In the Internet age, it’s easy to tell yourself you’ve seen it all. But while you’ve probably consumed a lifetime’s worth of cat videos, explosion gifs, and Hitler-vs-dinosaur action sequences at this point, the natural world’s still got plenty of surprises in store.


Including, it turns out, a plethora of fascinating creatures that lurk in the barely-explored deep ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico.


For the first time ever, a collection of strange, beautiful, and totally-alien looking creatures that live some 10,000 feet below the ocean’s surface are saying hello to humanity. The video footage shown below was caught by a remotely operated vehicle on a unique, crowd-sourced exploration supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Researchers were able to watch the footage in real time and offer their expertise through an Internet chatroom. Basically, Twitch for science.

Oceans cover two thirds of our planet’s surface, and yet we’ve only explored five percent of them. It’s mind boggling to imagine that scientists might discover life on another world before we fully come to appreciate what lives beneath the waters of this one. [IFLScience via Quartz]

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