2023-08-15 20:38:04
A team of researchers from the University of California, San Diego (United States), discovered a new “20-armed” marine species in the depths of the Antarctic sea. Its appearance is also reminiscent of a fruit.
This marine creature, discovered by Professor Greg Rouse, was dubbed the Antarctic strawberry feather star or Promachocrinus fragarius and has an unusual structure with “20 arms”. Some of these arms are rough and knobby, while others have a softer, more feathery appearance, according to the study published in Invertebrate Systematics.
A new marine species that fascinates the scientific world
Despite sharing similarities with other invertebrate marine animals such as stars or sea cucumbers, this new “creature” stands out for its considerable size and its appearance, which many have described as “otherworldly”: when they move , its appearance is reminiscent of the iconic “facehugger” from the movie Alien.
The aquatic animal lives in a range of depths that vary between 20 and 2,000 meters in the ocean.
So far, this new study has revealed a total of eight unique species of these feather stars. What makes this discovery even more intriguing is that four of these species have never previously been named by the scientific community.
A “strawberry” at the bottom of Antarctica
Beyond an appearance that can cause fear at first glance, on closer inspection, Promachocrinus fragarius takes on the shape and size of a strawberry: the connection point of the tentacles, called cirri, presents circular protuberances that resemble seeds. of the fruit.
It is classified within the class Crinoidea, which also includes starfish, sea urchins, sand dollars, and sea cucumbers. The word “fragarius” derives from the Latin term “fragum”, which means strawberry.
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