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Creature Feature

November 28, 2018

This shrimp was collected this summer on a WHOI-led cruise to the Northwestern Atlantic aboard the NOAA research vessel Henry B. Bigelow. The expedition was WHOI’s first to focus on the ocean twilight zone, a region 200 to 1,000 meters below the surface that abounds with life. Many twilight zone animals are relatively small, like this midwater shrimp, and can make their own light through a process known as bioluminescence. The New York Times recently highlighted WHOI’s pioneering project and some of the ocean twilight zone’s unusual inhabitants. (Photo by Paul Caiger, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)