Living At The Edge of the Unknown: Deep Coral Reef Pioneer Dr. Richard Pyle on A Life of Exploration
September 12, 2023 • 20 mins
In today's episode, I speak with explorer, renowned ichthyologist and deep coral reef pioneer, Richard Pyle. Richard's life story has been one of adventure and exploration, particularly a fascination with deep coral reefs far below where most recreational divers dive.
And this points to a deeper aspect of Richard's personality, a part I resonated with, which is challenging and rethinking deeply held assumptions about our world.
Because of this, he is now seen as a true pioneer, evidenced in a popular TED talk he did about the deep reefs, which he calls the Twilight Zone.
So came as no surprise that Richard was engaging, energetic and full of life, And we spoke about how his family first saw his connection to fish when he was just a little baby, his unexpected path to a groundbreaking career and a seminal dive experience he had with a prehistoric fish the world knows as the coelacanth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jason Elias (00:08):
Hi and welcome to the Big Deep podcast.
Big Deep is a podcast aboutpeople who have a connection to
the ocean, People for whom thatconnection is so strong it
defines some aspect of theirlife.
Over the course of this serieswe'll talk to all sorts of
people and in each episode we'llexplore the deeper meaning of
(00:29):
that connection.
Today, I speak with an explorerand fish scientist whose
passion for exploration hasdriven a rethinking of the
world's coral reefs.
Hello, this is your host, JasonElias.
Welcome to the Big Deep podcast.
(00:51):
In today's episode, I speak withexplorer, renowned icthyologist
and deep coral reef pioneer,Richard Pyle.
Richard's life story has beenone of adventure and exploration
, particularly a fascinationwith deep coral reefs far below
where most recreational diversdive.
And this points to a deeperaspect of Richard's personality,
a part I resonated with, whichis challenging and rethinking
(01:13):
deeply held assumptions aboutour world.
Because of this, he is now seenas a true pioneer, evidenced in
a popular TED talk he did aboutthe deep reefs, which he calls
the Twilight Zone.
So came as no surprise thatRichard was engaging, energetic
and full of life, And we spokeabout how his family first saw
his connection to fish when hewas just a little baby, his
(01:33):
unexpected path to agroundbreaking career and a
seminal dive experience he hadwith a prehistoric fish the
world knows as the sea-lacanth.
Richard Pyle (01:41):
My name is Richard Pyle.
I'm the senior curator ofichthyology at Bishop Museum in
Honolulu And I mostly studycoral reef fishes.
Jason Elias (01:50):
So I always start off by asking people to talk
about when they first remembertheir connection to the ocean,
but I think yours comes even alittle bit earlier than most.
Could you talk a bit about that?
Richard Pyle (02:00):
I was born in Hawaii and my family at the time
lived near the beach in Kailuaon the island of Oahu.
I was a little bit of a fussychild And according to family
lore my mom would prop me up infront of the saltwater aquarium
in the living room and thatwould cause me to stare at the
fish as they swam back and forth.
(02:21):
That's where this fascinationfor fishes began, and I remember
as a kid there was a pet storenear our house And I remember
those saltwater fish were sounbelievably exotic.
They were just so colorful andso graceful that I fantasized
about one day seeing thesethings in real life.
Jason Elias (02:42):
So you obviously had a connection to the ocean
and fish from a very early ageand you might have thought that
your life's path would bepreordained.
But you took a little bit of alonger journey to get there and
I'm wondering if you could tellus a little bit of that story.
Richard Pyle (02:57):
I guess my life story was a fascination for
fishes throughout most of mychildhood and teenage years And
after my first semester atcollege I started realizing is
this going to be it?
Is this the same old grind?
I was looking for adventure atthe time because, as a teenager,
adventure was what was drivingme.
So I dropped out of college andI spent six months in Palau in
(03:20):
the western Pacific to set up anaquarium export business And,
coincidentally, a guy named JackRandall came down to Palau.
