More Weird Beasties Discovered on Deep Sea "Mountain Range"
by Jeremy Elton Jacquot, Los Angeles 
on 08.23.07
Over the course of a five-week expedition, an international team of 31 scientists — led by the University of Aberdeen's Monty Priede — found a plethora of new and rare species on a deep-sea mountain range near the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Some of the more exciting discoveries included a glass squid (seen above), a seed shrimp (new to science) and a "spiral poo worm" (really, that's its name) — known for depositing spiral-shaped feces, some of which have been found in fossils dating back hundreds of millions of years.
Using remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROVs), the scientists were able to observe organisms living at depths of up to 11,500 ft (about 3,500 meters). This region had previously been virtually unexplored — because of its remoteness and depth — even though, according to Priede, its area is "roughly equivalent in size to the European Alps and is one of the largest areas of habitat available in the ocean." The researchers brought back several thousand specimens for analysis and left 6 automatic observing stations behind to provide a constant stream of data and photos over the next 2 years.
Via ::National Geographic News: Weird Creatures Found on Deep-Sea "Mountain Range" (news website)
See also: ::Aliens of the Deep, ::Searching for New Life in the Ocean Depths
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