The ocean is full of mysterious creatures, especially deep into the darkness. And now, thanks to scientists in the Antarctic, a new species has been discovered in the depths of the frigid waters: a large sea creature with 20 arms sticking out of a strawberry-like body, earning it the name Promachocrinus fragarius.
The creature was found as the team trawled the Antarctic Ocean. As they pulled their nets out of the water, up came the fruit-like, spider-like sea creature.
Over the past nearly-10 years, this team of explorers has spent numerous expeditions exploring the same area looking for "cryptic biodiversity," as their recent report outlines. More specifically, they were looking for promachocrinus, more commonly known as Antarctic feather stars. These sea animals grow to huge lengths and have an "otherworldly" appearance.
And now they've discovered a new sub-species of it.
The strawberry feather star can have 10 or 20 arms stemming from two parts of its body. Some arms come out of the main strawberry-like part of its body, while others hang down off the bottom.
Photo: McLaughlin, Wilson and Rouse
The researcher's findings, published on July 14 in the Invertebrate Systematics journal, doesn't say just how enormous these creatures get. But it does say that their color can be "purplish" or "dark reddish." From the pictures, we can see that the longer limbs are light and feathery looking, while the shorter ones seem more rigid and bumpy.
According to the study, Antarctic feather stars can live anywhere from 65 to 6500 feet. However, the strawberry feather star seems to reside between 215 and 3,840 feet.
"The Southern Ocean has unique environmental conditions that may drive biodiversity," the research team wrote.
And the strawberry feather star was not the only new species found during the 2008 to 2017 expeditions: The researchers identified three other new species in the area.
Pretty cool, huh?
READ MORE: Top 10 Mystery Creatures of the Great Outdoors
