I presume this is an adaptive variation to get optimum amounts of extracting oxygen at depths for the sharks
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense! I didn't think of this myself when I wrote this post, but I definitely think this could be right.
I believe that we will see lots of new species in the deep sea in the next few decades. There is only a very small part of it that has been explored, so there could still be huge surprises for us. My favorite point to back up this point is how the 10m+ giant squid (Architeuthis sp.) was not seen alive until 2004.
I would love nothing more than to see more deep sea exploration, but unfortunately it is very expensive and pretty complicated to explore.
Yes we certainly need the elon musk version of Jacque Cousteau to invest lots of money into deep sea exploration, and i agree completely with especially near the ocean floor I suspect there are many a species down there which haven’t been discovered and may never be. I guess you could say its a proverbial needle in a haystack.
If Prof Google serves me well its only less than 5% we have actually explored, so many mnay more decades of exploration to go. Maybe Norway and their seafaring history could set up the first base for aquanauts.
That would be great! Unfortunately I think that there is very little to potentially gain from exploring it (in terms of money), so I guess businessmen are less likely to invest in this compared to space travel (which can potentially be worth billions).
Yeah, most of it is unexplored. I think Norway has plans to actually set up a permanent research ship that will travel around the globe and collect data from the ocean, so we are already working on something like what you suggest :)