Photo: PAUL ZINKEN/AFP/Getty Images
During an expedition in the Southern Ocean, American researchers found a sea pen, a strange sea creature that has 20 arms and has a bump on its body that looks like a “strawberry”as described in an article recently published by the journal Invertebrate Systematics.
This strange specimen from Antarctica, lcalled Promachocrinus fragariusbelongs to the family of crinoids, a class of the phylum of echinoderms that includes species such as starfish, sea urchins or sponges. However, sea feathers -also known as lilies- have a branched appearance on their arms, with spines or appendages on their body.
20 centimeter arms
According to the researchers, the P.fragarius have a color that ranges from purple to dark reddish and lives at a maximum depth of about 65 meters.
His 20 arms, which can reaching up to 20 centimeters in length, they are mainly used to move in the depths of the icy seawhere it floats and spreads its limbs with a sticky substance to catch its food: plankton.
No, this isn’t a creature born out of a science fiction novel? this Antarctic feather star is as real as it gets and was recently discovered by a team that included @Scripps_Ocean scientists. Meet the Promachocrinus fragarius, via USA Today ?? https://t.co/PeJogtd0r4
— UC San Diego (@UCSanDiego) August 21, 2023
A strawberry after moving its cirri
In addition, these marine beings have cirri or small tentacles that protrude from the base. At the time that the authors removed these cirri to analyze how they are attached to their body, they observed circular protrusions that, according to them, resembled a strawberry, which is why they decided to name the marine animal after fragarius.
“We’ve removed a lot of the cirri so you can see the parts they’re attached to, and that’s what a strawberry looks like,” he explained to Business Insider study co-author Greg Rouse, a professor of marine biology at the University of California, San Diego.
According to the scientist, These sea creatures, reminiscent of aliens from science fiction movies, They have small claws at the ends of the cirrus clouds, which would serve to cling to a rock or the bottom of the seabed.
more similar species
Before I find Fr Fragariusthere was only knowledge of the existence of a species of sea pen called Promachocrinus kerguelensiswhich has only 10 arms and was found in 1879. But scientists from Australia and the United States found six other species that they suspect might belong to the same family.
Therefore, it is likely that there are more species with these characteristics: “We went from one species with 20 arms to eight species: six with 20 arms and two with 10 arms under the name of PromachocriusRose added.
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