TED2004
Richard Pyle: A dive into the reef's Twilight Zone
Filmed:
Readability: 3.7
444,752 views
In this illuminating talk, Richard Pyle shows us thriving life on the cliffs of coral reefs and groundbreaking diving technologies he has pioneered to explore it. He and his team risk everything to reveal the secrets of undiscovered species.
Richard Pyle - Ichthyologist
Ichthyologist Richard Pyle is a fish nerd. In his quest to discover and document new species of fish, he has also become a trailblazing exploratory diver and a pioneer of database technology. Full bio
Ichthyologist Richard Pyle is a fish nerd. In his quest to discover and document new species of fish, he has also become a trailblazing exploratory diver and a pioneer of database technology. Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:12
This is the first of two rather extraordinary photographs I'm going to show you today.
0
0
4000
00:16
It was taken 18 years ago.
1
4000
2000
00:18
I was 19 years old at the time.
2
6000
2000
00:20
I had just returned from one of the deepest dives I'd ever made at that time,
3
8000
2000
00:22
-- a little over 200 feet --
4
10000
2000
00:24
and, I had caught this little fish here.
5
12000
2000
00:26
It turns out that that particular one was the first live one of that ever taken alive.
6
14000
4000
00:30
I'm not just an ichthyologist, I'm a bona fide fish nerd.
7
18000
3000
00:33
And to a fish nerd, this is some pretty exciting stuff.
8
21000
2000
00:35
And more exciting was the fact that the person who took this photo
9
23000
3000
00:38
was a guy named Jack Randall,
10
26000
2000
00:40
the greatest living ichthyologist on Earth,
11
28000
2000
00:42
the Grand Poobah of fish nerds, if you will.
12
30000
3000
00:45
And so, it was really exciting to me to have this moment in time,
13
33000
4000
00:49
it really set the course for the rest of my life.
14
37000
3000
00:52
But really the most significant thing, the most profound thing
15
40000
3000
00:55
about this picture is that it was taken two days before
16
43000
2000
00:57
I was completely paralyzed from the neck down.
17
45000
2000
00:59
I made a really stupid kind of mistake
18
47000
3000
01:02
that most 19-year-old males do when they think they're immortal,
19
50000
3000
01:05
and I got a bad case of the bends,
20
53000
2000
01:07
and was paralyzed, and had to be flown back for treatment.
21
55000
3000
01:11
I learned two really important things that day.
22
59000
3000
01:14
The first thing I learned -- well, I'm mortal, that's a really big one.
23
62000
3000
01:17
And the second thing I learned was that I knew, with profound certainty,
24
65000
4000
01:21
that this is exactly what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
25
69000
3000
01:24
I had to focus all my energies towards going to find
26
72000
3000
01:27
new species of things down on deep coral reefs.
27
75000
3000
01:30
Now, when you think of a coral reef, this is what most people think of:
28
78000
3000
01:33
all these big, hard, elaborate corals and lots of bright, colorful fishes and things.
29
81000
4000
01:37
But, this is really just the tip of the iceberg.
30
85000
2000
01:39
If you look at this diagram of a coral reef,
31
87000
3000
01:42
we know a lot about that part up near the top,
32
90000
2000
01:44
and the reason we know so much about it
33
92000
2000
01:46
is scuba divers can very easily go down there and access it.
34
94000
2000
01:48
There is a problem with scuba though,
35
96000
3000
01:51
in that it imposes some limitations on how deep you can go,
36
99000
3000
01:54
and it turns out that depth is about 200 feet.
37
102000
2000
01:56
I'll get into why that is in just a minute.
38
104000
3000
01:59
But, the point is that scuba divers generally stay less than 100 feet deep,
39
107000
3000
02:02
and very rarely go much below this, at least, not with any kind of sanity.
40
110000
4000
02:06
So, to go deeper, most biologists have turned to submersibles.
41
114000
3000
02:09
Now, submersibles are great, wonderful things,
42
117000
2000
02:11
but if you're going to spend 30,000 dollars a day to use one of these things,
43
119000
4000
02:15
and it's capable of going 2,000 feet,
44
123000
2000
02:17
you're sure not going to go farting around up here in a couple of hundred feet,
45
125000
3000
02:20
you're going to go way, way, way, down deep.
46
128000
2000
02:22
So, the bottom line is that almost all research using submersibles
47
130000
3000
02:25
has taken place well below 500 feet.
