Surreal creatures (who knows how many?) inhabit the oceanic depths. Here are a few of them:
Leafy Sea Dragon
A leafy sea dragon (phycodurus eques) has long leaf-like protrusions all over its body, serving as camouflage among different types of floating seaweeds or kelp beds. Neither prey nor predators recognize it as a fish.
Umbrella Mouth Gulper Eel
The umbrella mouth gulper eel (eurypharynx pelecanoides) can open its "umbrella mouth" to pelican-like proportion, accommodating prey much larger than its size. Plus it can stretch and expand its stomach. The eel itself can be almost one meter in length, but it can swallow and devour something more than 1.5 meters long.
Firefly Squid
The firefly squid (watasenia scintillans), also called the sparkling enope squid, has special deep-blue light producing organs called photophores. By flashing the lights on and off, it can attract prey before trapping it with its tentacles. It's also only cephalopod species which has color vision.
Viperfish
The viperfish (chauliodus sloani) can grow to over half a meter in size. It attracts its prey with luminescent spots running from throat to tail.
Fangtooth, or Ogre Fish
A Fangtooth (anoplogaster cornuta), or ogre fish, dwells mostly in the waters off the coast of Australia. It is ferocious-looking, but it's actually quite small, with a maximum length of 17 cm. Its head contains several mucous cavities separated by serrated ridges, and its lower teeth are engineered to neatly slide into mouth pockets, when the fish decides to close the gaping jaw.
Hatchetfish
A hatchetfish has extremely thin body, resembling the blade of a hatchet, and tubular large eyes that are permanently fixed looking upwards, which helps them to search for food falling from above. It also gives them a psychotic look, as if their eyes rolled up and stuck there.
Christmas-Tree Worm
The christmas-tree worm (spirobranchus giganteus) is a small polychaete worm most often found in the Black Forest Reef and other reefs near Grand Turk. They hide in the tubes, stick out their heads, and when threatened, pull their heads back into the tube. Their feather-like tentacles resembling twin "Christmas trees" are called radioles; they filter the plankton for food and aid in respiration.
Giant Basket Star
The giant basket star (astrophyton muricatum) is an early Mesozoic invertebrate, often found around British Virgin Islands. During the day, it curls up into a tight ball shape to protect itself from predators. At night, it climbs to an elevated point to feed on plankton by extending its intricately-branched feeding arms in a bowl-like shape. Then, it coils around its prey and the tiny hooks along the length of these arms will prevent its prey from escaping.
Furry Sea Cucumber
The furry sea cucumber (astichopus multifidus) can be seen crawling or rolling over the sea floor of the Caribbean, Bahamas, and Florida. They can regenerate their body tissues completely.
Flamingo Tongue SnailThe
flamingo tongue snail (cyphoma gibbosumn) is a small, colorful sea snail which lives on various species of soft corals in the Caribbean. Their pretty colors are not part of the shell, but are rather a layer of live mantle tissue, connected to its foot; the snail pushes it out to cover the shell. The mantle tissue also works like a fish's gill.