Carnivorous ‘death ping pong balls’ discovered near distant UK island | News World

Hundreds of metres beneath the surface of the Earth in a near-endless void, carnivorous ping pong balls are on the hunt.

No, this isn’t the plot of a cheesy Nineteen Eighties midnight movie – this ‘death ball sponge’ is one in every of 30 deep-sea creatures discovered by a recent expedition.

Living in one of the distant regions of the planet is the Chondrocladia sp. nov, which is roofed in tiny hooks to trap prey.

Chondrocladia sp. nov were found 3,601 metres into the Trench North, just east of Montagu Island, 1,200 miles south-east of the Falkland Islands.

On the menu are copepods, teeny-tiny shrimplike crustaceans that are a standard source of protein for marine life.

Researchers from the expedition, led by a nonprofit dedicated to the worldwide discovery of ocean life called Ocean Census, compared the critter to ‘ping pong balls on stems’.

Dr Nicolai Roterman, of the University of Portsmouth, who was not involved within the expedition, said the ‘death ball’ sponge isn’t your typical sea sponge, which lack muscles, nervous systems and even internal organs.

‘Sponges normally filter feed tiny food particles within the water, but there may be so little food suspended in deep-sea water that it’s more efficient to trap larger animals,’ the deep-sea ecologist and senior lecturer in marine biology told Metro.

‘It is a bit like Venus fly traps ensnaring insects because they grow in nutrient-depleted conditions.’

The sponge’s bubble-like balls are thought to contain water and are only a couple of centimetres in size.

Surviving within the ocean’s deepest trenches requires remarkable adaptations.

‘Other species have adapted in ways which look bizarre and even scary to humans, as they’ve organs which generate light within the darkness of the deep-sea to see or lure prey, or have large upward-facing eyes to capture the minuscule amounts of sunshine penetrating from the surface and large teeth for ambushing and catching prey larger than their very own bodies,’ said Dr Roterman.

And that features the 30 latest squishy, alien-like animals present in the rarely-sampled waters near Antarctica.

Amongst them were iridescent scale worms (Eulagisca sp. nov). Nicknamed ‘Elvis worms’, their scales glow and flash to distract predators, making them more like otherworldly behemoths than the rock ‘n roll singer.

A brand new genus of sea pen, which looked like orange furry writing quills, in addition to ‘Zombie worms were also seen.

Slightly than feast on brains, these worms haven’t any mouth or gut, in order that they depend on bacteria to show the fat on the bones of whales and other oceanic giants into edible mush.

Rare gastropods and bivalves were spotted lurking inside volcanic and hydrothermal-influenced habitats, where crushing pressure and high temperatures are the norm.

Ocean Census was founded by the Nippon Foundation, a Japanese philanthropic organisation, and the British ocean exploration foundation Nekton. 

They’ve one goal – find 100,000 latest marine species in the subsequent decade.

There’s a protracted strategy to go. Greater than two million species are estimated to live within the oceans, but only 10% of ocean life is thought and only 80% of the ocean floor has been mapped.

Expeditions surveyed the volcanic calderas, the South Sandwich Trench and seafloor habitats around Montagu and Saunders Islands in February and March.

Teams used a remotely operated underwater vehicle called SuBastian to trawl the ocean depths at 4,500 metres, nearly as tall because the Alps.

Going to the vastly under-sampled region was a no brainer, said Oliver Steeds, the director of Ocean Census.

‘Where the Southern Ocean meets the South Atlantic, currents mixing with energetic seabed volcanism, life in these distant depths is extraordinary and largely undiscovered,’ he told Metro.

‘We hope the discoveries will help support the South Georgia and South Sandwich Island Government’s continued efforts to conserve and protect the UK’s extraordinary wealth of biodiversity.’

The expedition collected 2,000 specimens across 14 animal groups. To find so many is ‘incredible’, Professor Tim Smyth of the Plymouth Marine Laboratory told Metro.

Marine ecosystems perform vital functions that support life on the surface, comparable to creating food or storing planet-warming gases, he said. It’s why the charity is developing the most important study of vulnerable deep-sea habitats.

‘Through latest technologies, including using AI to discover species, we’re steadily gaining a far greater understanding of the deep ocean than ever before,’ Professor Smyth added.

But for Dr Roterman, we could have to explore as much of the depths while we still can.

‘Deep-sea expeditions telling us more in regards to the diversity of life are vitally necessary at a time when there may be a robust push to use mineral resources within the deep sea and trawl ever deeper for fish,’ he said.

‘We may find yourself losing species to habitat destruction before now we have a likelihood to review them (akin to cutting down virgin, unexplored rainforests) with the loss of data that feeds into other scientific research.’

Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

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