Researchers from Australia and the United States made a surprising discovery: “a new type of fearsome underwater creature.” According to the scientists, the new species looks like a strawberry and this comparison can be found in the name of the new sea creature.
The scientific name for this species is “Promachocrinus fragarius,” and according to the study, the name Fragarius is derived from the Latin word “fragum,” which means “strawberry.” At first glance, the animal does not look like a strawberry. The new sea creature has about 20 arms and the animal’s color can vary from “purple” to “dark red.” If you zoom in on the animal’s body, the comparison with a strawberry isn’t so outlandish. The sea creature has a strawberry-like shape, and the texture is very similar to the fruit.
“The strawberry feather star has 20 tentacle-like threads, or arms, that can be up to eight inches long,” said Greg W. Ross, a professor of marine biology at the University of California. She and his team discovered the animal by pulling a net in the Southern Ocean. “The number of arms is particularly remarkable: other types of feather stars usually have only ten.”
At the end of the arms are small claws, which the animal uses to cling to and move around on the sea floor. The researchers also found that these are huge creatures that can live between 65 and 1170 meters underwater.
(Read more below the image)
Discover 7 new species
The strawberry feather star wasn’t the only species scientists discovered. Researchers made several trips to the Antarctic Ocean between 2008 and 2017 in search of a group of “cryptic” sea creatures that they believe have “strange” movements.
The team took samples from all over the world. “In all, scientists were able to identify seven new species under the name Promachocrinus, increasing the total number of known Antarctic feathers from one to eight,” they said.
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