- The 20 arms of the newly cataloged species double the number of what was considered usual in Antarctic feathers documented up to the present.
Despite scientific and technological advancesthe ocean remains the most unexplored place on the planet due to its depth and enormous atmospheric pressure that generate millions of tons of water, which has prevented knowing it in its entirety.
And it is that a group of biologists from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the University of California, discovered a new species of starfishscientific name Promachocrinus fragariuswhich has 20 arms and lives at depths between 60 and 3,840 meters.
The researchers, discovered this unusual creature that resembles a strawberry and belongs to the Crinoidea group.
The specialist is co-author of the article on the finding with Emily McLaughlin and Nerid Wilson, who published their research in Invertebrate Systematics.
Previously, biologists had observed various animals of this genus on different expeditions in the southern ocean between 2008 and 2017, They had only been able to identify one species within this family: Promachocrinus kerguelensis, also multi-armed.
However, after studying their genetics and anatomies, they managed to identify another seven different species, which were described in the study in the journal Invertebrate Systematics.
The 20 arms of the recently cataloged species double the number of what was considered usual in Antarctic feathers documented up to the present.
These arms are segmented and from them separate rows of filaments that give the limbs the appearance of feathers.. As if this were not enough, the species also has another series of extremities, these shorter, called cirri.
Faced with this incredible discovery, the biologists highlighted that, despite having deciphered part of the enigma surrounding Promachocrinus, a multitude of unknown species still exist in the depths of this remote ocean.