48
133000
2000
02:27
Now, it's pretty obvious at this point that there's this zone here in the middle
49
135000
3000
02:30
and that's the zone that really centers around my own personal pursuit of happiness.
50
138000
4000
02:34
I want to find out what's in this zone.
51
142000
2000
02:36
We know almost nothing about it.
52
144000
2000
02:38
Scuba divers can't get there, submarines go right on past it.
53
146000
3000
02:41
It took me a year to learn how to walk again after I had my diving accident in Palau
54
149000
3000
02:44
and during that year I spent a lot of time learning
55
152000
2000
02:46
about the physics and physiology of diving
56
154000
2000
02:48
and figuring out how to overcome these limitations.
57
156000
2000
02:50
So, I'm just going to show you a basic idea.
58
158000
2000
02:52
We're all breathing air right now. Air is a mixture of oxygen and nitrogen,
59
160000
3000
02:55
about 20 percent oxygen. About 80 percent nitrogen is in our lungs.
60
163000
4000
02:59
And there's a phenomenon called Henry's Law
61
167000
2000
03:01
that says that gases will dissolve into a fluid
62
169000
2000
03:03
in proportion to the partial pressures which you're exposing them to.
63
171000
3000
03:06
So, basically the gas dissolves into our body.
64
174000
3000
03:09
The oxygen is bound by metabolism, we use it for energy.
65
177000
3000
03:12
The nitrogen just sort of floats around in our blood and tissues,
66
180000
2000
03:14
and that's all fine, that's how we're designed.
67
182000
2000
03:16
The problem happens when you start to go underwater.
68
184000
2000
03:18
Now, the deeper you go underwater, the higher the pressure is.
69
186000
3000
03:21
If you were to go down to a depth of about 130 feet,
70
189000
3000
03:24
which is the recommended limit for most scuba divers,
71
192000
2000
03:26
you get this pressure effect.
72
194000
2000
03:28
And the effect of that pressure is that you have an increased density
73
196000
3000
03:31
of gas molecules in every breath you take.
74
199000
2000
03:33
Over time, those gas molecules dissolve into your blood and tissues
75
201000
4000
03:37
and start to fill you up.
76
205000
2000
03:39
Now, if you were to go down to, say, 300 feet,
77
207000
2000
03:41
you don't have five times as many gas molecules in your lungs --
78
209000
2000
03:43
you've got 10 times as many gas molecules in your lungs.
79
211000
3000
03:46
And, sure enough, they dissolve into your blood, and into your tissues as well.
80
214000
4000
03:50
And of course, if you were to down to where there's 15 times as much --
81
218000
3000
03:53
the deeper you go, the more exacerbating the problem becomes.
82
221000
3000
03:56
And the problem, the limitation of diving with air
83
224000
3000
03:59
is all those dots in your body -- all the nitrogen and all the oxygen.
84
227000
3000
04:02
There're three basic limitations of scuba diving.
85
230000
2000
04:04
The first limitation is the oxygen --
86
232000
2000
04:06
oxygen toxicity.
87
234000
2000
04:08
Now, we all know the song: "Love is like oxygen./
88
236000
2000
04:10
You get too much, you get too high./
89
238000
2000
04:12
Not enough, and you're going to die."
90
240000
2000
04:14
Well, in the context of diving, you get too much, you die also.
91
242000
2000
04:16
You die also because oxygen toxicity can cause a seizure --
92
244000
4000
04:20
makes you convulse underwater, not a good thing to happen underwater.
93
248000
3000
04:23
It happens because there's too much concentration of oxygen in your body.
94
251000
4000
04:27
The nitrogen has two problems.
95
255000
2000
04:29
One of them is what Jacques Cousteau called "rapture of the deep."
96
257000
3000
04:32
It's nitrogen narcosis.
97
260000
2000
04:34
It makes you loopy.
98
262000
2000
04:36
The deeper you go, the loopier you get.
99
264000
2000
04:38
You don't want to drive drunk, you don't want to dive drunk, so that's a real big problem.
100
266000
3000
04:41
And of course, the third problem is the one I found out the hard way in Palau,
101
269000
3000
04:44
which is the bends.
102
272000
2000
04:46
Now the one thing that I forgot to mention,
103
274000
2000
04:48
is that to obviate the problem of the nitrogen narcosis --
104
276000
2000
04:50
all of those blue dots in our body --
105
278000
2000
04:52
you remove the nitrogen and you replace it with helium.
