{"id":32289,"date":"2026-08-17T13:55:36","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:55:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/?p=32289"},"modified":"2026-08-17T13:55:36","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T17:55:36","slug":"seafloor-species-discovery-urchin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/seafloor-species-discovery-urchin\/32289\/","title":{"rendered":"A robot dropped 19,000 feet onto a patch of U.S. seafloor nobody had ever seen and found a pancake-shaped sea urchin that may be a new species while a giant anemone literally rolled past"},"content":{"rendered":"

E\/V Nautilus sent a remote-controlled robot to a previously unexplored portion of the seafloor northeast of the Mariana Islands. The robot went to an abyssal plain approximately 19,000 feet (over 5,800 meters)<\/strong> beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

Old crust is driven into the Mariana Trench and then remelted into magma.<\/p>\n

Named Little Hercules, it went to an area 185 nautical miles northeast of Uracus<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Before this mission, no vehicle had been to this part of the seafloor. The dive was streamed live, giving viewers worldwide their first glimpses of seafloor in this part of the Mariana region.<\/p>\n

Crew members did not know what the cameras would capture<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

No ROV had ever touched down on this stretch of seafloor<\/h2>\n

The dive was part of NA179, a mission to study deep-sea habitats in the Mariana Islands. It holds more than 60 submarine volcanoes and a back-arc spreading center.<\/p>\n

Although an autonomous underwater vehicle had mapped the area, no ROV had ever touched down<\/strong> on this stretch of sediment. Abyssal plains cover about 70 percent of the seafloor and are among the least explored habitats on Earth.<\/p>\n

Plate tectonic processes and volcanic events have formed some of the oldest seafloor on Earth near this portion of the Mariana Trench.<\/p>\n

Scientists expected sediment, marine snow, and perhaps a few scavengers<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

However, the live feed was far more active.<\/p>\n

The cameras captured movement no one predicted<\/h2>\n

The dive was documented by Nautilus Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Initial views revealed a well-nourished sea cucumber and a long-stalked Umbellula octocoral, also referred to as a sea pen. Both organisms captured food particles from the current.<\/p>\n

They were feeding in a sediment-rich habitat<\/strong> where marine snow drifts down from above.<\/p>\n

Next, a very large anemone was viewed moving over the sediment in ways that the pilot could not have anticipated. Typically, anemones are non-mobile, sedentary animals.<\/p>\n

Deep-sea anemones have been documented to move by rolling on their bases or “sliding”<\/strong> on their base disk to go from one location to another. One anemone rolled past the camera with its body moving against the sediment.<\/p>\n

Close by, a brisingid sea star moved its arms into the current to capture marine snow; furthermore, a carnivorous sponge exhibited lollipop-shaped tissue.<\/p>\n

Among all of these observations, the ROV also observed a small flat organism<\/strong> pressed against the bottom of the seafloor.<\/p>\n

Another report from Nautilus Live<\/a> described the broader expedition.<\/p>\n

What the flat creature on the seafloor appears to be<\/h2>\n

Experts in the Ocean Exploration Trust’s Scientist Ashore network examined the footage and believe it may be a new species<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Its flattened body and extreme-depth habitat do not match known descriptions.<\/p>\n

No comparable species has been catalogued from similar environments<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Additional research is needed to confirm whether it represents an undiscovered species<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The same dive held other surprises<\/h3>\n

The ROV also recorded an Enteropneusta acorn worm creating a spiral trail behind it<\/strong> while feeding on sediment that it processed. Also, floating through the frame was a plastic balloon and ribbon.<\/p>\n

Debris serves as a reminder that our trash travels down to depths greater than 19,000 feet. The balloon and ribbon were a sobering reminder of how far human waste reaches into the global ocean.<\/p>\n

One dive alone potentially added at least one new species to the list of animals inhabiting<\/strong> the oldest seafloor on Earth.<\/p>\n

They can move across sediment when required.<\/p>\n

The footage provides marine biologists a foundation for further study<\/strong> regarding an area with little or no previous visual record. Future dives may reveal whether the pancake urchin is truly new.<\/p>\n

Other robots have already proven how much remains hidden.<\/p>\n

Off the California coast, an ROV sent to Monterey Canyon returned with a bumpy pink snailfish<\/a> that took scientists six years to identify.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

E\/V Nautilus sent a remote-controlled robot to a previously unexplored portion of the seafloor northeast of the Mariana Islands. The robot went to an abyssal plain approximately 19,000 feet (over 5,800 meters) beneath the surface. Old crust is driven into the Mariana Trench and then remelted into magma. Named Little Hercules, it went to an … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":32336,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"seafloor,species,discovery","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"Experts in the Ocean Exploration Trust's Scientist Ashore network examined the footage and believe it may be a new species from the unexplored seafloor.","footnotes":""},"categories":[83],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-earth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}