Watch: Decomposing Dolphin Brings New Life to Seafloor | Expedition Raw

This common dolphin that just happened to wash up on the beach where Noah gave me a call said, "Hey, instead of putting in the dumpster, would you like to use this for your project?" It was the perfect opportunity. We're going to try to better understand what happens in the deep ocean when a dolphin lays to rest. Prior to this, no one has ever done time lapse on deep sea in mammals. Hopefully, these cameras are going to be able to tell the story of how this animal decomposes over time.

We had no idea if it was just going to sit there and bacteria was going to cover it, or if a big shark was going to come. The installation just went perfect. We lowered the frame down, we were able to adjust the cameras, we turned on the drop C, and, uh, I think we chose a really nice place for this dolphin. It took us about 6 months or so to really see all the flesh disappear from the skeleton.

This dolphin became a whole ecosystem playground for lots of different animals, everything from the smallest little bacteria up to larger crabs and eventually octopus and smaller to medium-sized fish. This was no easy task. We know so little about the deep sea that it takes animals like this to better understand what is going on down there.

Our idea was to get the very first video and photos ever of a crocodile's jaws closing around the camera. We got our very first attack on the very first deployment.