Meet the unexpected creatures living on the remains of the Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic is a well-remembered tragedy. On April 15, 1912, the famous ocean liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean, killing nearly 1,500 people.

The wreckage of the ocean ship sank to a depth of more than 12,000 feet. In 1985, Robert Ballard, in the photo, discovered the place where the two fragments of the Titanic ended up at the bottom of the North Atlantic.

Since its discovery, the Titanic's wreckage has interested scientists from all over the world and it gave researchers a unique opportunity to study the seafloor.

According to Canada's national organization for geoscientific research, the Titanic was a time-marker for seafloor science because it was new, and they knew precisely when she sank so that they could study the whole process of decay.

It also allowed researchers to realize that the seafloor was much more active than they had previously thought. They saw patterns in the sand around the Titanic, proving there was a current at that depth.

Researchers also identified species living around and on the ship. The Titanic had become a reef with plenty of organic material, which it dragged from the surface, making a good living environment.

One of the most significant discoveries was that the Titanic underwent a biological corrosion process. There is no oxygen to rust the metal, but the ship is still decaying.

The decay process is happening thanks to bacteria eating the steel and producing rusticles (conic structures like icicles made of rust). A research team isolated and identified this organism last year.

But what kind of animals can survive almost 4 kilometers deep in the icy waters of the North Atlantic? The Spanish magazine 'Muy Interesante' has listed each of them in an article.

According to Canadian authorities, the first research expeditions to the wreckage found 24 species at the site, including fish, crabs, and corals.

The inhabitants of the Titanic that are easier to see are sessile organisms, among which the gorgonian Chrysogorgia Agassizi (in the photo) stands out, a coral with the capacity to live at great depths.

Georgyj M. Vinogradov, a deep-sea fauna researcher at Russia's Shirov Institute of Oceanology, studied one of these corals for almost a decade. It grew over three inches between 1991 and 1999.

Crinoids and sea squirts (in the photo) are two other specimens of sessile that are living in abundance in the remains of the Titanic. The former, known as sea lilies, have even reached the ship's engine room.

Sessile are permanent inhabitants of the Titanic, but other marine animals, such as worms, come to the former ocean liner dragged by the currents and they stay for a while just like they would at any reef.

Polychaete worms (in the picture) make caves in the wreckage, while crabs and sea spiders are more likely to roam the decks, just as ctenophores walk the interior rooms of the Titanic.

'Muy Interesate' pointed out that there have been sightings of giant octopuses and deep-sea bioluminescent fish. Most of these creatures look horrifying because of their adaptations to the unforgiving environment.

The deep sea is one of the biggest mysteries of our planet. Research on the environmental conditions and animals down at the ocean's deepest depths is scarce.