ANIMAL LIFE OF THE DEEP SEA BOTTOM 



191 



Our impression of the species of deep-sea bristle-worms, then, is that 

 some are typically abyssal forms while others may occur almost anywhere. 

 So mixed a company is hardly to be found in the other groups; here, as 

 in the rest of the deep sea below the continental slope, the species are in 

 most cases specially adapted to life in the trenches and are found no- 

 where else. 



1'he Galatheas contribution to our knowledge of the deepest depths 

 of the ocean will be best appreciated by comparing it with the present 

 state of our knowledge of the deepest occurrence of the larger animal 

 groups. We will leave the question of records, and the fact that a similar 

 general record-breaking achievement has not been seen as the result of 

 one expedition since the days of the Challenger, and concentrate on its 

 characteristic tendency, which has been to extend the downward limit 

 of our knowledge. Of course, we should not regard these maximum 

 depths as final in individual cases. Before we can do this there must be 

 many more explorations of still more trenches, including those which 

 may be presumed to be the richest in food in the world ■ — - the Andes 

 deeps of the eastern Pacific, which we did not reach. 



Blind lobster (Willemoesia) ; length of body 12 centimetres. Above, young stage, seen from the 

 side and from above; length of body four centimetres. Taken in the same trawl at 3,710 metres, 

 off the Pacific coast of Central America. 



