If you journey down to the Endeavour Hydrothermal Vents near Vancouver Island, British Columbia, you may run into Dudley, a creepy wooden mannequin who is starting to go to pieces on the ocean floor. But how did Dudley get all the way down there?


Marine biologist Jackson Chu shared this video of Dudley and explains what he's doing down with the crabs. It turns out that, while scientists from the University of Washington were first researching the Endeavour segment of Juan de Fuca Ridge system, they placed Dudley, a 1.67m-tall human-shaped piece of plywood, at a 2000m depth near the vents as a marker.

But Dudley didn't stay put. He broke free and was blasted with 300°C fluid from the vents, scorching his plywood body and damaging his arm. That's how Dudley went from a cheeky underwater marker to the zombie-like figure you see in this video. So just remember, there is at least one zombie underwater, but mostly he just stares creepily at passing crabs.


[via Earth Touch]