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National Geographic

Behold the pigbutt worm, mystery of the deep

More than 90 percent of the creatures living in the ocean have yet to be described, so it's not all that surprising that scientists continue to find new species of fish, crustaceans, jellies, and sea slugs each time they venture into the ocean's deepest, darkest haunts. But sometimes they encounter a creature so strange, it defies quick categorization. Such was the case in 2001 when experts from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute piloted a remotely operated submersible to depths between 2,700 and 7,200 feet off the coast of California. It was there, in the lightless Midnight Zone, named for fact that no surface light reaches these depths, where they came face to face with a translucent, pink blob about the size of a hazelnut. 'It was bigger than most of the small particles that we see down there,' says Bruce Robison, a senior scientist at the MBARI. 'As we zoomed in on it with the camera, everybody was remarking, 'I've never seen anything like that before.''