Cast your imagination down to the bottom of the ocean—not at a
beach or a bright coral reef just offshore, but the true ocean
floor—the abyssal plains which cover much of Earth’s surface.
Here vast flat swaths of mud lie in black silence. Only the
occasional seamount or shipwreck breaks the monotony of plains
as big as continents. Tides do not particularly affect the
bottom of the ocean. The most violent storms do not perturb the
waters. Even humankind’s restless activities, which have so much
affected the rest of the planet, mean little here. At first it
seems bleak, but soon enough you realize that life is everywhere
here. There are spiderfish, lizardfish, deep sea octopuses,
bizarre roving sea cucumbers, and all sorts of strange
creatures, but we are not here for them. Instead we are
concentrating on an inconspicuous worm-like animal. The tiny
cylindrical creatures are only 5 cm (2 inches long) and they
shimmer strangely when exposed to light. It would be reasonable
to assume that they were worms or tiny s