Who can forget those scenes from the movie The Abyss featuring ethereal, glowing beings that eventually saved the lives of everyone on the deep sea rig? If you’re a diver, those scenes have probably stuck with you, perhaps even inspiring hope that one day you’ll make such a discovery. Well, far be it from us to burst your bubble, but we think we might know what those beings were, or at the very least, were based upon: salps and pyrosomes.
Salps and pyrosomes hail from the subphylum Tunicata, which means that they share lineage with a more common marine organism: the sea squirt. These creatures are usually cylindrical or conical in shape, and although they appear to be a single organism, they are actually comprised of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids, whose size can range from one centimeter to several meters in length. Although they typically prefer deep, cold waters where there is plenty of plankton, they can sometimes be observed closer to the surface in the event of deep water upwellings. Because these animals rely on plankton for food, their movements are mostly controlled by wave energy and tides. Salps and pyrosomes are intensely bioluminescent, with the ability to sustain light emission much longer than other bioluminescent creatures, even able to exhibit waves of light as they transmit light signals to one another. Indeed, the very name is a literal description of this unique characteristic — the Greek “pyro” means fire, and “soma” means body. We can only imagine what the Greeks must have thought upon witnessing this mysterious creature in action. Enjoy this footage we found of these fascinating animals.
