Ten rays. Twenty arms. Strawberry-like.
That’s how a team of scientists from Australia and the United States have described a new, creepy-looking underwater species they discovered after a series of research expeditions near Antarctica.
Emily McLaughlin, Nerida Wilson and Greg Rouse published their findings on the newfound species in the journal Invertebrate Systematics last month.
Between 2008 and 2017, the researchers trawled through the Antarctic Ocean searching for a group of “cryptic” sea creatures known as Promachocrinus species, or Antarctic feather stars, which they described as having “otherworldly” movements.
They sampled far and wide, including the Siple Coast, Diego Ramirez and Prince Edward Islands.
In total, the scientists were able to identify seven new species under the name Promachocrinus, increasing the total number of known Antarctic feather species from one to eight.
Among them was the new species they dubbed the Antarctic strawberry feather star because of “the resemblance of the shape of (its body) to a strawberry.”
The species is formally known as Promachocrinus fragarius. Fragarius derives from the Latin word "fragum," meaning strawberry, the study notes.
According to the study, the Antarctic strawberry feather star can be found between 65 and 1,170 metres below the surface.
The creature’s colour can range from “purplish” to “dark reddish,” the study also notes.
A zoomed in image of the Antarctic strawberry feather star, formally known as Promachocrinus fragarius. (via Emily McLaughlin, Nerida Wilson and Greg Rouse)
Upon first glance, the Antarctic strawberry feather star resembles an alien-like creature that would make most people want to squirm. But if you zoom in on images of the sea animal, its strawberry-like shape and texture become hard not to notice.
The researchers note in the study that dark taxa, or unknown species, from Antarctica can take longer than usual to discover and identify “because of constraints on the scale of sampling necessary.”
“Understanding which taxa are truly cryptic and only recognisable with molecular data, and those that are pseudocryptic and can be identified once characters have been revised in a molecular framework is important,” they state.
“Monitoring biodiversity requires robust identification of taxa and this can be very complicated when taxa are truly cryptic.”
Researchers suggest that some species under Promachocrinus can be determined on the basis of morphology, or the scientific study of the structure and form of animals and plants, but there remains “ambiguity among some species.”
