纪录片《我们的地球》 第222期 无垠深海(14)（在线收听）

Soft corals, several meters across collect the marine snow as it drifts past.

几米长的软珊瑚，收集流过它们身边的海雪。

Whip corals stretch out into the current.

海鞭在海流中伸出手来。

Giant sponges filter nourishment from the cold water.

大海绵从冰冷的海水中汲取营养。

A richly varied community flourishes here

一个丰富的物种群落在这里昌盛，

sustained by the nutrients and detritus in the icy currents that flow around the peak.

得益于洋流持续不断地携带养分从这里流过。

Yet it is all blossoming on an extinct volcano, a mile below the reach of the Sun.

这些生物在这座死火山的的繁荣地点，离阳光照射到的地方还有1英里呢。

A nautilus. It spends it's days hiding four hundred meters down.

鹦鹉螺。白天它躲在400米深的海底。

But as night falls, it ascends up to the reefs, to look for food.

到了晚上，它就游上来到珊瑚礁附近寻找食物。

It's graceful shell contains gas filled floatation chambers, that control it's depth.

它那优美的外壳由充满空气的小室组成，使它可以控制深度。

It's powered by a jet of water, squirting from a siphon,

它的动力来自虹吸管喷射的水流，

but it travels shell first, so it can't see exactly where it's going.

由于它是倒着游，所以它自己也很难看清楚自己要去哪里。

It's nearest living relatives are squid and octopus, which, over evolutionary time, have both lost their shells.

它是已经进化到已经没有壳的章鱼和乌贼的近亲。