Gulf of Maine Landscapes: Slope and Canyons

An Underwater Tour of Seafloor Landscapes in the Gulf of Maine Region



Snub nose eels are often parasitic in nature, living in the bodies of large fish	Javania cailleti, a species of stony coral, filters organic matter from the water column	The blue hake, although similar in form to its relative (red hake), is found in much deeper waters	The catshark is a small dogfish that feeds primarily on crustaceans	Deepsea red crabs dig burrows in the mud as refuge from swift bottom currents and potential predators
Deepsea red crab rears up with chelipeds raised in defense	Small octopus curled up near brittle stars on the seafloor	Marine snow falls to the benthos, providing an organic-rich food source for this bat star	The clearnose skate can be identified by its pointed, semi-transparent nose	The arctic sculpin is a cold, deepwater fish found in both the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans
Snub nose eel resting on bottom alongside a large flytrap anemone	Black dogfish swims over stony corals in search of prey	Two species of deepwater corals, each having a delicate array of polyps giving them a plant-like appearance	Black dogfish, thought to have small luminescent, pigmented spots throughout its skin	Acanthogorgia, a species of deepwater gorgonian coral
Tripod fish avoids a bottom trawl that left scour marks on the seafloor	A well-fed white hake rests in a depression on the sandy bottom	Large northern lobster appears to be missing a couple walking legs	Burrowing anemones use tentacles to capture food from the water column	Abyssal halosaur uses its tail as a rudder, drifting across the seafloor


An ocean pout inhabits one of many clay burrows carved from a pueblo village	Panoramic view of the structural diversity of a pueblo pillage habitat	Dense boulder reef provides home for colorful red anemones, redfish, and cusk	Schooling pollock actively feed on krill, aggregated around the light of the submersible	Tilefish works its way in and out of a clay burrow
Congor eel in a large clay burrow with cleaner shrimp lining the opening	Tilefish have colorful blue and olive coats with brilliant yellow spots	Northern cutthroat eel uses eel-like swimming motions to hover and quickly change direction	Deepwater corals attach to siltstone outcrops along the canyon walls	Deepwater coral with brittle star and anemone attached
Brittle stars are typically associated with certain deepwater corals, for reasons yet known	Bottlebrush coral gets its name from the round, bristly white branches	Detailed look at the polyps of colonial anemones and a bottlebrush coral	A diverse assemblage of deepwater corals and colonial anemones	Black dogfish swims gracefully across the sandy seafloor

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