8/30/2023 0 Comments New deep sea creatures discoveredKing Ghidorah's Branching Worm ( Ramisyllis kingghidorahi) The sponge crabs of Western Australia and the Northwest Shelf with descriptions of new genera and species (Crustacea: Brachyura: Dromiidae). ![]() beagle belongs to and explains their common name of “sponge crabs.” This tendency to wear a sponge hat is widespread among the larger family of crabs that L. beagle from the surrounding sponge and rock rubble habitats in the shallow seas of Western Australia. The hairy body and sponge cap make it hard for predators like octopus or fish to distinguish L. The hard shell or carapace of this crab is hidden beneath a fluffy layer of hair-like setae and then further disguised by a chunk of sponge (or colonial ascidian), which the crab plucks and then shapes to fit over its head and back and holds in place with specialized legs. With a scientific name commemorating two key figures of evolutionary biology-the French anatomist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and the HMS Beagle-it’s no surprise that Lamarkdromia beagle is an evolutionary marvel. In 1836, during the second voyage of the HMS Beagle (the ship whose voyage inspired Charles Darwin to synthesize his theory of evolution), Darwin spent eight days in the Albany region of Western Australia, in the vicinity of the type locality of this new species, Mistaken Island. This top-ten list is just a small highlight of about 2,000 fascinating new marine species discovered every year (there were almost 1,700 marine species described in 2022 and added to WoRMS, including some 300 fossil species).įluffy Sponge Crab ( Lamarckdromia beagle) We celebrate the work of taxonomists now with the WoRMS list of the top-ten marine species described in 2022 as nominated and voted for by taxonomists, journal editors and WoRMS users! Today is a chance for us at WoRMS to thank our taxonomic editors for this important task. Some 300 taxonomists globally also contribute their valuable time to keeping the World Register of Marine Species up to date. "The research outcomes from this voyage will be invaluable to our understanding of Australia's deep-sea environments," Museums Victoria's CEO said in the statement, "and the impact humans are having on them.The World Register of Marine Species (WoRMS) has again released its annual list of the top-ten marine species described by researchers during the past year to coincide with World Taxonomist Appreciation Day on March 19th.Įvery day in labs, museums, and out on fieldwork, taxonomists are busy collecting, cataloguing, identifying, comparing, describing, and naming species new to science. The researchers also came across the fantastical tripod fish, which walks on stilt-like fins on the ocean floor, as well as the amazingly-named " bony-eared assfish," another rare type of deep-sea cusk eel. Which might be scary, if it didn't also have an adorable, Webkinz-esque face. Next up: an oddly fleshy kind of batfish, which looks a bit like a piece of uncooked chicken was turned into a pierogi with a tail. "They've got really loose, flabby, gelatinous skin," Museums Victoria senior collections manager Dianne Bray explained to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, "and they're incredibly rare." ![]() One of the potential newbies? A terrifying, see-through critter that the researchers believe is a type of cusk eel, which is pretty much a ghostly underwater jelly monster. The researchers are still sorting through the many species they recovered from the reason, though in the meantime they've shown off some standout discoveries - some new, some just very rare. After trawling the deep sea at depths ranging from nearly 197 feet to roughly 18,045 feet, the scientists returned home with a host of marine creatures - a number of which, as the researchers have estimated, will likely prove to be new to science. ![]() "We are really excited about the prospect of discovering new species, perhaps even new branches of the tree of life," Tim O'Hara, Museums Victoria senior curator of marine invertebrates, said in a statement about the discoveries, "which until now have remained hidden beneath the waves in this unexplored region."Īnd boy, were the researchers right. Ooey-gooey translucent eels! A deepwater dumpling! A silver specimen that walks on little stilts!Ī dazzling array of fabulously strange deep sea creatures were just discovered off of Australia's Western Coast, where scientists mapped the seafloor of two new marine parks for the very first time. We stan the "bony-eared a**fish." Yes, that's its actual name.
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