Have You Seen God’s Wonders in the Deep?

MAN can accomplish marvelous things by the use of his brain. But he usually either copies from natural things or finds that his inventions and devices have already been in use for centuries in the plant or animal world. And there are many natural phenomena that man cannot imitate. In the vast ocean depths we find such marvels in endless array.

Consider as just one example of these marvels the phenomenon of cold luminosity. Luminous fishes of different kinds accomplish an almost perfect, 100-percent conversion of energy into light​—hence, no heat. Some insects on land also have this ability, but in the ocean we find it most diversified in form and in use​—for protection, for food catching and for mating.

Builders Extraordinary

Man is a great builder. By means of computers and with the help of detailed blueprints, explosives, gigantic earth-moving machines, towering cranes and with craftsmen of all kinds, he erects structures of great size and beauty. Yet there are builders in the ocean whose efforts in some ways far surpass man’s. It is as though the Creator wanted to impress upon man the fact that creative ability is from God, and that what abilities man has he has received from God. Man cannot properly boast of his own wisdom.​—Jer. 9:23, 24; 1 Cor. 4:7.

Most striking among the ocean structures are the beautiful coral formations. Hundreds of coral islands and atolls (islands that form a ring around a lagoon) exist, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, and only in relatively recent years has man been able to understand, to a degree, just how the building was done.

Corals are small animals called polyps, most of them only a fraction of an inch in size, though some are as much as a foot (.3 meter) in diameter. Polyps have cylinder-shaped bodies with a mouth at one end. The other end attaches to the sea bottom. Because they take calcium from the seawater they form limestone skeletons. When they die their skeletons are built upon by others. Countless billions of polyps have contributed their skeletons to form islands and underwater reefs. The Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of Australia is the largest coral formation in the world​—1,250 miles (about 2,000 kilometers) long. Such reefs can be a danger to ships. But they can also be a protection in that they provide quiet waters between the reef and the mainland.

An underwater “coral garden” is one of the ocean’s most beautiful sights. In brilliant shades of red, orange, tan, yellow, purple and green, corals are found in a multitude of patterns. Some look like branched trees with stars at their tips; some look like leaves, ferns or fans; others look like mushrooms, domes or tiny pipe organs. A coral garden is a home for many other animals​—sea anemones, jellyfish and all kinds of brightly colored fish living in and among their beautiful coral castles.

The underwater coral reefs have been called “perhaps the most complex community in all of nature.” Said Professor John D. Isaacs, director of marine life research at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography: “From their slowly sinking foundations of ancient volcanic mountains, the creatures of the coral shoals have erected the greatest organic structures that exist. Even the smallest atoll far surpasses any of man’s greatest building feats, and a large atoll structure in actual mass approaches the total of all man’s building that now exists.” Stop and think for a moment just what that means.

Strange but Successful Partnerships

Interdependency is the keynote of ocean life. Sometimes we find this principle operating in the most unexpected ways. There are hundreds of instances of a sort of “partnership” or cooperative arrangement between different creatures. For instance, there are sea animals that carry out the services of “doctor” or at least “cleaner” toward others.

Among these are brightly colored cleaning shrimp and juvenile angelfish that remove parasites from other fish. These “doctor” fish wait in their “offices” in the reef​—usually a niche in the coral—​for their “clients,” who come to take their turn.

The yellow goatfish, for example, move as a school to the station of the “doctor,” a juvenile French angelfish. They rest patiently on the sand awaiting their turn. As his turn comes, each goatfish turns red. After receiving treatment, he turns back to his normal white and yellow color and the next “patient” turns red.

Some fish request service by standing on their head or tail. Certain cleaners attend to quite a variety of other creatures, in fact, some shrimp will even perform a cleaning job on a human’s hand and fingernails. Other cleaners are selective, specializing only on certain “customers” or kinds of fish.

In this cooperative activity, which is called symbiosis, both parties receive benefits. The one treated is cleaned of parasites, diseased flesh and bacteria, and any wounds he may have can begin to heal. The cleaner, in turn, receives food.

In most cases the cleaning fish are unharmed by the fish they serve. Generally the one treated respects the services he gets. For example, the moray eel and some other fish allow the cleaner to enter their mouth and clean their teeth. The sea anemone lets a cleaning shrimp crawl safely over its poisonous tentacles, performing his services for the anemone’s benefit and receiving protection as well as some of the food that comes the anemone’s way. The small clown fish and the damselfish are other dwellers with the anemone. The arrowfish lives among the sharp spines of the sea urchin. The deadly Portuguese man-of-war allows the Nomeus, a small fish, to make his home within the protection of his dangerous tentacles, which normally paralyze other fish and carry them into the man-of-war’s mouth.

A ludicrous but mutually beneficial partnership is achieved by the hermit crab and the anemone. Occasionally the hermit crab lets an anemone fasten itself to his back or to his shell. In this way the anemone gets piggyback transportation to where food is available, while the crab is protected from his enemies by the poisonous appendages of the anemone.

Even the voracious shark has a partner, the remora. The top of the remora’s head is a large suction cup. As his “fee” for cleaning the shark, he fastens himself to the shark’s underside and thus can be on hand to get his share of the scraps when the shark finds a meal.

