Abstract
III. HOW is it that the general absence of ancient forms from the deep sea is to be accounted for? It is hardly probable that the struggle for existence in the great depths is very severe. The fact that so helpless an animal as a Pycnogonid can grow to a length of two feet points to the existence of easy conditions of life. Even if the struggle in the deep sea were as great as in shallow water we might, have expected that it would extinguish these different forms from those which it exterminated near the shores. It seems on the whole probable that the deep sea may have been entirely devoid of life during the earlier geological epochs. The modifications existing in deep-sea animals as adaptations to their special modes of life are not much more important than those exhibited by animals inhabiting caves of comparative recent origin, such as Proteus or those living in the deep waters of the large lakes of Europe, which are also of no great antiquity, such as the air-breathing water-snails, which, from the necessities of deep-water life, have adapted their lungs to aquatic respiration. A long time has not therefore been required for these modifications to take place.
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References
R. Mallet "On the Probable Temperature of the Primordial Ocean of our Globe". Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., 1880, p. 115.
See "Notes by a Naturalist" pp. 36, 383, 410.
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Deep-Sea Dredging and Life in the Deep Sea 1 . Nature 21, 591–593 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/021591a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/021591a0