A new - to - scientific discipline dirt ball has been found in thedeep seanear a methane ooze off the coast of Costa Rica . If that ’s not enough buzzword to get your chops around , it also has massive jaw , feathery gill - carrying appendages , and has been describe by its namesake as a “ living magic carpet ” .
The abstruse - ocean worm has been officially namedPectinereis strickrottiafter Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution ’s Bruce Strickrott , lead pilot for the famed deep - sea submergible Alvin . Stickrott was riding in Alvin at a depth of 1,000 meters ( 3,280 feet ) with Greg Rouse , a marine biologist at UC San Diego ’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography , back in 2009 when they first spotted the dirt ball .
“ We run across two worms near each other about a U-boat ’s length away swimming just off the bottom , ” said Strickrott in astatement . “ We could n’t see them well and tried to fawn in for a closer look , but it ’s operose to creep in a submarine and we spooked them . ”
The worms were undulating around Costa Rica ’s methane seeps , section of the seafloor where petrol bubbles up from the jolting bottom . They ’re not especially raging , likehydrothermal vent-hole , but the animal sprightliness is unusual as it subsist on chemical energy , rather than needing sunlight .
The animals here have overwhelm the deficiency of brightness thanks to microbe that germinate to eat methane , form the foundation of a food WWW that range from mussels andcrabsto voiced - bodied worms like our dazzlingP. stickrotti .
The species remained baffling until 2018 when a return dive to the same mound where the worms were first sighted turn up six more individuals . Using a firearm of outfit affectionately cognize as the “ slurp gun , ” they were able to suck up some specimen and finally give it a formal name .
“ The way this thing moved was so graceful , I opine it looked like a populate magic carpet , ” append Stickrott . “ I ’m reward that Greg [ Rouse ] saw fit to name this coinage after me , it mean a mess . ”
The insect ’s elongated torso is lined byfeathery , branchia - tippedappendages fuck as parapodia . It has a sinuous swimming proficiency that remind Rouse of a serpent and also pack imposingly large jaw , though exactly what it ’s eating stay on a secret for now .
The discovery ofP. stickrottiraises the turn of Modern coinage found in this seemingly inhospitable environment to 48 , and the team hopes to return to the water in search of deep - ocean find , this meter at methane seeps off the coast of Alaska and Chile .
The study is publish inPLOS ONE .