106
280000
2000
04:54
Now helium's a gas, there're a lot of reasons why helium's good,
107
282000
3000
04:57
it's a tiny molecule, it's inert,
108
285000
2000
04:59
it doesn't give you narcosis.
109
287000
2000
05:01
So that's the basic concept that we use.
110
289000
2000
05:03
But, the theory's relatively easy.
111
291000
2000
05:05
The tricky part is the implementation.
112
293000
2000
05:07
So, this is how I began, about 15 years ago.
113
295000
2000
05:09
I'll admit, it wasn't exactly the smartest of starts,
114
297000
2000
05:11
but, you know, you got to start somewhere.
115
299000
2000
05:13
At the time, I wasn't the only one who didn't know what I was doing --
116
301000
3000
05:16
almost nobody did.
117
304000
2000
05:18
And this rig was actually used for a dive of 300 feet.
118
306000
2000
05:20
Over time we got a little bit better at it,
119
308000
2000
05:22
and we came up with this really sophisticated-looking rig
120
310000
2000
05:24
with four scuba tanks and five regulators
121
312000
2000
05:27
and all the right gas mixtures and all that good stuff.
122
315000
1000
05:28
And it was fine and dandy,
123
316000
2000
05:30
and it allowed us to go down and find new species.
124
318000
2000
05:32
This picture was taken 300 feet deep, catching new species of fish.
125
320000
2000
05:34
But, the problem was that it didn't allow us much time.
126
322000
2000
05:36
For all its bulk and size,
127
324000
2000
05:38
it only gave us about 15 minutes at most down at those sorts of depths.
128
326000
3000
05:41
We needed more time.
129
329000
2000
05:43
There had to be a better way.
130
331000
2000
05:45
And, indeed, there is a better way.
131
333000
2000
05:47
In 1994, I was fortunate enough to get access
132
335000
2000
05:49
to these prototype closed-circuit rebreathers.
133
337000
2000
05:51
Alright, closed-circuit rebreather --
134
339000
2000
05:53
what is it about it that makes it different from scuba,
135
341000
2000
05:55
and why is it better?
136
343000
2000
05:57
Well, there are three main advantages to a rebreather.
137
345000
2000
05:59
One, they're quiet, they don't make any noise.
138
347000
2000
06:01
Two, they allow you to stay underwater longer.
139
349000
2000
06:03
Three, they allow you to go deeper.
140
351000
2000
06:05
How is it that they do that?
141
353000
2000
06:07
Well, in order to really understand how they do that
142
355000
2000
06:09
you have to take off the hood, and look underneath and see what's going on.
143
357000
3000
06:12
There are three basic systems to a closed- circuit rebreather.
144
360000
2000
06:14
The most fundamental of these is called the breathing loop.
145
362000
2000
06:16
It's a breathing loop because you breathe off of it,
146
364000
3000
06:19
and it's a closed loop, and you breathe the same gas around and around and around.
147
367000
3000
06:22
So there's a mouthpiece that you put in your mouth,
148
370000
2000
06:24
and there's also a counterlung,
149
372000
2000
06:26
or in this case, two counterlungs.
150
374000
2000
06:28
Now, the counterlungs aren't high-tech, they're just simply flexible bags.
151
376000
3000
06:31
They allow you to mechanically breathe, or mechanically ventilate.
152
379000
3000
06:34
When you exhale your breath, it goes in the exhale counterlung:
153
382000
2000
06:36
when you inhale a breath, it comes from the inhale counterlung.
154
384000
3000
06:39
It's just pure mechanics, allowing you to cycle air through this breathing loop.
155
387000
3000
06:42
And, the other component on a breathing loop
156
390000
3000
06:45
is the carbon dioxide absorbent canister.
157
393000
3000
06:48
Now, as we breathe, we produce carbon dioxide,
158
396000
2000
06:50
and that carbon dioxide needs to be scrubbed out of the system.
159
398000
3000
06:53
There's a chemical filter in there
160
401000
2000
06:55
that pulls the carbon dioxide out of the breathing gas --
161
403000
3000
06:58
so that, when it comes back to us to breathe again, it's safe to breathe again.
162
406000
3000
07:01
So that's the breathing loop in a nutshell.
163
409000
3000
07:04
The second main component of a closed-circuit rebreather is the gas system.
