Whale Fall Cafe

Hagfish, zombie worms, sleeper sharks—this group of patrons is stranger than the denizens of the Mos Eisley Cantina in Star Wars.

A fish in a lab coat, piloting a deep-sea submersible, is our guide to the weirdly fascinating goings-on miles beneath the ocean surface. The backmatter includes rare whale-fall photos from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute.

Dr. Robert Vrijenhoek of MBARI and Dr. Craig Smith, a deep-ocean ecologist at the University of Hawaii, have helped Jacquie Sewell to ensure scientific accuracy.