Here are a
couple paragraphs that I happened to run into a while ago that were so
appalling, which means interesting, that I had to save it and pass it along. The content was from a NYR review of a couple
of books:
The Deep:
The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss by Claire Nouvian, University of Chicago
The
Silent Deep: The Discovery, Ecology and Conservation of the Deep Sea Chicago
"...
To
understand the full extent of the constraints that the abyss places on life,
consider the black seadevil. It's a somber, grapefruit-sized globe of a fish—seemingly
all fangs and gape—with a "fishing rod" affixed between its eyes
whose luminescent bait jerks above the trap-like mouth. Clearly, food is a
priority for this creature, for it can swallow a victim nearly as large as
itself. But that is only half the story, for this description pertains solely
to the female: the male is a minnow-like being content to feed on specks in the
sea—until, that is, he encounters his sexual partner.
The first
time that a black sea devil meets his much larger mate, he bites her and never
lets go. Over time, his veins and arteries grow together with hers, until he
becomes a fetus-like dependent who receives from his mate's blood all the food,
oxygen, and hormones he requires to exist.
The cost of this utter dependence is a loss of function in all of his
organs except his testicles, but even these, it seems, are stimulated to action
solely at the pleasure of the engulfing female.
When she has had her way with him, the male seadevil simply vanishes,
having been completely absorbed and dissipated into the flesh of his paramour,
leaving her free to seek another mate. Not
even Dante imagined such a fate.
..."
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