Scroll down to descend the water column.

A powerful warm-blooded predator capable of 70 km/h bursts, ranging across entire ocean basins.

Apex predator with serrated teeth and electroreception, found in coastal and open surface waters worldwide.

Highly social cetacean traveling in pods of hundreds, using echolocation to hunt small schooling fish.

Long-lived reptile that crosses entire oceans, feeding on jellyfish and crustaceans near the surface.

Translucent drifting medusa with four ring-shaped gonads, found in coastal waters globally.

The largest fish on Earth — a gentle filter feeder that cruises tropical surface waters straining plankton.

Wide-winged plankton feeder that performs barrel rolls through bait clouds and visits cleaning stations on reefs.

Schools by day in coastal waters, then disperses at night to hunt rays and squid using electroreception in its broad head.

The fastest fish in the ocean, raising its huge sail-like dorsal fin to corral schooling prey.

Iridescent blue, green and gold predator that grows incredibly fast and hunts beneath floating debris.

The heaviest bony fish on Earth, basking flat at the surface to warm up between deep jellyfish hunts.

Largest living turtle and the deepest-diving reptile, crossing entire oceans to feed almost exclusively on jellyfish.

Not a jellyfish but a colonial siphonophore — a floating gas-filled sail trailing venomous fishing tentacles.

The largest toothed predator, diving deep into the twilight zone to hunt squid using powerful echolocation clicks.

A small parasitic shark that uses suction lips and a circular bite to gouge round plugs of flesh from large prey.

Large warm-eyed predator that descends into the twilight zone to hunt squid, slashing prey with its long bill.

Almost entirely transparent open-water octopus with tubular eyes that swivel upward to spot prey against faint light.

Small migratory fish whose photophores produce species-specific light patterns for camouflage and signaling.

Aggressive 2-meter cephalopod that hunts in coordinated shoals and flashes red-and-white during attacks.

Silvery deep-sea fish with upward-pointing eyes and belly photophores that erase its silhouette from below.

Iconic fanged predator with photophores along its belly and a long dorsal lure that dangles bioluminescent bait above its mouth.

The most abundant vertebrate on Earth — a tiny black fish with bioluminescent photophores along its belly.

Extremely thin ribbon-like eel with delicate beak-like jaws that snag the antennae of passing crustaceans.

Deep-red squid covered in photophores, with one huge yellow eye angled up for silhouettes and one small blue eye for bioluminescence below.

An eel-shaped 'living fossil' shark with 300 trident-shaped teeth and six frilly red gill slits.

One of the largest invertebrates, reaching 13 meters with the largest eyes in the animal kingdom.

An eel with a colossal pelican-like jaw that can swallow prey larger than itself.

A short, thick-bodied predator with the largest teeth of any fish relative to body size.

Eel-like predator with needle teeth and a long glowing chin barbel; uses rare red bioluminescence invisible to its prey.

Living relic with webbed arms lined with photophores; releases glowing mucus instead of ink when threatened.

Surreal deep-sea fish with a transparent fluid-filled dome over its head, revealing tubular green eyes that rotate to track prey overhead.

A small black fish with an elastic stomach able to engulf prey twice its length and ten times its mass.

Females dangle a glowing bioluminescent lure from a modified spine to attract prey in absolute darkness.

Mysterious squid with elbow-like joints and impossibly long, thin arms held perpendicular to its body — known almost entirely from ROV footage.

Slim-armed echinoderm that blankets abyssal plains in 'brittle star cities' of millions of individuals.

Pale, segmented deep-sea crustacean — a meter-scale relative of the woodlouse — that scavenges across abyssal mud.

Sessile filter feeder built from intricate silica lattices, forming reefs that host entire deep-sea communities.

A long-tailed scavenger that locates carrion across the abyssal plain using a highly sensitive lateral line.

Perches on three elongated fin rays facing into the current, waiting motionless to ambush passing crustaceans.

A pinkish deep-sea sea cucumber that walks across abyssal mud on tube feet, scavenging organic detritus.

Deepest-living octopus, swimming with ear-like fins above the seafloor to hunt worms and crustaceans.

A giant single-celled organism that builds fragile mineral shells up to 20 cm wide on trench floors.

A scavenging crustacean found in the deepest trenches, with enzymes that digest sunken plant cellulose.

Translucent benthic grazers that dominate trench biomass, processing fine sediment for buried organic matter.

Massed scavengers that descend on any carcass within hours, stripping it to bone in the deepest trenches.

The deepest fish ever filmed, with gelatinous tissues and bones that stay flexible under crushing pressure.