164
412000
3000
07:07
The primary purpose of the gas system
165
415000
3000
07:10
is to provide oxygen, to replenish the oxygen that your body consumes.
166
418000
4000
07:14
So the main tank, the main critical thing,
167
422000
3000
07:17
is this oxygen gas supply cylinder we have here.
168
425000
2000
07:19
But, if we only had an oxygen gas supply cylinder
169
427000
2000
07:21
we wouldn't be able to go very deep,
170
429000
2000
07:23
because we'd run into oxygen toxicity very, very quickly.
171
431000
2000
07:25
So we need another gas, something to dilute the oxygen with.
172
433000
3000
07:28
And that, fittingly enough, is called the diluent gas supply.
173
436000
4000
07:32
In our applications, we generally put air inside this diluent gas supply,
174
440000
4000
07:36
because it's a very cheap and easy source of nitrogen.
175
444000
3000
07:39
So that's where we get our nitrogen from.
176
447000
2000
07:41
But, if we want to go deeper, of course, we need another gas supply.
177
449000
3000
07:44
We need helium, and the helium is what we really need to go deep.
178
452000
2000
07:46
And usually we'll have a slightly larger cylinder
179
454000
2000
07:48
mounted exterior on the rebreather, like this.
180
456000
3000
07:51
And that's what we use to inject, as we start to do our deep dives.
181
459000
3000
07:54
We also have a second oxygen cylinder, that's solely as a back-up
182
462000
3000
07:57
in case there's a problem with our first oxygen supply we can continue to breathe.
183
465000
4000
08:01
And the way you manage all these different gases and all these different gas supplies
184
469000
3000
08:04
is this really high-tech, sophisticated gas block up on the front here,
185
472000
4000
08:08
where it's easy to reach.
186
476000
2000
08:10
It's got all the valves and knobs and things you need to do
187
478000
2000
08:12
to inject the right gases at the right time.
188
480000
2000
08:14
Now, normally you don't have to do that because all of it's done automatically for you
189
482000
3000
08:17
with the electronics, the third system of a rebreather.
190
485000
2000
08:19
The most critical part of a rebreather is the oxygen sensors.
191
487000
3000
08:22
You need three of them, so that if one of them goes bad, you know which one it is.
192
490000
3000
08:25
You need voting logic.
193
493000
2000
08:27
You also have three microprocessors.
194
495000
2000
08:29
Any one of those computers can run the entire system,
195
497000
2000
08:31
so if you have to lose two of them,
196
499000
2000
08:34
there's also back-up power supplies.
197
502000
2000
08:36
And of course there're multiple displays, to get the information to the diver.
198
504000
2000
08:39
This is the high-tech gadgetry that allows us to do what we do
199
507000
2000
08:41
on these kinds of deep dives.
200
509000
2000
08:43
And I can talk about it all day -- just ask my wife --
201
511000
2000
08:45
but I want to move on to something that's kind of much more interesting.
202
513000
2000
08:47
I'm going to take you on a deep dive.
203
515000
2000
08:49
I'm going to show you what it's like to do one of these dives that we do.
204
517000
2000
08:51
We start up here on the boat, and for all this high-tech, expensive equipment,
205
519000
3000
08:54
this is still the best way to get in the water -- just pfft! --
206
522000
2000
08:56
flop over the side of the boat.
207
524000
2000
08:58
Now, as I showed you in the earlier diagram,
208
526000
3000
09:01
these reefs that we dive on start out near the surface
209
529000
3000
09:04
and they go almost vertically, completely straight down.
210
532000
3000
09:07
So, we drop in the water, and we just sort of go over the edge of this cliff,
211
535000
3000
09:10
and then we just start dropping, dropping, dropping.
212
538000
2000
09:12
People have asked me, "It must take a long time to get there?"
213
540000
2000
09:14
No, it only takes a couple of minutes to get all the way down
214
542000
2000
09:16
to three or four hundred feet, which is where we're aiming for.
215
544000
3000
09:19
It's kind of like skydiving in slow motion.
216
547000
2000
09:21
It's really a very interesting --
217
549000
2000
09:23
you ever see "The Abyss" where Ed Harris, you know,
218
551000
2000
09:25
he's sinking down along the side of the wall?
219
553000
2000
09:27
That's kind of what it feels like. It's pretty amazing.
220
555000
2000
09:29
Also, when you get down there, you find that the water is very, very clear.
