeves, Lorenzo Rojas Bracho, Mark Simmonds, Liz Slooten, Brian Smith, Michael Tetley, Vanesa Tossenberger, Jos Truda Palazzo Jr., Rob Williams, Vanessa Williams-Grey, Edward O. Wilson, Alison Wood and especially my fellow chair of the IUCN Marine Mammal Protected Areas Task Force, Giuseppe Notarbartolo di Sciara. I would like to express my deepest appreciation to biological oceanographer Paul Snelgrove at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, who read the entire text and provided excellent suggestions and corrections. In addition, Charlie Huveneers provided valuable comments on the sections about sharks. Of course, any errors that remain are my own.

Theres much, much more. For example, in 2006, on the North Icelandic Shelf near Grmsey Island on the Arctic Circle, researchers from Bangor University in Wales dredged up what they took to be 400-year-old specimens of the clam Arctica islandica. The age of one of the clams was subsequently determined to be 507 years, which was confirmed by carbon dating. The longest-lived noncolonial animal with an accurately determined life span, this clam was named Ming, a tribute to the fact that it had started life during the Chinese Ming Dynasty. While there is no way of knowing just how much longer Ming might have lived had the clam been left on the ocean floor, its discovery does lead us to wonder what secrets to a long and happy life are to be found in the cold waters north of Iceland.

Yeti crabs have also been discovered at so-called cold vents, or cold methane seeps, where water transports dissolved elements from the seabed. Oregon State Universitys Andrew Thurber and his colleagues uncovered a notable new Yeti species, Kiwa puravida, during an Alvin submarine cruise off Costa Rica in 2006. A microbe specialist, Thurber studied how the new Yeti rhythmically swings its chelipeds, or claws (which are covered in dense setae and epibiotic bacteria), above the methane seep in what appears to be a form of symbiosis with the bacteria. These Yeti are thought to farm the bacteria, caring for them, nurturing them and perhaps consuming them, much like the ants that stand guard over subdued aphids, feeding from their sugary secretions and, as needed, eating the aphids.