Now Jack Randall, by multiplemetrics, is the greatest
ichthyologist who ever livedMost number of discovered new
species and 100 morepublications than the second
(03:42):
most prolific ichthyologist inhistory.
So Jack was truly aone-of-a-kind person and I
didn't fully appreciate that atthe time, but I did know that he
was one of the greats.
He had a grant from theNational Geographic Society to
go do some fish surveys down inPalau and he needed someone with
a boat.
And guess what?
I had a boat.
So I spent two of the mostmagical weeks of my life going
(04:06):
out diving with this amazing,historically important person.
So towards the end of his trip,the last day of diving for him,
i hadn't yet found somethinghe'd never seen before And I
wanted to find something.
So I decided to push the limitsdeeper And I got down to about
(04:29):
250 feet on a single tank of air, pushed my luck and stayed
beyond the time that I needed tostay.
So out of air at 180 feet Iessentially did a free ascent,
barely made it to the surface.
I was approaching shallow waterblackout And about that moment
I started feeling pain in myjoints and my legs and I
(04:50):
realized right, i just blew offa lot of decompression.
I climbed in the boat andwithin minutes I started losing
control of my arms and my legs.
I started seeing stars and Iknew this was the real deal.
They were getting therecompression chamber ready on
Palau.
I spent eight hours in thatchamber and I came out
(05:13):
quadriplegic.
They flew me back to Hawaii andthen I spent a month in chamber
treatments, gradually regainingmy ability to walk.
It took me another year beforeI could walk without a serious
limp and a cane, and you wouldthink that that would have been
among the worst days of my life.
But in retrospect I mostlyrecovered.
(05:38):
I do have some neurologicaldeficiencies 35 years later.
I'm okay with that.
In order for my father'sinsurance to cover me.
I had to be a student, so I hadto enroll back in school.
That led me to getting a PhDand becoming a true academic.
While I was in school I met mywife, and so my kids wouldn't
(06:02):
have existed because I neverwould have met my wife.
But probably most of all, jackRandall felt guilty.
He wasn't, he held noresponsibility of that incident,
but Jack offered to be my PhDadvisor.
So I was the last student ofthe greatest ideologist in
history And he offered me a jobat Bishop Museum.
(06:24):
That was 1986.
Here I am in my same office Istarted using 36 years ago.
So everything good in my life Ican trace to that accident and
pull out.
That was the single best day ofmy life.
Jason Elias (06:52):
Wow, that is a truly incredible story, and I
think what it points to is awillingness to stay open to
opportunities or evenchallenging deeply held
assumptions about the way thingsshould be, and I also see a
parallel in that in some of yourscience, in particular, your
interesting take on evolution.
Could you talk a bit about whyyou think there are no defined
(07:16):
categories of species and whatthat means?
Richard Pyle (07:20):
There's been a debate in the biological
community What is a species?
And only one definition is truewhich is a species is what a
taxonomist says it is, and whatI mean by that is evolution does
not produce species.
Evolution produces populationsof organisms that interbreed or
don't interbreed with each other, which we as humans want to fit
(07:43):
into boxes.
Now, while it's a continuum,it's not a smooth continuum.
It's a lumpy continuum, andthose lumps are where we draw
our boundaries between species.
The continuum part is, everyliving thing on the planet can
trace its ancestry back to thesame origin.
So a fish, a coelacanth walkevolution backwards, generation
(08:05):
after generation aftergeneration, hundreds of millions
of years.
We shared an ancestor.
That's the continuous part ofit, the unbroken chain of
reproductive events that alllife on Earth is plugged into.
Jason Elias (08:18):
I get a thrill when I hear stories that challenge
assumptions that we've alwayshad, the underpinnings of what
we always believed to be true.
That might not actually be sosolid, and I think that speaks
well for your science, becausethat's the way science should
always be approached.
But even with all that, itseems like there's some personal
things that drive you.
So what is it that underpinsthat sense of exploration and
(08:42):
discovery that really seems tomotivate you?
And why specifically the ocean?
Is there something there foryou?