221
557000
2000
09:31
It's extremely clear water, because there's hardly any plankton.
222
559000
2000
09:33
But, when you turn on your light, you look around at the caves,
223
561000
2000
09:35
and all of a sudden you're confronted with a tremendous amount of diversity,
224
563000
3000
09:38
much more than anyone used to believe.
225
566000
2000
09:40
Now not all of it is new species --
226
568000
3000
09:43
like that fish you see with the white stripe,
227
571000
2000
09:45
that's a known species.
228
573000
2000
09:47
But, if you look carefully into the cracks and crevices,
229
575000
2000
09:49
you'll see little things scurrying all over the place.
230
577000
4000
09:53
There's a just-unbelievable diversity.
231
581000
2000
09:55
It's not just fish, either.
232
583000
2000
09:57
These are crinoids, sponges, black corals. There're some more fishes.
233
585000
3000
10:00
And those fishes that you see right now are new species.
234
588000
2000
10:02
They're still new species because I had a video camera on this dive instead of my net,
235
590000
4000
10:06
so they're still waiting down there for someone to go find them.
236
594000
3000
10:09
But this is what it looks like,
237
597000
2000
10:11
and this kind of habitat just goes on and on and on for miles.
238
599000
3000
10:14
This is Papua, New Guinea.
239
602000
2000
10:16
Now little fishes and invertebrates aren't the only things we see down there.
240
604000
3000
10:19
We also see sharks,
241
607000
2000
10:21
much more regularly than I would have expected to.
242
609000
3000
10:24
And we're not quite sure why.
243
612000
2000
10:26
But what I want you to do right now is imagine yourself 400 feet underwater,
244
614000
2000
10:28
with all this high-tech gear on your back,
245
616000
2000
10:30
you're in a remote reef off Papua, New Guinea,
246
618000
2000
10:32
thousands of miles from the nearest recompression chamber,
247
620000
3000
10:35
and you're completely surrounded by sharks.
248
623000
3000
10:38
Video: Look at those ...
249
626000
2000
10:40
Uh-oh ... uh-oh!
250
628000
2000
10:42
I think we have their attention. (Laughter)
251
630000
4000
10:46
Richard Pyle: When you start talking like Donald Duck,
252
634000
3000
10:49
there's no situation in the world that can seem tense.
253
637000
2000
10:51
(Laughter)
254
639000
3000
10:54
So, we're down there, and this is at 400 feet --
255
642000
2000
10:57
that's looking straight up, by the way,
256
645000
1000
10:58
so you can get a sense of how far away the surface is.
257
646000
2000
11:00
And if you're a biologist and you know about sharks,
258
648000
2000
11:02
and you want to assess, you know, how much jeopardy am I really in here,
259
650000
4000
11:06
there's one question that sort of jumps to the forefront of your mind immediately
260
654000
4000
11:10
which is --
261
658000
2000
11:12
Diver 1 (Video): What kind of sharks?
262
660000
3000
11:15
Diver 2: Uh, silvertip sharks.
263
663000
2000
11:17
Diver 1: Oh.
264
665000
1000
11:18
RP: Silvertip sharks -- they're actually three species of sharks here.
265
666000
2000
11:20
The silvertips are the one with the white edges on the fin,
266
668000
3000
11:23
and there're also gray reef sharks and some hammerheads off in the distance.
267
671000
3000
11:26
And yes, it's a little nerve-wracking.
268
674000
3000
11:30
Diver 2 (Video): Hoo!
269
678000
2000
11:33
That little guy is frisky! (Laughter)
270
681000
3000
11:38
Now, you've seen video like this on TV a lot,
271
686000
4000
11:42
and it's very intimidating, and I think it gives the wrong impression about sharks.
272
690000
3000
11:45
Sharks are actually not very dangerous animals
273
693000
2000
11:47
and that's why we weren't worried much, why we were joking around down there.
274
695000
3000
11:50
More people are killed by pigs, more people are killed by lightning strikes,
275
698000
3000
11:53
more people are killed at soccer games in England.
276
701000
3000
11:56
There's a lot of other ways you can die.
277
704000
2000
11:58
And I'm not making that stuff up.
278
706000
2000
12:00
Coconuts! You can get killed by a coconut more likely than killed by a shark.
279
708000
3000
12:03
So sharks aren't quite as dangerous as most people make them out to be.
280
711000
4000
12:07
Now, I don't know if any of you get U.S. News and World Report --
281
715000
3000
12:10
I got the recent issue.
