Oddities of the not so deep – in pictures

These images were taken by underwater photographer Robert Stansfield, from Southampton, UK, on a blackwater dive in the open ocean surround the island of Cozumel, Mexico.

‘The blackwater dives never fail to amaze me with the crazy alien-like life forms that drift past out in the open ocean, well away from a reef,’ says Robert. ‘The idea is to see the largest biomass migration on the planet. Every night a huge volume of life migrates up from the mesopelagic zone up to the epipelagic. This night-time migration gives us the opportunity to see life at the surface that normally lives well beyond recreational diving depths.’