Shark Zones

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by Rose Santana8 views·Updated Jul 15, 2021
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Ocean Zones and Sharks

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  1. Hi everybody, my name is Rose Santana and today we're
  2. gonna be talking about the different zones of the oceans
  3. and the sharks that inhabit them.
  4. Let's go.
  5. The first thing we're going to talk about is the
  6. epipelagic zone otherwise known as the sunlight zone.
  7. And this is because there's enough sunlight to allow for
  8. plants and algae to grow here.
  9. It starts at the sea surface and goes down to
  10. approximately 200 m now, most of the sharks that we
  11. know and love, such as the great white, the black
  12. tip whale sharks, Hammerhead sharks, Just to name a few
  13. tend to inhabit this zone preferably.
  14. However, whale sharks have been known to dive down as
  15. deep as 1900 m.
  16. Isn't that crazy?
  17. And great whites have been recorded at depths as great as
  18. 1200 m, but typically they prefer to spend their time
  19. closer to the sun, just like we do.
  20. The next zone is the mesopelagic zone.
  21. This zone is also known as the twilight zone because
  22. it receives very little sunlight and is home to many
  23. bioluminescent organisms such as the bioluminescent black belly lantern shark
  24. and bioluminescent cat sharks.
  25. Isn't that cool?
  26. So just to put things into perspective for you guys,
  27. when we're talking about bioluminescence, it means animals that can
  28. create their own light and typically they'll use it to
  29. find mates to look for food, things like
  30. that. It's a really nifty, it's a really nifty feature.
  31. So other sharks that we can find here include gulper
  32. sharks and dogfish sharks, which are typically used for research
  33. and educational purposes.
  34. Now, how deep can we go?
  35. Let's check out the bathypelagic zone.
  36. This depth ranges from 1000 to 4000 m.
  37. And it's also known as the midnight zone because sunlight
  38. cannot reach the zone.
  39. It's very difficult for animals to survive here because there's
  40. low oxygen and there's not that many nutrients.
  41. So most of the sharks that we're gonna find here
  42. are scavenging sharks such as the frill shark, the sleeper
  43. shark, the goblin shark, and the blunt Nose.
  44. Six gill shark.
  45. Cool. Right.
  46. Another really nifty competitor that we can find down here
  47. is known as the cookie cutter shark.
  48. And it's known as the cookie cutter shark because it
  49. chomps down into other animals and takes a chunk right
  50. out, leaving a little hole that kind of looks like
  51. it was you caught with a cookie cutter.
  52. Hence the name.
  53. Now these cookie cutter sharks are known to inhabit this
  54. depth during the day and then moving up to the
  55. sunlight zone at night to feed and take a chomp
  56. out of their next victim.
  57. Rose. What else can we find?
  58. Next up is the abyssal pelagic zone, otherwise known as
  59. the abyss.
  60. This zone remains in perpetual darkness.
  61. So it's funny because the term abyss actually comes from
  62. the greek word epythemenos, which means bottomless These depths
  63. go from 3000 to 6000 m.
  64. Crazy, right.
  65. And it's totally dark.
  66. But sharks are typically absent from here.
  67. We tend to think that because there's no sunlight, there
  68. are no plans producing oxygen.
  69. And there aren't that many options for these sharks to
  70. be able to feed on here.
  71. Especially considering the fact that they have a high energy
  72. demand and have an oil rich liver that they use
  73. for buoyancy and it can't be sustained in these types
  74. of environments.
  75. So unfortunately the sharky goodness has to stay up top.
  76. So Rose.
  77. Why are we going to continue going down the ocean
  78. layers? If the sharks only inhabit the first three?
  79. Well, why not?
  80. We're already here.
  81. The last zone is the hadopelagic zone, also known
  82. as the trenches.
  83. It's the deepest region of the ocean lying within
  84. oceanic trenches.
  85. You might have heard of one of the most famous
  86. ones, marianas trench.
  87. In fact, it's the deepest known depth of the ocean
  88. coming in at 10,984 m, yikes.
  89. A lot of these regions still haven't been explored yet
  90. because it's just so difficult to get there, and only
  91. a relatively small number of fish species are known to
  92. be in this zone.
  93. This part of the ocean is very difficult to explore,
  94. but who knows?
  95. In the future we might find a lot of other
  96. cool critters here.
  97. Right, With that being said, I'd like to thank everybody
  98. for tuning in.
  99. This video was put together in collaboration with sharks for
  100. kids and fish and fins.
  101. So go ahead and give them a follow for all
  102. sharky goodness.
  103. And as always, if anybody has any questions or would
  104. just like to chat, you can always reach out to
  105. me, Thank you guys so much for tuning in and
  106. as always, just keep swimming.