Richard Pyle (08:50):
I grew up in a family of bird watchers.
My father was the president ofAudubon Society in Hawaii And my
brother is widely known as aworld expert on certain kinds of
birds.
So I was oversaturated withbirds as a young child, and I
think that helps solidify myinterest in going to the other
world, a place where humansdon't normally tread, and I
(09:14):
think that taps into the passionof mine, which is I like to see
things that nobody else hasever seen before.
It's the real deal.
For me, it's something that'sabsolutely fundamental to my
core.
There's a certain thrill and anexcitement in knowing that
(09:37):
you're the first person to seeanything.
The ocean still holds enormousswaths of biodiversity that
still has not yet beenencountered by humans.
Part of my thrill ofunderstanding and exploring the
ocean is discovering things, andthat's another one of those
(09:59):
core passions that just gives mea sense of euphoria.
The world now knows somethingthat it didn't know before.
Some of the things I do, it'ssort of like in those precious
moments where you're right onthe edge of something, you are
somewhere where nobody's everbeen before.
The motivation for doing thisis not the thrill, it's not the
(10:24):
adrenaline rush.
The thrill is filling a gap inhuman knowledge about this
planet.
Yeah sure, risk of death onthese deep dives can be exciting
and it might be dangerous, butthe upside is the thrill of
closing gaps in our knowledgeabout this planet while we still
(10:45):
can.
Looking at the outer edge, atthe frontier of where the known
meets the unknown, that's what Ifind most exciting.
Jason Elias (11:01):
Wow, that is so inspiring.
Okay, so we take your passionfor discovery and exploration,
your motivation to challengeassumptions we might have about
the world, and that takes us toa topic you're very well known
for, which is deep coral reefs,or the Twilight Zone as you call
it.
And what's interesting is thatyou argue the coral reefs we
(11:23):
think of the warm tropicalwaters off the beach in Tahiti
are really the smallest andmaybe even least important part
of a larger ecosystem in theocean.
So can you talk a bit aboutthat and tell us why you think
deep coral reefs are soimportant?
Richard Pyle (11:41):
Most people, when they think about coral reefs,
they imagine what you see inmagazines and on TV lots of
colorful fish swimming around inbrightly lit shallow reefs.
And that's what, honestly, mostscientists think about when
they think about a coral reef.
But coral reefs don't stop at100 feet just because scuba
divers stop at 100 feet.
Coral reefs keep on going.
Now there is a discrete linesomewhere around five or 600
(12:05):
feet.
deep Sea water gets deeper.
less and less light reachesthere at some point, across as a
threshold where there's notenough to drive photosynthesis.
Now we as humans know a wholelot about the top 30 feet of
that.
We know a bit more about the 30to 60 foot range and we know a
little bit about the 60 to 100foot range.
But even if you give it all theway to 100 feet, we're still
(12:26):
looking at only one-fifth of thetotal depth range, just a small
percentage.
let's call it 20%.
And you know what?
That's a very anomalous 20%because it happens to be at the
edge of coral reef habitat,that's, right near the surface,
where the light is brightest andthe temperatures are warmest
and the effects of storm surgeis greatest and the effects of
siltation are most direct.
(12:47):
The reason I frame it this wayis because we're terrestrial
humans and we're limited in howdeep we can go underwater.
We're biased in our perspectiveof what matters into what's
proximal to us.
But my realization of theimportance of these deep coral
reefs is this is where the realaction is.
This is where the meat of coralreefs resides, and we're
finding up to 12 new species perhour of time we spend in this
(13:09):
stuff.
You can't do that with anyother vertebrate anywhere on
earth.
So most coral reefs are thedeep coral reefs And the world
is kind of woken up to theimportance of these deep coral
reefs and I'm really happy tohave played some kind of role in
that.
Jason Elias (13:23):
Well, I think you certainly have, And I think it's
pretty evident even from theenergy and passion you show just
talking about these things whyyou have had that impact.
