Creatures of the Deep Sea (1:1 Scale)

The deep sea, technically defined as anywhere below 600 feet from the surface, is full of very weird animals. There's long-nosed and crooked-toothed goblin sharks, cockpit-headed barreleyes, and 'okay,-that's-just-terrifying' telescopefishes*. Then there are the glowing anglerfishes, gigantic deep-sea relatives of pillbugs (giant isopod spp†), and hairy yeti crabs...

     ...Of which I have made models of for this set. Here's more about them:

Giant isopods are, believe it or not, relatives of your everyday woodlouse. They live in the Midnight Zone, crawling around in the sediment to find food. Their maximum length is about 1 foot long. 

Like all three of the models in this set, the giant isopod is life sized. Each of its legs, as well as its antennas, can be moved into different positions. The base is just a simple "ocean floor" type, made up of mostly tan plates.

This is probably the one everyone is most familiar with. Anglerfishes are a family of (mostly) deep sea fishes which are famous for their illicium and esca, meaning "fishing pole" and "bait", otherwise known as the fishes' bioluminescent lures. 

This part of the set is a life sized (albeit for a large species) model of an anglerfish, with posable pectoral fins and illicium. The base is similar to the one for Bathynomous giganteus††, and features a turntable to add to the posing possibility. 

Yeti crabs are another fairly well known example. Most people would probably recognize the sight of a hydrothermal vent covered in white crabs, even if they don't know what species the crabs area. Yeti crabs are so named because of the white (or tan) hairs that grow on their front appendages, which they use to grow their food.

So here, I decided to represent Kiwa hirsuta in its most iconic position; crawling on a hydrothermal vent. Like the anglerfish model, it is on a turntable, and has a lot of posable joints in the legs. However, unlike the anglerfish, the base is far from simple; I used lots of shades of greens, pinks, oranges, and blues to recreate the colors of a hydrothermal vent**.

I think that this should become a set because it would be interesting to many different people; scientists, kids, and adults alike.

I built this set because the deep sea, and indeed, the oceans in general, is one of my favorite subjects to both research and talk/write about.

*-fishes is the correct plural when multiple individuals of different species are being referenced.

†Spp. is an abbreviation meaning multiple species.

††Although technically, anglers are pelagic, meaning they live in the open ocean. I just used a seafloor base for consistency. 

**The bright colors on a deep sea hydrothermal vent are caused by a build up of minerals on their surface.