# What lives in the middle of the ocean? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 8, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713 "2005-01-08T05:01:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/1 "2005-01-08T05:01:59Z")
Do ordinary fish live there? Do giant squids? Is there seaweed out there? Does most sea life hug the coasts? Feel free to elaborate, and thanks in advance for your answers. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 7:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/2 "2005-01-08T07:13:18Z")
I’m not an expert on oceans and today might be different than 60 years agao but … When I came back from overseas on the good old _Haverford Victory_ in 1946 we didn’t have a lot to do on the trip so we watched the ocean. All the way across we saw jellyfish. Mostly the kind that put up a little sail to move them around. There was also a form of jellyfish that looked like a purple veil floating in the sea. We saw a large, orange sea turtle in mid-Atlantic. We saw sharks and dolphins. We saw flying fish every day. There were also birds such as[Mother Carey’s Chickens (storm petrel)](http://www.ouroceanworld.com/2001/archive/2001-01/text0101a/010831.htm) which, we were told, spend most of their lives at sea except for nesting with young. They eat shrimp and squid and the fact that the birds were in mid-ocean means the shimp and squid must be there. And where there are srimp and squid there will be fish to eat them. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/3 "2005-01-08T07:31:37Z")
There’s tons of life out in the middle of the ocean. Plankton can’t control where it goes, so it gets swept out everywhere. So there’s food to support a food chain, all the way up to sharks and whales and whatnot. You wouldn’t see the same species as you would on, say, a coral reef, but there’s plenty of sea life out there. ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/4 "2005-01-08T07:36:23Z")
IANAMB, but I always figured [phytoplankton](http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Library/Phytoplankton/) were the basis for life mid-ocean, being photosynthetic and all. Now that you mention it, I’m kinda curious about how much lives out there too. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/5 "2005-01-08T10:56:35Z")
> [@David Simmons](#): > > All the way across we saw jellyfish. Mostly the kind that put up a little sail to move them around. Just in the interests of being informative those aren’t jellyfish. They’re collonies of a closely related group of animals. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/6 "2005-01-08T11:20:47Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Just in the interests of being informative those aren’t jellyfish. They’re collonies of a closely related group of animals. [Are you referring to the Portuguese man-of-war?](http://www.aloha.com/~lifeguards/portugue.html) (There are a lot of images on that page, in addition to first-aid info for the poor sap who gets stung.) [Here is a university website devoted to the animal itself.](http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Physalia_physalis.html) Well, it’s actually a colony of four types of polyps, but each polyp is specialized to a specific task required to keep the entity as a whole functioning (digestion, floating, stinging, and reproduction). And it does indeed live in the warmer parts of the open ocean, Atlantic and Pacific. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/7 "2005-01-08T11:22:17Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > What lives in the middle of the ocean? Spongebob Squarepants? ---
**Author:** ![jester21](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ed655f/32.png) [@jester21](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jester21)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/8 "2005-01-08T11:36:43Z")
at the very middle of the ocean lives a fish named Eddie. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/9 "2005-01-08T14:26:03Z")
Well, you get several categories of econiche in the ocean, and I don’t have all the precise terminology for the groups, but here’s a rough summary: 1. Land-dwelling creatures which live along the shoreline, above the tide line. 2. Creatures which live in the tidal zone, where they spend time exposed to the air and time under water, depending on whether the tide is and what the waves are doing. 3. Creatures that live below the tidal zone but along the shore, offshore. 4. Creatures that fly above the shoreline. 5. Creatures that fly above the open ocean, generally using thermals and ability to soar to remain at sea indefinitely without landing. 6. Creatures that dwell on the surface of the open ocean. 7. Creatures that occupy the upper part of the water column, the “photic zone” where sunlight penetrates well. This sunlight permits a large population of planktonic plant life, with a food chain extending up from them. 8. Creatures that live below the “photic zone” in the water column, generally feeding on what falls down from the photic zone. 9. Creatures that live on the ocean floor, subdivided according to depth to sea floor. ---
**Author:** ![Sue\_Duhnym](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@Sue\_Duhnym](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sue_Duhnym)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/10 "2005-01-08T14:34:19Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Spongebob Squarepants? No, no, no. He lives in a pineapple \under\ the sea. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/11 "2005-01-08T14:40:29Z")
> [@GuanoLad](#): > > Spongebob Squarepants? > [@Sue Duhnym](#): > > No, no, no. He lives in a pineapple \under\ the sea. > > 😛 I think this thread is being hijacked in a squidward direction! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/12 "2005-01-08T14:45:06Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > 1. Creatures that live on the ocean floor, subdivided according to depth to sea floor. [And _this_ is where all the real freaks live.](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/bestiary.html) 😉 If we define `open ocean' as `away from any continental shelf’ then all of those animals would dwell in the open ocean by definition, but I don’t know how many thermal vents (the ecology’s prime mover in the absence of direct sunlight) exist in the dead center of the world’s oceans. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/13 "2005-01-08T14:59:29Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Just in the interests of being informative those aren’t jellyfish. They’re collonies of a closely related group of animals. Thanks. > [@Derleth](#): > > Are you referring to the Portuguese man-of-war? Bingo. One of the guys on the ship said that’s what they were, but you know guys. They will positively assert stuff they don’t know anything about. I have a windjamming friend who will start on some tale about such and such, pause after a short time and ask, “Do you know anything about such and such?” If you answer with a no, he will then grin and say, “Good, now I can speak freely.” ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/14 "2005-01-08T16:36:26Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > [And _this_ is where all the real freaks live.](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/abyss/life/bestiary.html) 😉 > > If we define `open ocean' as `away from any continental shelf’ then all of those animals would dwell in the open ocean by definition, but I don’t know how many thermal vents (the ecology’s prime mover in the absence of direct sunlight) exist in the dead center of the world’s oceans. Quite a few, actually, considering that the dead center of the Atlantic IS the spreadpoint of [several tectonic plates](http://geology.er.usgs.gov/eastern/plates.html). See the line in mid-Atlantic that extends from pole to pole and cuts straight through Iceland? There’s volcanic activity all along that line, as the plates on either side move away from each other. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/15 "2005-01-08T16:58:19Z")
**jayjay** : In the time it took me to compose that post, I couldn’t recall whether the big thing in the middle of the Atlantic was where plates came together or where plates spread. So, yeah, I’d bet a lot of those deep-ocean freaks live in the dead center of the Atlantic. My big point, I suppose, is that there are beings most human beings will never see firsthand that do, indeed, live in the open ocean. And that those beings look really, really freaky. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/16 "2005-01-08T17:03:13Z")
> [@Polycarp](#): > > I think this thread is being hijacked in a squidward direction! Tentacles! Why is it always _tentacles?!!!_ [sub]And the quote was from a poster whose name apparently means ‘multiple fish’…[/sub] ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/17 "2005-01-08T19:21:52Z")
- - - Well some places, there’s lots of seaweed: [http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sargasso+sea&btnG=Google+Search](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=sargasso+sea&btnG=Google+Search) ~ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/18 "2005-01-08T21:48:00Z")
Actually, out there in the deep ocean there are a LOT of giant squid. There may be more squid by weight on the planet than any other species. Their population is apparently exploding. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-lives-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean/283713/19 "2005-01-08T22:52:34Z")
> [@Sam Stone](#): > > Actually, out there in the deep ocean there are a LOT of giant squid. There may be more squid by weight on the planet than any other species. Their population is apparently exploding. Only on this board could that be deemed a valid reason for urging someone to turn Libertarian! 😉