And I think that takes us to astory which I feel really
encapsulates all the essentialaspects of what we've been
talking about today.
It happened for you on a diveoff the coast of Africa, And I'm
(13:44):
wondering if you could tell usa little bit more about that
dive and why it meant so much toyou.
Richard Pyle (13:50):
A few years ago we had the opportunity to go to
South Africa for a NationalGeographic film, to dive with a
living fossil, the coelacanth.
The sea lacanth was a fish thatwas known from the fossil
record and was thought to havegone extinct 70 million years
ago, when all the dinosaurs wentextinct until the 1930s when
someone found one on a fishingboat in South Africa.
(14:12):
It shocked the world.
Still considered to be one ofthe greatest biological
discoveries of the 20th century,It was essentially the
discovery of a living dinosaurthat somehow managed to survive
all the way until this time.
It was discovered in the 30s.
People searched and searchedand searched for it.
Over time People founded up thecoast of Africa Madagascar but
(14:34):
oddly nobody ever found it againin South Africa.
Then, in around the year 2000,a group of deep divers using
rebreaters were diving off ofSadwana Bay in South Africa and
they came up from a dive and afellow said Hey, I saw one of
them sea lacanths down there.
And sure enough, he saw sevensea lacanths in one cave.
A fellow named Peter Tim whowas a dive instructor and leader
(14:56):
at the group.
He knew at that moment this wasa big deal.
So National Geographic wantedto tell this story And they
reached out to us to be thescientists to go down and dive
with these sea lacanths.
So we did a long series ofdives with this guy, Peter Tim,
(15:20):
And dive after dive after dive,we dove the same stretch of
ledge where Peter has known thesea lacanths to show up from
time to time.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And then on the 13th dive, mypartner, Rob Whitten, and I were
up shallow waiting for Peterand the other photographer to
(15:41):
come up and they weren't comingup.
So Rob and I start swimming outover the ledge and look over
the edge of the drop off And wesaw a guy filming a sea lacanth.
They had found one.
So I got to go face to facewith a sea lacanth.
(16:09):
The sea lacanth is one of theholy grails of all of
biodiversity And here I am faceto face with it.
It's seven feet long.
It's probably two feet indiameter.
It's enormous and amazinglygraceful.
(16:32):
One of the characteristics ofthe sea lacanth make it special
is its fins are almost likelimbs.
It's almost got legs And peoplespeculate that that might be
how fishes originally walked outonto land Watching it sculpt
(16:56):
the water with those fins.
It was incredibly graceful, Butthe moment that stands out for
me is finally the other diversaid look, we got to get out of
here, It's time to go.
We're like 15 minutes into thedive.
We're really screwed.
We're going to be having ahorrendous decompression.
(17:16):
But I wasn't ready to leave yet.
So there was a moment therewhere it was just me and the sea
lacanth.
We were the only two largevertebrates around The sea.
Lacanth didn't swim away frommy light, Kind of gracefully sat
(17:40):
by me, And then it startedswimming in a direction where
its tail came towards me And Icautiously reached out and I put
my hand on its tail as itglided by me And I felt the
(18:01):
scales go across my fingertips.
At that moment we bonded Me andmy 400 million year distant
ancestor finally met.
We touched each other.
That's something that's etchedin my mind forever.
Jason Elias (18:39):
Finally, we end every interview and every
episode with a single open-endedquestion.
we ask everyone we talk to Whatdoes the ocean mean to you?
Richard Pyle (18:50):
The ocean, to me, is the planet.
In the same way that the deepcoral reefs represent the bulk
of coral reef habitat and theparts we're familiar with are
the fringe, the terrestrialworld is the fringe of planet
Earth.
What makes Earth special is itsoceans.
The ocean is the true deepbiodiversity on this planet.
Jason Elias (19:15):
Thanks for listening to the Big Deep
podcast Next time on Big Deep.
We really appreciate you beingon this journey into the Big
Deep as we explore an ocean ofstories.
(19:38):
If you like what we're doing,please make sure to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts.
