Michael visited a museum, where he came across a specimen of a bizarre fish. the fish had an exceptionally large mouth and unhinged jaws. the information mentioned that the fish belonged to the abyssopelagic zone. how do you think this adaptation could have the fish?
a.
it could swim quickly to the bottom of the ocean.
b.
it could scrape food off the ocean floor.
c.
it could fight predators with its large mouth.
d.
it could receive more oxygen via its mouth from the ocean surface.
e.
it could emit bioluminescent light from the jaws.

The right option is; B. It could scrape food off the ocean floor.

This adaptation could have helped the fish to scrape food off the ocean floor.

The abyssopelagic zone is the part of the ocean that extends from waters directly above the continental rise down to about 6000m (20,000 feet). The abyssopelagic zone is characterized by darkness and the water is nearly freezing (with temperature of about 4 degrees Celsius). There is no adequate amount of nutrient in this zone and some organisms often feed on sea-floor mud and suspended matter. The fish that lives in this zone usually have exceptionally large mouth and unhinged jaws which they use to scrape food off the sand within the ocean floor.  They also use their large mouth together with bioluminescence to catch prey.

it provides an alternative energy pathway for the reaction to proceed.

a catalyst is a substance that speeds up the rate of a chemical reaction but is not consumed during the course of the reaction.

catalysts increase the rate of reaction without being used up. they do this by lowering the activation energy needed. with a catalyst, more collisions result in a reaction, so the rate of reaction increases. different reactions need different catalysts.

a catalyst works by providing an alternative reaction pathway to the reaction product. the rate of the reaction is increased as this alternative route has a lower activation energy than the reaction route not mediated by the catalyst.