The Hadal zone is made up of the very deepest parts of the ocean, causing it to be totally dark, and constantly cold, with a very intense pressure. You may think that the Hadal zone is lifeless, due to the conditions, but it was proven that there was life when Jaques Piccard and Don Walsh reached the Marianas Trench in 1960. This trench is the deepest trench with a depth of 35,800 feet, yet Piccard and Walsh sighted shrimp and flounder-like fish.

The deep-sea creatures have adapted to the darkness by reducing their use of eyesight. The fish do have eyes, though, and they are usually enormous, which indicates enough flashes of bioluminescent light to keep their eyes from totally deteriorating. The animals that live near the bottom have a reddish or pinkish coloration, possibly because the red light waves are absorbed in the topmost layers of the ocean. So the creatures don’t look any different than the black ones with no red light to be reflected!

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