Also, please like and comment,because those subscribes, likes
and comments really make adifference For more interviews,
deeper discussions with ourguests, photos and updates on
anything you've heard.
There's a lot more content atour website, bigdeepcom Plus.
(19:59):
If you know someone we shouldthink we should talk to, let us
know at our Big Deep website, aswe are always looking to hear
more stories from interestingpeople who are deeply connected
to our world's oceans.
Thanks again for joining us.
Hi and welcome to the Big Deep podcast.
Big Deep is a podcast aboutpeople who have a connection to
the ocean, People for whom thatconnection is so strong it
defines some aspect of theirlife.
Over the course of this serieswe'll talk to all sorts of
people and in each episode we'llexplore the deeper meaning of
(00:29):
that connection.
Today, I speak with an explorerand fish scientist whose
passion for exploration hasdriven a rethinking of the
world's coral reefs.
Hello, this is your host, JasonElias.
Welcome to the Big Deep podcast.
(00:51):
In today's episode, I speak withexplorer, renowned icthyologist
and deep coral reef pioneer,Richard Pyle.
Richard's life story has beenone of adventure and exploration
, particularly a fascinationwith deep coral reefs far below
where most recreational diversdive.
And this points to a deeperaspect of Richard's personality,
a part I resonated with, whichis challenging and rethinking
(01:13):
deeply held assumptions aboutour world.
Because of this, he is now seenas a true pioneer, evidenced in
a popular TED talk he did aboutthe deep reefs, which he calls
the Twilight Zone.
So came as no surprise thatRichard was engaging, energetic
and full of life, And we spokeabout how his family first saw
his connection to fish when hewas just a little baby, his
(01:33):
unexpected path to agroundbreaking career and a
seminal dive experience he hadwith a prehistoric fish the
world knows as the sea-lacanth.
Richard Pyle (01:41):
My name is Richard Pyle.
I'm the senior curator ofichthyology at Bishop Museum in
Honolulu And I mostly studycoral reef fishes.
Jason Elias (01:50):
So I always start off by asking people to talk
about when they first remembertheir connection to the ocean,
but I think yours comes even alittle bit earlier than most.
Could you talk a bit about that?
Richard Pyle (02:00):
I was born in Hawaii and my family at the time
lived near the beach in Kailuaon the island of Oahu.
I was a little bit of a fussychild And according to family
lore my mom would prop me up infront of the saltwater aquarium
in the living room and thatwould cause me to stare at the
fish as they swam back and forth.
(02:21):
That's where this fascinationfor fishes began, and I remember
as a kid there was a pet storenear our house And I remember
those saltwater fish were sounbelievably exotic.
They were just so colorful andso graceful that I fantasized
about one day seeing thesethings in real life.
Jason Elias (02:42):
So you obviously had a connection to the ocean
and fish from a very early ageand you might have thought that
your life's path would bepreordained.
But you took a little bit of alonger journey to get there and
I'm wondering if you could tellus a little bit of that story.
Richard Pyle (02:57):
I guess my life story was a fascination for
fishes throughout most of mychildhood and teenage years And
after my first semester atcollege I started realizing is
this going to be it?
Is this the same old grind?
I was looking for adventure atthe time because, as a teenager,
adventure was what was drivingme.
So I dropped out of college andI spent six months in Palau in
(03:20):
the western Pacific to set up anaquarium export business And,
coincidentally, a guy named JackRandall came down to Palau.
Now Jack Randall, by multiplemetrics, is the greatest
ichthyologist who ever livedMost number of discovered new
species and 100 morepublications than the second
(03:42):
most prolific ichthyologist inhistory.
So Jack was truly aone-of-a-kind person and I
didn't fully appreciate that atthe time, but I did know that he
was one of the greats.
He had a grant from theNational Geographic Society to
go do some fish surveys down inPalau and he needed someone with
a boat.
And guess what?
I had a boat.
So I spent two of the mostmagical weeks of my life going
(04:06):
out diving with this amazing,historically important person.