Energy Savers of the Sea

While many of the ocean’s smaller creatures get their food without a great amount of movement, and some, like the cleaning fish, have their food brought to them, it is different among the large fish in the open sea. There, whether a fish gets enough food or not depends to a great extent on speed. So, as expected, many fish are very fast swimmers. It has been extremely difficult to check accurately the top speed of the fast swimmers. This is because such speed is often not sustained. Usually it is only a quick, lightninglike dart or sudden spurt that is required to capture an alert prey. But fish-speeds over distances have been measured, though absolute accuracy is hard to achieve. The active tuna, the only fish whose body temperature is higher than sea temperature, swims constantly, because its body is heavier than seawater. Tuna seem to be able to swim indefinitely at nine miles (about 14 kilometers) per hour. One report says that the sailfish can reach fifty miles (about 80 kilometers) an hour. Barracuda are also very fast. Flying fish are said to work up to a speed of thirty-five miles (56 kilometers) an hour before vaulting out of the water to glide for a distance through the air. The tuna, the dolphin and the blue marlin are believed to be even faster. Even the giant manta ray, which swims by flapping its “wings,” can achieve enough speed to jump a good distance out of the water.

Truly such fish are “bundles” of energy and muscle. But this is not enough to explain their speed. The problem is that water is about 800 times as dense as air. It is also about fifty times as viscous, causing far more resistance. On ships the drag caused by water resistance and turbulence is a major factor, requiring a great expenditure of energy to “plow” through the water. Ship designers have tried to devise means of overcoming the problem. They have researched such questions as: How is it that fast fish like the tuna actually achieve greater speed than mathematicians say they should be able to? How do the tuna and the shark slip through the water so smoothly and without turbulence?

Some answers are known. First of all, such fish are highly streamlined. This, submarine designers have copied. Fast-swimming fish also can fold their fins against their bodies. Scales evidently adapt to water pressure to eliminate turbulence. But the primary secret of their speed, for a long time a mystery, lies in the construction of their skin, which is elastic and flexible. The dolphin’s tough, leathery skin appears to lie on a cushion of oil, making it yield to turbulent currents, thereby offsetting them. Additionally, the skin of many fast marine swimmers is porous and coated with mucus, which forms filaments that let the fish glide through the water, leaving it smooth and almost still. Experimenters trying to apply these principles to shipbuilding have used filament-forming substances and found that they were able to cut water resistance by as much as 70 percent! The cost of this method, however, is prohibitive.

Exploring the Sea Is Never a Dull Occupation

The Creator has put an endless variety of things on earth’s land surfaces that can keep the minds of men active to time indefinite as they delve into these wonders. No less are there wonders in the ocean. The strangest of creatures are found, and they all play their essential part in the pattern of interdependency, though in some cases exactly how they do so remains a mystery.

For instance, there is the hagfish, an eel-shaped creature with three hearts, one of which is nerveless. Its mouth is simply a round hole. It has teeth on its tongue and a single nostril. The hagfish dwells on the ocean bottom, usually half buried in the mud. This fish secretes so much slime that if a ten-to-fifteen-inch (25-to-38-centimeter) hagfish is placed in a small bucket of water and then agitated, within a few seconds it is possible to lift out the entire contents of the bucket as one great blob of slime. The flexible hagfish can also tie itself into a knot. For what purpose? So that it can apply greater leverage to a dying fish in order to penetrate it with its rasplike tongue. The slime also makes the hagfish a slippery, elusive creature to handle. But by pulling itself through the knot it can wipe off its own slimy coat. This clears excess slime away so that it does not block vital gill openings.

A well-known but nonetheless unusual creature is the barnacle. The species called the acorn barnacle is highly disliked by sailors for its habit of cementing itself almost irremovably to the hulls of ships, slowing down the ships and causing fuel-consuming drag. This little creature manufactures a glue so strong that a film only 3/10,000 of an inch (.0762 millimeter) thick has a “shear strength” of 7,000 pounds per square inch (493 kilograms per square centimeter)! This glue is actually a cement that resists heat and cold, strong acids and alkalies, organic solvents or water. It will permanently bond practically any combination of substances. Since it hardens and cures in salt water, it could be valuable for medical use. Dentists would find it the ideal cement for holding fillings in teeth. It would likely be useful in plastic surgery and for mending broken bones. Such a powerful, durable cement would have a host of industrial uses. Scientists are vigorously trying to analyze and synthesize this fine adhesive substance, but without success so far.

The barnacle, after hatching and developing through the larval stage, settles itself in (actually “on”) a likely “home” by means of its permanent cement. Its volcano-shaped shell has four sliding plates that open up at the “crater” to let its plumelike feet extend out to sweep plankton into its mouth. Barnacles fasten themselves on rocks, seashells, whales, ships, even on hardened lumps of oil. There are actually barnacles that fasten onto other barnacles.

Many barnacles possess both male and female organs, but most of the more common species do not impregnate themselves. Since they are permanently anchored, how can they find a mate? For barnacles this presents no real problem. Since they live in a very congested community, all that they have to do is select a suitable neighbor for a mating. Then they bridge the distance by means of a long retractable tube.

There is one species of barnacle that does not fasten itself to ships, but selects submerged rocks. This barnacle is liked much better by many, not only because it leaves ships alone, but also because it grows to a weight of about three pounds (1.4 kilograms) and is an edible delicacy, tasting much like both lobster and crab.

From all of this we must agree that the psalmist spoke truly when he sang:

“Those going down to the sea in the ships,

Doing business on vast waters,

They are the ones that have seen the works of Jehovah

And his wonderful works in the depths.”​—Ps. 107:23, 24.

Those searching under the ocean’s surface, in the very depths themselves, see even more astounding wonders. They have discovered many things that have proved beneficial to man living on the dry land, and yet they themselves admit that they have not ‘scratched the surface.’ There is much more to be found out about the wonders of the deep, an inexhaustible storehouse of information, food, riches and unending delight to those who have the pleasure of “going down to the sea” to search out its marvels.

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Fish that find their home among the death-dealing tentacles of the Portuguese man-of-war

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The fish that can tie itself into a knot