If there was such a thing as an underwater freak show, this would be it. Scientists at the Natural History Museum (NHM) in London have discovered a mysterious menagerie of marine megafauna deep in the Pacific Ocean, and dozens of the strange creatures may be species unknown to science.
Using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) during the Summer In 2018, scientists recovered 55 specimens lurking on the western edge of a chasm between Hawaii and Mexico about 5,000 meters below the sea’s surface. This collection of oceanic oddities has recently been confirmed to be newly discovered species; The researchers’ findings were published in the journal on July 18 ZooKeys (opens in new tab).
While the east side of the chasm has been explored fairly regularly, its western portion, known as the Clarion-Clipperton Pacific Zone, which includes several nearby seamounts (undersea mountains), has been less accessible and therefore largely unexplored, making it a prime location for the discovery of new species.
“About 150 years ago it was [HMS] Challenger Expedition researched this area, but as far as I know not much research has been done since that time,” Guadalupe Bribiesca-Contreras, an NHM biologist in the Department of Life Sciences and lead author of the study, told Live Science. “This part of the ocean has hardly been touched.”
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During the 2018 expedition, scientists more than made up for lost time. Each new creature after the other they discovered was as intriguing as the one before it: of a resilient, banana-shaped sea cucumber known as the gummy squirrel (Psychropotes longicauda) – the individual they found was almost 60 cm long – to a sea sponge of the genus Hyalonemawhose body resembled a tulip.
Of the potential new species the scientists discovered, Bribiesca-Contreras caught one species’ attention coral in which chrysogorgy Genus. Its bright orange polyp resembled that of C. abludo, a species normally found in the Atlantic Ocean. But researchers later identified it as a new species that has yet to be named. This is the first time a coral of this genus has been found in the Pacific.
“At first we thought it was the same species, but on further molecular work we found that it was morphologically different,” Bribiesca-Contrerasshe said. “One thing that keeps striking me is that a lot of these life forms that we see haven’t changed much over the course of millions of years, which is crazy to think [about]she said. “A lot of these species we’ve seen as fossils, and they look exactly the same now.”
Many of the bizarre adaptations in these deep-sea lunatics have endured so long because they improve the animals’ chances of surviving in a highly punishing environment, Bribiesca-Contrerasshe added.
“Where they live so deep in the ocean can be a challenge,” she said. “There is no light, their bodies withstand the crushing pressure and there is little food.”
Before the NHM expedition, many of these animals were only seen in photos or videos, or were known from their fossilized remains. This mission allowed the scientists to study the samples as they roamed freely through their ocean habitat and later in the lab. Such investigations allow scientists to better understand remote and pristine deep-sea ecosystems — an important goal as the deep-sea mining industry continues to expand around the world.
“We really need to understand this ecosystem so that we can develop plans for conservation,” she said. “At this point, the little information we have about this environment and the species that live there makes it very difficult to know how harmful mining could be.”
Originally published on Live Science.
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