282
718000
2000
12:12
There's a cover story all about the great explorers of our time.
283
720000
2000
12:14
The last article is an article entitled "No New Frontiers."
284
722000
4000
12:18
It questions whether or not there really are any new frontiers out there,
285
726000
4000
12:22
whether there are any real, true, hardcore discoveries that can still be made.
286
730000
3000
12:25
And this is my favorite line from the article.
287
733000
2000
12:27
As a fish nerd, I have to laugh, because you know they don't call us fish nerds for nothing --
288
735000
3000
12:30
we actually do get excited about finding a new dorsal spine in a guppy.
289
738000
5000
12:35
But, it's much more than that.
290
743000
2000
12:37
And, I want to show you a few of the guppies we've found over the years.
291
745000
4000
12:41
This one's -- you know, you can see how ugly it is.
292
749000
3000
12:44
Even if you ignore the scientific value of this thing,
293
752000
4000
12:48
just look at the monetary value of this thing.
294
756000
2000
12:50
A couple of these ended up getting sold through the aquarium trade to Japan,
295
758000
3000
12:53
where they sold for 15,000 dollars apiece.
296
761000
2000
12:55
That's half-a-million dollars per pound.
297
763000
3000
12:58
Here's another new angelfish we discovered.
298
766000
2000
13:00
This one we actually first discovered back in the air days -- the bad old air days,
299
768000
4000
13:04
as we used to say -- when we were doing these kind of dives with air.
300
772000
2000
13:06
We were at 360 feet.
301
774000
2000
13:08
And I remember coming up from one of these deep dives, and I had this fog,
302
776000
3000
13:11
and the narcosis takes a little while to, you know, fade away.
303
779000
3000
13:14
It's sort of like sobering up.
304
782000
2000
13:16
And I had this vague recollection of seeing these yellow fish with a black spot,
305
784000
2000
13:18
and I thought, "Aw, damn. I should have caught one.
306
786000
3000
13:21
I think that's a new species."
307
789000
2000
13:23
And then, eventually, I got around to looking in my bucket.
308
791000
2000
13:25
Sure enough, I had caught one -- I just completely forgot that I had caught one. (Laughter)
309
793000
2000
13:27
And so this one we decided to give the name Centropyge narcosis to.
310
795000
4000
13:31
So that's it's official scientific name,
311
799000
2000
13:33
in reference to its deep-dwelling habits.
312
801000
2000
13:35
And this is another neat one.
313
803000
2000
13:37
When we first found it, we weren't even sure what family this thing belonged to,
314
805000
2000
13:39
so we just called it the Dr. Seuss fish,
315
807000
2000
13:41
because it looked like something out of one of those books.
316
809000
2000
13:43
Now, this one's pretty cool.
317
811000
3000
13:46
If you go to Papua, New Guinea, and go down 300 feet,
318
814000
2000
13:48
you're going to see these big mounds.
319
816000
2000
13:50
And this may be kind of hard to see, but they're about --
320
818000
2000
13:52
oh, a couple meters in diameter.
321
820000
2000
13:54
If you look closely, you'll see there's
322
822000
2000
13:56
a little white fish and gray fish that hangs out near them.
323
824000
2000
13:58
Well, it turns out this little white fish builds these giant mounds,
324
826000
2000
14:00
one pebble at a time.
325
828000
2000
14:02
It's really extraordinary to find something like this.
326
830000
2000
14:04
It's not just new species: it's new behavior, it's new ecology it's all kind of new things.
327
832000
3000
14:07
So, what I'm going to show you right now, very quickly,
328
835000
2000
14:09
is just a sampling of a few of the new species we've discovered.
329
837000
4000
14:13
What's extraordinary about this is not just the sheer number of species we're finding --
330
841000
3000
14:16
although as you can see that's pretty amazing, this is only half of what we've found --
331
844000
3000
14:19
what's extraordinary is how quickly we find them.
332
847000
4000
14:23
We're up to seven new species per hour of time we spend at that depth.
333
851000
3000
14:26
Now, if you go to an Amazon jungle and fog a tree, you may get a lot of bugs,
334
854000
5000
14:31
but for fishes, there's nowhere in the world
335
859000
2000
14:33
you can get seven new species per hour of time.
