18 THE BOUNDING MAIN
s o aboutfifty ocean sites—almost fifty t tic dumpers were Russia, Cions of Europe.
And migtle, ually oundingly, sumptuously, radiantly ignorant of lifebeneat substantial ocean creatures are often remarkably little knoo us—including t mig blue (to quote David Attenborougs “tongue s is ts blood vessels are so you coulds is t gargantuan beast t Eart produced, bigger event cumbrous dinosaurs. Yet tery to us.
Mucime ance, ores to get t little entirely fromeavesdropping on t even tery. Blue up again at t six monter. Sometimes trike up which each already knows.
remotely understood. And t must routinely cometo to breathe.
For animals t need never surface, obscurity can be even more tantalizing. Consider t squid. t is a decidedly substantialanimal, railing tentacles t can reacyfeet. It invertebrate. If you dumped one in a normal be muc no scientist—no person as far as s edcareers to trying to capture, or just glimpse, living giant squid and ly from being exist in large numbers because tral part of t, and sperm of feeding.
1According to one estimate, ty million species of animalsliving in t still undiscovered. t of life is in t come until as recently as tion of t captures organisms not just on and near t also buried ints beneatrainental s a deptunder a mile, oods ted over25,000 creatures—arfising 365 species.
Even at a deptures representing almost 200species of organism. But ture t oo sloupid toget out of te 1960s a marine biologis