After a two week expedition off the coast of Brazil, an international team of researchers discovered 31 new marine species, including a fast-moving gossamer worm, a creepy fish, and other organisms that look straight out of outer space. Take a look and learn more about some of the newly-discovered c reatures living deep in the southern Atlantic Ocean.   This is a new species from the genus Tomopteris, commonly known as gossamer worms. Tomopterids spend their entire lives in the water column, living just below the surface to over 4000 meters. Little is known about their lives despite prior studies of their unusual, brilliant yellow bioluminescence. The expedition science team tested new technology that provides scientists with new, non-invasive ways to study these remarkable animals. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute. The mission focused on the ocean’s midwater, the part of the ocean below the water’s surface and above the seafloor. It is about 600 to 3,300 feet deep and is the least understood ecosystem on Earth, despite the fact that it’s teeming with life. The immense water pressure makes it extremely hard to study.  This juvenile glass squid, collected by ROV SuBastian at 779 meters depth in the South Atlantic, was photographed on R/V Falkor (too) using a prototype multiview macro camera system developed through a collaboration between the Dr. Jan Hemmi (University of Western Australia, the Bioinspiration Lab at MBARI and Dr. Karen Osborn (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History). The system allows scientists on the ship to quickly document the finest details of an animal from three directions at once. This data gathering reduces the disturbance to the animal and captures anatomical, color and posture details that are lost within minutes to hours once the animal is collected. Image: Emily Clark / MBARI via Schmidt Ocean Institute Emily Clark / MBARI via Schmidt Ocean Institute “The largest habitat on Earth, the midwater, is filled with incredible animals we are only just starting to understand,” said Karen Osborn, the expedition’s chief scientist, in a statement. “I continue to be fascinated by the fantastic variety of solutions they have evolved to survive in this formidable environment, and that drives me to keep asking questions about our ocean.” The science team documented this larval fish at a depth of 966 meters during a dive with the remotely operated vehicle SuBastian. Dr. Marcelo Melo of the Oceanographic Institute of the University of São Paulo in Brazil specializes in the taxonomy and evolution of deep-sea fishes; he will try to match this baby form with the adult form the animal will eventually grow into. Image ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute The Schmidt Ocean Institute’s research vessel (R/V) Falkor (too) tackled the problem with an array of high-tech tools: an underwater robot named SuBastian, a virtual reality chamber, and a gravity machine—a tracking microscope that studies microbes in a rotating wheel. They also used a spinning wheel confocal microscope nicknamed “the Squid” to image living cellular structures inside organisms for the first time.  A female octopus (Haliphron atlanticus) consumes a jellyfish at 800 meters depth. This large pelagic octopus (her mantle is 40 to 50 cm long) spends her entire life in the open ocean. Males of this species only grow to 30 centimeters (approximately 12 inches). Females can grow up to four meters (13 feet) and weigh 75 kilograms (165 pounds). This species is rarely seen alive, and most of what is known about it has been determined from specimens caught in trawl nets. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute “This opens a new door for researching deep-sea physiology, linking cellular architectures to organism function. We can now witness live internal processes within these extreme organisms adapted to withstand immense pressure and darkness,” Manu Prakash, a bioengineer at Stanford University, said in a statement.  This is a new species of lobed comb jelly, as identified by Dr. Dhugal Lindsay (JAMSTEC). These ctenophores are unlike comb jellies that trail long, sticky tentacles behind them to catch prey; lobates are characterized by two large, muscular oral lobes that extend beyond their mouths and are used to trap prey. ROV SuBastian pilots recorded this observation at a depth of 560 meters. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute These technologies allowed the researchers to rapidly identify new species onboard the vessel. Among them are a funky-looking glass squid, ethereal jellies, and tiny single-celled organisms.  The team collected footage of this siphonophore at 552 meters depth. The imaging systems tested on R/V Falkor (too) allowed researchers to create millimeter-scale, 3D renderings of the creature in its natural habitat. Most species identifications take place ashore, using samples or small pieces, but these systems allow scientists to see and study the entire animal as it lives in the water. Based on images and measurements collected at sea, Dr. Dhugal Lindsay of JAMSTEC (Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology) is confident that this animal belongs to an undescribed genus, perhaps even a new family of physonect siphonophores. Based on the detailed anatomical and genetic data collected in the water and on board, scientists will be able to compare this animal to those collected elsewhere around the globe and give this physonect a name. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute. “The novel suite of technologies on this cruise is a glimpse into the future of marine biological science,” added Jyotika Virmani, the executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute. “We look forward to a future in which scientists study marine life as elegantly as this team did—and in virtual reality.”  A Solmissus, or dinner plate jellyfish, preys upon a ctenophore, commonly known as a comb jelly. Unlike most jellyfish that passively drag their tentacles behind them, Solmissus swims with their tentacles extended in front of their body to snare ctenophores before vibrations alert the prey. They are believed to be gelatinous apex predators that play a major role in regulating comb jelly populations in the Ocean’s twilight and midnight zones. Image: ROV SuBastian / Schmidt Ocean Institute The post 31 alien-like marine species discovered off the coast of Brazil appeared first on Popular Science. ...read more read less