So towards the end of his trip,the last day of diving for him,
i hadn't yet found somethinghe'd never seen before And I
wanted to find something.
So I decided to push the limitsdeeper And I got down to about
(04:29):
250 feet on a single tank of air, pushed my luck and stayed
beyond the time that I needed tostay.
So out of air at 180 feet Iessentially did a free ascent,
barely made it to the surface.
I was approaching shallow waterblackout And about that moment
I started feeling pain in myjoints and my legs and I
(04:50):
realized right, i just blew offa lot of decompression.
I climbed in the boat andwithin minutes I started losing
control of my arms and my legs.
I started seeing stars and Iknew this was the real deal.
They were getting therecompression chamber ready on
Palau.
I spent eight hours in thatchamber and I came out
(05:13):
quadriplegic.
They flew me back to Hawaii andthen I spent a month in chamber
treatments, gradually regainingmy ability to walk.
It took me another year beforeI could walk without a serious
limp and a cane, and you wouldthink that that would have been
among the worst days of my life.
But in retrospect I mostlyrecovered.
(05:38):
I do have some neurologicaldeficiencies 35 years later.
I'm okay with that.
In order for my father'sinsurance to cover me.
I had to be a student, so I hadto enroll back in school.
That led me to getting a PhDand becoming a true academic.
While I was in school I met mywife, and so my kids wouldn't
(06:02):
have existed because I neverwould have met my wife.
But probably most of all, jackRandall felt guilty.
He wasn't, he held noresponsibility of that incident,
but Jack offered to be my PhDadvisor.
So I was the last student ofthe greatest ideologist in
history And he offered me a jobat Bishop Museum.
(06:24):
That was 1986.
Here I am in my same office Istarted using 36 years ago.
So everything good in my life Ican trace to that accident and
pull out.
That was the single best day ofmy life.
Jason Elias (06:52):
Wow, that is a truly incredible story, and I
think what it points to is awillingness to stay open to
opportunities or evenchallenging deeply held
assumptions about the way thingsshould be, and I also see a
parallel in that in some of yourscience, in particular, your
interesting take on evolution.
Could you talk a bit about whyyou think there are no defined
(07:16):
categories of species and whatthat means?
Richard Pyle (07:20):
There's been a debate in the biological
community What is a species?
And only one definition is truewhich is a species is what a
taxonomist says it is, and whatI mean by that is evolution does
not produce species.
Evolution produces populationsof organisms that interbreed or
don't interbreed with each other, which we as humans want to fit
(07:43):
into boxes.
Now, while it's a continuum,it's not a smooth continuum.
It's a lumpy continuum, andthose lumps are where we draw
our boundaries between species.
The continuum part is, everyliving thing on the planet can
trace its ancestry back to thesame origin.
So a fish, a coelacanth walkevolution backwards, generation
(08:05):
after generation aftergeneration, hundreds of millions
of years.
We shared an ancestor.
That's the continuous part ofit, the unbroken chain of
reproductive events that alllife on Earth is plugged into.
Jason Elias (08:18):
I get a thrill when I hear stories that challenge
assumptions that we've alwayshad, the underpinnings of what
we always believed to be true.
That might not actually be sosolid, and I think that speaks
well for your science, becausethat's the way science should
always be approached.
But even with all that, itseems like there's some personal
things that drive you.
So what is it that underpinsthat sense of exploration and
(08:42):
discovery that really seems tomotivate you?
And why specifically the ocean?
Is there something there foryou?
Richard Pyle (08:50):
I grew up in a family of bird watchers.
My father was the president ofAudubon Society in Hawaii And my
brother is widely known as aworld expert on certain kinds of
birds.
So I was oversaturated withbirds as a young child, and I
think that helps solidify myinterest in going to the other
world, a place where humansdon't normally tread, and I
(09:14):
think that taps into the passionof mine, which is I like to see
things that nobody else hasever seen before.
It's the real deal.
For me, it's something that'sabsolutely fundamental to my
core.
