A new breed of 20-armed sea monster lurks in the frozen seas around Antarctica
Scientists aboard a research vessel off the coast of Antarctica have caught a new underwater creature – one with 20 arms and a distinctive body shaped a little like a strawberry.
The purpose of the researchers’ expeditions, conducted between 2008 and 2017, was to hunt down “cryptic” sea creatures: a group known as Promachocrinus, or Antarctic feather stars.
Though they resemble other marine invertebrates like starfish and sea cucumbers, feather stars differ in both their “large” size and their “otherworldly appearance” while swimming, the researchers said.
The eerie-looking horrors can live anywhere from 65 feet to about 6,500 feet below the ocean’s surface, where their mission found eight unique species, including four that have never been named by scientists before.
From a research vessel off the coast of Antarctica, scientists have caught a new underwater creature – one with 20 arms, which they dubbed Antarctic strawberry featherstar, or Promachocrinus fragarius
Known as Promachocrinus, or Antarctic feather stars, the entire group can live anywhere from 65 feet to about 6,500 feet below the ocean’s surface, where Scripps’ researchers found eight unique species on their mission, including four that have never been named by scientists before.
Specimens unearthed on previous expeditions have long been assumed, albeit without confirmation, to illustrate this species.
Up to this point only a single species had been definitively recognized as part of this genus, designated Promachocrinus kerguelensis.
The scientists noted that their ability to accurately classify numerous other diverse members within the genus has only now become possible thanks to a study of both the DNA and the physical morphology, or shape, of these organisms.
The color of the Antarctic strawberry feather star can range from “purple” to “dark reddish,” according to the team.
The new study was published in July this year in the journal Inenchant Systematics.
While these explorers may have solved one of the mysteries of the sea, a wealth of undiscovered species remains in the unexplored realm.
To gain even a basic understanding of the abundance of life in Antarctic waters, extensive exploration is essential, they said.