The Symphurus thermophilus is a tonguefish, which is a type of flatfish. It's a confusing label for a confusing creature. It's eyes are on one side of its head. It has no pelvic fin. It looks like a piece of silk that someone cut into the shape of a rain drop. It's the pale beige of sand in a sandbox with stripes and stippling that are as brown as palm sugar. It's nicknamed the Heat Lover though it lives in the deepest part of the ocean. The last time sunlight touched this part of the Earth, our planet was a molten sphere.*

At the bottom Pacific Ocean, continents slowly fold over like dough to form the Mariana Trench. Old ocean floor is subducted beneath the Mariana plate to be driven into the mantle, melted, and eventually recycled as new crust. The pressure in the trench is a thousand times greater than at sea level. It's 10.6 km below the surface and is dotted with vents of molten sulphur, which burble at over 200°C. An open volcanic vein in one of the coldest, most crushing places on Earth. The Heat Lovers live here and no where else. They skim and flutter through sweltering saltwater without effort. The vents they live on kill fish higher in the water column, which then drift to the bottom. The Heat Lovers are warm and well-fed.

Proof that life prevails.

(Image credit: Submarine Ring of Fire 2006 Exploration, NOAA Vents Program - http://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/06fire/logs/may11/media/flying_tonguefish_nikko.html, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5539962)

*The Theia collision.