An “adorable” deep-sea creature that resembles a Christmas tree ornament gave marine researchers a lesson in deception when it came to life in the South Pacific and devoured another animal.
The rare ambush unfolded atop a sunken volcano 2,600 miles southwest of Hawaii and snared a sea anemone, according to the Ocean Exploration report.
A video shared Sept. 19 on YouTube suggests a remotely operated camera was 2,260 feet down when it found a half-dozen anemones growing like plants on the still-active Nafanua Cone.
Christmas Ornament Sea Creature Comes to Life and DEVOURS Animal
“It’s like we’re in the movie ‘Barbie.’ Everything is so red and adorable,” Ocean Exploration report observer Jamie Zaccaria is heard saying in the video.
Right on schedule, one of those “cute” animals sprang back to life, tore into a worm-like isopod and gobbled it up.
That was met by gasps from the dozens of academics on the call, followed by a collective groan.
That´s what they are used to eating. It’s a terrible temptation.”
The anemones, in contrast, appear flower-like but are related to jellyfish and capture fish or other prey with venomous tentacles.
“Sea anemones are predators that use their barbed, stinger-cell-covered tentacles (cnidocytes) to catch prey such as zooplankton, fish, worms, marine larvae, mussels and (unfortunately for this crustacean) isopods,” the agreement wrote in its post.
Deep-sea food chains likely have been taking place for millions of years but few are ever witnessed, being so rare in general; events like this predation hence provide crucial case studies that help us understand the functioning of deep-sea food webs, and how food chains work in the deep sea.
The clip was captured in the American Samoa National Marine Sanctuary, located at “the bottom of the U.S. sentence” in the South Pacific, the agreement says. The day trip will take you indoors at the site for most of September as you see “the biology, geology, and chemistry of deep volcanic habitats.
The crew’s unusual discoveries atop Vailuluʻu Seamount turned out to be a graveyard on the seafloor protected by fish skeletons.
“It is not known for certain when exactly these fish died, but it is possible that they perished due to increased levels of carbon dioxide released by the crater’s volcanic activity,” the researchers said.