noun. The collection of organisms living on or in the bottom of a body of water.

noun. The bottom of a body of water.

noun. The plants and animals that live in the sea-bottom, and those that are attached to its surface, and those that creep or run over it: a collective noun introduced by Haeckel. The benthos is contrasted with the plankton, or floating and swimming fauna and flora of the sea. It includes all the marine macrophytic algæ, also some phanerogams, the sea-grasses (see sea-grass, 1), as well as an abundance of microphytic algæ (diatoms, etc.). It is divided into the sedentary and the vagile or vagrant benthos, the former including organisms attached to the bottom, the latter those moving over it. See plankton, nekton.

noun. The bottom of the sea, esp. of the deep oceans

noun. The flora and fauna at the bottom of the ocean or other body of water.

noun. organisms (plants and animals) that live at or near the bottom of a sea

noun. a region including the bottom of the sea and the littoral zones

"Professor Joye and her colleagues used the Alvin submersible to explore the bottom-most layer of the water around the well head, known as the benthos."

abyssal benthos  littoral benthos  

being  biogeographical region  organism  

Bassalia  Loch Ness monster  abyss  abyssal zone  alevin