Epibenthos sled

Epibenthos sled comes on board

An epibenthic sled is a device developed for the study of deep-sea benthos.

The original sledges were used as early as the 18th and 19th centuries. They were wire cages that were pulled over the bottom. The front side dug about 5 cm deep into the bottom and thus collected, in an attached canvas bag, deep-sea mud and organisms contained in it. In the meantime, however, much more advanced devices are in use. At the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, for example, an epibenthic sledge has been developed that is specifically designed for the capture of horsehair crabs.