There's a certain thrill and anexcitement in knowing that
(09:37):
you're the first person to seeanything.
The ocean still holds enormousswaths of biodiversity that
still has not yet beenencountered by humans.
Part of my thrill ofunderstanding and exploring the
ocean is discovering things, andthat's another one of those
(09:59):
core passions that just gives mea sense of euphoria.
The world now knows somethingthat it didn't know before.
Some of the things I do, it'ssort of like in those precious
moments where you're right onthe edge of something, you are
somewhere where nobody's everbeen before.
The motivation for doing thisis not the thrill, it's not the
(10:24):
adrenaline rush.
The thrill is filling a gap inhuman knowledge about this
planet.
Yeah sure, risk of death onthese deep dives can be exciting
and it might be dangerous, butthe upside is the thrill of
closing gaps in our knowledgeabout this planet while we still
(10:45):
can.
Looking at the outer edge, atthe frontier of where the known
meets the unknown, that's what Ifind most exciting.
Jason Elias (11:01):
Wow, that is so inspiring.
Okay, so we take your passionfor discovery and exploration,
your motivation to challengeassumptions we might have about
the world, and that takes us toa topic you're very well known
for, which is deep coral reefs,or the Twilight Zone as you call
it.
And what's interesting is thatyou argue the coral reefs we
(11:23):
think of the warm tropicalwaters off the beach in Tahiti
are really the smallest andmaybe even least important part
of a larger ecosystem in theocean.
So can you talk a bit aboutthat and tell us why you think
deep coral reefs are soimportant?
Richard Pyle (11:41):
Most people, when they think about coral reefs,
they imagine what you see inmagazines and on TV lots of
colorful fish swimming around inbrightly lit shallow reefs.
And that's what, honestly, mostscientists think about when
they think about a coral reef.
But coral reefs don't stop at100 feet just because scuba
divers stop at 100 feet.
Coral reefs keep on going.
Now there is a discrete linesomewhere around five or 600
(12:05):
feet.
deep Sea water gets deeper.
less and less light reachesthere at some point, across as a
threshold where there's notenough to drive photosynthesis.
Now we as humans know a wholelot about the top 30 feet of
that.
We know a bit more about the 30to 60 foot range and we know a
little bit about the 60 to 100foot range.
But even if you give it all theway to 100 feet, we're still
(12:26):
looking at only one-fifth of thetotal depth range, just a small
percentage.
let's call it 20%.
And you know what?
That's a very anomalous 20%because it happens to be at the
edge of coral reef habitat,that's, right near the surface,
where the light is brightest andthe temperatures are warmest
and the effects of storm surgeis greatest and the effects of
siltation are most direct.
(12:47):
The reason I frame it this wayis because we're terrestrial
humans and we're limited in howdeep we can go underwater.
We're biased in our perspectiveof what matters into what's
proximal to us.
But my realization of theimportance of these deep coral
reefs is this is where the realaction is.
This is where the meat of coralreefs resides, and we're
finding up to 12 new species perhour of time we spend in this
(13:09):
stuff.
You can't do that with anyother vertebrate anywhere on
earth.
So most coral reefs are thedeep coral reefs And the world
is kind of woken up to theimportance of these deep coral
reefs and I'm really happy tohave played some kind of role in
that.
Jason Elias (13:23):
Well, I think you certainly have, And I think it's
pretty evident even from theenergy and passion you show just
talking about these things whyyou have had that impact.
And I think that takes us to astory which I feel really
encapsulates all the essentialaspects of what we've been
talking about today.
It happened for you on a diveoff the coast of Africa, And I'm
(13:44):
wondering if you could tell usa little bit more about that
dive and why it meant so much toyou.
Richard Pyle (13:50):
A few years ago we had the opportunity to go to
South Africa for a NationalGeographic film, to dive with a
living fossil, the coelacanth.
The sea lacanth was a fish thatwas known from the fossil
record and was thought to havegone extinct 70 million years
ago, when all the dinosaurs wentextinct until the 1930s when
someone found one on a fishingboat in South Africa.
