Note:Full text accompanies each panel. Only a portion of this, the introduction, is shown below.

Deep sea life can be conveniently divided into midwater, abyssal and benthic forms. The first two categories are comprised of creatures that seldom, if ever, experience the surface of the sea or the bottom of the ocean, or any other surface than victim, mate or predator. Their lives are spent in extremely calm, pitch dark and cold conditions. Benthic forms seldom ever leave the ocean floor. They crawl, slither, glide and burrow in even calmer, darker and colder conditions. Most deep sea life depends directly or indirectly on a rain of dead organic material from the sunlit waters at the surface. Some feed directly on the material, others feed upon those who feed upon it. A few, but as research continues it is realised ever greater numbers of specialised animals sustain their energy needs by utilising sulphurous-mineral-eating bacteria that thrive close to the 300 ºC hydrothermal smoker vents, delineating the regions of tectonic split that take place, mostly, down the centres of the great ocean basins. Is it any wonder that these deep sea folk are amongst the oddest on the planet?