Featured Image Credit: Wikipedia
As if our fascination for marine animals couldn’t get any worse… let’s just throw transparent ones into the mix.
Here you go!
Not gonna lie, these 10 see-through sea creatures are little trippy.
1.) Barreleye Fish
Also known as the spook fish, this deep-sea dweller lives in the tropical-temperate waters of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. With help from large tubular eyes, dome-shaped, transparent head, the barreleye fish can collect even more light in the darkest of depths.
2.) Sea Salp
The sea salp is a planktonic tunicate. By pumping water through its body, the barrel-shaped creature uses jet propulsion to move through the water.The filter feeders strain the water for their phytoplankton food source. Found most commonly in the Southern Ocean, sea salps are seen both singly or in long chains.
3.) Big Skate
No surprise here. The big skate is the largest species of skate and they are found along the entire Pacific coastline (from Baja California to Alaska). Their very pale skin allows for their internal organs to show right through.
4.) Sea Walnut
The sea walnut is a species of comb jelly, who has an oval-shaped, lobed-body, with four rows of ciliated combs that run vertically down the body. Not only is this creature transparent, but when it is disturbed the ciliated combs glow blue-green.
5.) Glass Octopus
Even though the transparent and gelatinous creature has rarely been caught on film, the glass octopus is abundant throughout tropical and subtropical seas worldwide.
6.) Crocodile Icefish
Crocodile icefish are ambush predators, which means they can go a long time between feedings, and often consume fish up to 50% of their body-lenth. So being transparent definitely comes in handy. Also known as the white-blooded fish, their blood has no color because it lacks hemoglobin.
7.) Glass Squid
The Chranchiidae family is made up of about 60 species of glass squid. Their transparent natures is a useful camouflaging tool in the partially sunlit shallow waters. Many species are also bioluminescent and have glowing light organs behind their eyes.
8.) Transparent Sea Cucumber
Roughly 2,750 meter beneath the ocean’s surface lives an almost alien-like creature called the transparent sea cucumber. It slowly creeps along the ocean floor with its many tentacles at a rate of 2 centimeters/minute. Not exactly the speed of light.
9.) Jellyfish
An ocean favorite, these free-swimming, floaty, umbrella-shaped animals are found in every ocean. A jellyfish’s sting is feared on beaches far and wide, which makes the transparent species an even bigger threat to swimmers.
10.) Sea Angel
These extremely small, swimming sea slugs ditched their shells for a pair of flapping appendages. The largest of the gelatinous and most transparent species only reaches about 5 cm. Sea angels can swim at speeds of up to 100mm/s which is faster than their even tinier prey, the sea butterfly.