Glowing jelly, vampire squid and zombie worms – meet the deep sea monsters 5/5 The ocean floor is 10 times larger than the surface of the moon – and teeming with weird life, as Helen Scales's The Brilliant Abyss reveals 13 March 2021 • 3:00pm The Atlantic Footballfish, with a modified ray serving as a light source Credit: Paulo Oliveira / Alamy Stock Photo If you gaze too long into an abyss, warned Nietzsche, the abyss will gaze back into you. And indeed it will, with a very weird face, or lack of one: perhaps a luminous ctenophore (or comb jelly), looking like an extraterrestrial spaceship with glowing tentacles extended, or a red vampire squid, webbed fingers ready to grasp, resembling nothing so much as the facehugger from Alien.