Deep-sea animals such as bythographid crabs and vestimentiferan tubeworms (Lamellibrachia satsuma) captured around hydrothermal vent areas have been maintained in this room. Some of them live symbiotically with chemosynthetic bacteria that utilize inorganic substances from the hydrothermal vents as energy sources. The deep-sea animals fed on hydrogen sulfide in this room.
Bythograthid crabs are carnivorous and prey on other organisms such as tubeworms in natural environments.
Tubeworms live in a symbiotic relationship with sulfur-oxidizing bacteria. Their life depends on energies produced by the bacteria.
Hydrothermal Vent CreaturesMost of life on the surface of the earth depends on organic materials of plant origin with a conversion of solar energy. In the past, people never believed that organisms inhabited in deep sea where the light couldn�t come down.
In 1977, however, the deep-sea submersible Alvin of the United State discovered an extraordinary biological community at depth of 2,500 m in the offing of the Galapagos Islands in which a tectonic movement took place in the Pacific Ocean. Warm water was upwelling from the sea floor around the biological community. After that, such communities started to be discovered in places where hot water above 300 �C or even cold water were upwelling. These communities are now referred to as �hydrothermal-vent communities� and �cold-seep communities�, respectively. Such biological communities in deep sea are unique with respect to independence of solar energy. The primary producers in the communities are chemosynthetic bacteria that utilize hydrogen sulfide or methane to synthesize organic substances. Accordingly, they are also known as �chemosynthetic ecosystem�.