336
861000
3000
14:36
Now, we've done some back of the envelope calculations,
337
864000
2000
14:38
and we're predicting that there are probably on the order of 2,000 to 2,500 new species
338
866000
4000
14:42
in the Indo-Pacific alone.
339
870000
2000
14:44
There are only five to six thousand known species.
340
872000
2000
14:46
So a very large percentage of what is out there isn't really known.
341
874000
4000
14:50
We thought we had a handle on all the reef fish diversity -- evidently not.
342
878000
3000
14:53
And I'm going to just close on a very somber note.
343
881000
2000
14:55
At the beginning I told you that I was going to show you two extraordinary photographs.
344
883000
5000
15:00
This is the second extraordinary photograph I'm going to show you.
345
888000
2000
15:02
This one was taken at the exact moment I was down there filming those sharks.
346
890000
5000
15:07
This was taken exactly 300 feet above my head.
347
895000
2000
15:09
And the reason this photograph is extraordinary
348
897000
3000
15:12
is because it captures a moment in the very last minute of a person's life.
349
900000
4000
15:16
Less than 60 seconds after this picture was taken, this guy was dead.
350
904000
4000
15:20
When we recovered his body, we figured out what had gone wrong.
351
908000
4000
15:24
He had made a very simple mistake.
352
912000
2000
15:26
He turned the wrong valve when he filled his cylinder --
353
914000
2000
15:28
he had 80 percent oxygen in his tank when he should have had 40.
354
916000
2000
15:30
He had an oxygen toxicity seizure and he drowned.
355
918000
3000
15:33
The reason I show this -- not to put a downer on everything --
356
921000
3000
15:36
but I just want to use it to key off my philosophy of life in general,
357
924000
5000
15:41
which is that we all have two goals.
358
929000
2000
15:43
The first goal we share with every other living thing on this planet,
359
931000
2000
15:45
which is to survive. I call it perpetuation:
360
933000
2000
15:47
the survival of the species and survival of ourselves,
361
935000
4000
15:51
because they're both about perpetuating the genome.
362
939000
3000
15:54
And the second goal, for those of us who have mastered that first goal,
363
942000
2000
15:56
is to -- you know, you call it spiritual fulfillment, you can call it financial success,
364
944000
5000
16:01
you can call it any number of different things.
365
949000
2000
16:03
I call it seeking joy --
366
951000
2000
16:05
this pursuit of happiness.
367
953000
2000
16:07
So, I guess my theme on this is this guy lived his life to the fullest,
368
955000
3000
16:10
he absolutely did.
369
958000
2000
16:12
You have to balance those two goals.
370
960000
2000
16:14
If you live your whole life in fear --
371
962000
2000
16:16
I mean, life is a sexually transmitted disease with 100 percent mortality.
372
964000
3000
16:19
So, you can't live your life in fear.
373
967000
3000
16:22
(Laughter)
374
970000
2000
16:24
I thought that was an old one.
375
972000
2000
16:26
(Applause)
376
974000
1000
16:27
But, at the same time you don't want to get so focused on rule number two,
377
975000
4000
16:31
or goal number two, that you neglect goal number one.
378
979000
3000
16:34
Because once you're dead, you really can't enjoy anything after that.
379
982000
3000
16:37
I wish you all the best of luck in maintaining that balance in your future endeavors.
380
985000
4000
16:41
Thanks.
381
989000
2000
16:43
(Applause)
382
991000
1000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Richard Pyle - IchthyologistIchthyologist Richard Pyle is a fish nerd. In his quest to discover and document new species of fish, he has also become a trailblazing exploratory diver and a pioneer of database technology.
Why you should listen
A pioneer of the dive world, Richard Pyle discovers new biodiversity on the cliffs of coral reefs. He was among the first to use rebreather technology to explore depths between 200 and 500 feet, an area often called the "Twilight Zone." During his dives, he has identified and documented hundreds of new species. Author of scientific, technical and popular articles, his expeditions have also been featured in the IMAX film Coral Reef Adventure, the BBC series Pacific Abyss and many more. In 2005, he received the NOGI Award, the most prestigious distinction of the diving world.
Currently, he is continuing his research at the Bernice P. Bishop Museum, outside Honolulu, Hawai'i, and is affiliated with the museum's comprehensive Hawaii Biological Survey. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Association for Marine Exploration, of which he is a founding member. He continues to explore the sea and spearhead rebreather technology, and is a major contributor to the Encyclopedia of Life.
Richard Pyle | Speaker | TED.com