(14:12):
It shocked the world.
Still considered to be one ofthe greatest biological
discoveries of the 20th century,It was essentially the
discovery of a living dinosaurthat somehow managed to survive
all the way until this time.
It was discovered in the 30s.
People searched and searchedand searched for it.
Over time People founded up thecoast of Africa Madagascar but
(14:34):
oddly nobody ever found it againin South Africa.
Then, in around the year 2000,a group of deep divers using
rebreaters were diving off ofSadwana Bay in South Africa and
they came up from a dive and afellow said Hey, I saw one of
them sea lacanths down there.
And sure enough, he saw sevensea lacanths in one cave.
A fellow named Peter Tim whowas a dive instructor and leader
(14:56):
at the group.
He knew at that moment this wasa big deal.
So National Geographic wantedto tell this story And they
reached out to us to be thescientists to go down and dive
with these sea lacanths.
So we did a long series ofdives with this guy, Peter Tim,
(15:20):
And dive after dive after dive,we dove the same stretch of
ledge where Peter has known thesea lacanths to show up from
time to time.
Nothing, nothing, nothing.
And then on the 13th dive, mypartner, Rob Whitten, and I were
up shallow waiting for Peterand the other photographer to
(15:41):
come up and they weren't comingup.
So Rob and I start swimming outover the ledge and look over
the edge of the drop off And wesaw a guy filming a sea lacanth.
They had found one.
So I got to go face to facewith a sea lacanth.
(16:09):
The sea lacanth is one of theholy grails of all of
biodiversity And here I am faceto face with it.
It's seven feet long.
It's probably two feet indiameter.
It's enormous and amazinglygraceful.
(16:32):
One of the characteristics ofthe sea lacanth make it special
is its fins are almost likelimbs.
It's almost got legs And peoplespeculate that that might be
how fishes originally walked outonto land Watching it sculpt
(16:56):
the water with those fins.
It was incredibly graceful, Butthe moment that stands out for
me is finally the other diversaid look, we got to get out of
here, It's time to go.
We're like 15 minutes into thedive.
We're really screwed.
We're going to be having ahorrendous decompression.
(17:16):
But I wasn't ready to leave yet.
So there was a moment therewhere it was just me and the sea
lacanth.
We were the only two largevertebrates around The sea.
Lacanth didn't swim away frommy light, Kind of gracefully sat
(17:40):
by me, And then it startedswimming in a direction where
its tail came towards me And Icautiously reached out and I put
my hand on its tail as itglided by me And I felt the
(18:01):
scales go across my fingertips.
At that moment we bonded Me andmy 400 million year distant
ancestor finally met.
We touched each other.
That's something that's etchedin my mind forever.
Jason Elias (18:39):
Finally, we end every interview and every
episode with a single open-endedquestion.
we ask everyone we talk to Whatdoes the ocean mean to you?
Richard Pyle (18:50):
The ocean, to me, is the planet.
In the same way that the deepcoral reefs represent the bulk
of coral reef habitat and theparts we're familiar with are
the fringe, the terrestrialworld is the fringe of planet
Earth.
What makes Earth special is itsoceans.
The ocean is the true deepbiodiversity on this planet.
Jason Elias (19:15):
Thanks for listening to the Big Deep
podcast Next time on Big Deep.
We really appreciate you beingon this journey into the Big
Deep as we explore an ocean ofstories.
(19:38):
If you like what we're doing,please make sure to subscribe
wherever you listen to podcasts.
Also, please like and comment,because those subscribes, likes
and comments really make adifference For more interviews,
deeper discussions with ourguests, photos and updates on
anything you've heard.
There's a lot more content atour website, bigdeepcom Plus.
(19:59):
If you know someone we shouldthink we should talk to, let us
know at our Big Deep website, aswe are always looking to hear
more stories from interestingpeople who are deeply connected
to our world's oceans.
Thanks again for joining us.
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