Found new sea creature: it looks like an alien with 20 arms

Ocean explorers near Antarctica have discovered a new species of sea creature. It looks intimidating, but they named it after the strawberry, reports Insider.

Photo: IStock

The Antarctic Strawberry Featherstar is a sea creature with 20 so-called "arms" - some thicker, some feathery - and can be up to 20cm in total, according to Greg Rose, professor of marine biology at the University of California San Diego.

Rose co-authored a paper on the new species with researchers Emily McLaughlin and Nerid Wilson. They published their findings in the journal Invertebrate Systematics last month.

How she looks like

At first glance, the alien creature does not look like a strawberry. But if you enlarge his body - the tiny protrusion at the top of all those arms - he will resemble a fruit in size and shape.

According to Rose, the round bulges on the star's body are under the tendrils, which are smaller, tentacle-like strings that jut out from the base.

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The antennae have tiny claws at the end that are used to hold on to the seabed.

The so-called "arms" are the longer, feather-like parts of the Antarctic Strawberry Star. According to Rose, they are usually dispersed and help the creature move.

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The official name of the newly discovered species is Promachocrinus fragarius. It belongs to the class Crinoidea, which includes starfish, sea urchins and sea cucumbers, and is a type of feather star - hence the less formal name "Antarctic feather star". The name Fragarius comes from the Latin word fragum, which means strawberry.

The professor said that initially there was only one species in the group of Antarctic cirrus stars - Promachocrinus kerguelensis.

But after dragging a net around the Southern Ocean in search of new specimens of these creatures, a team of scientists from Australia and the United States has identified four new species that may fall under the Antarctic feather star group.

The new species is distinguished, in particular, by the number of "arms". “Most of these stars have 10, Rose says.

Rose added that the typical position of a feather star is with the "arms" up and the antennae pointing down. With this discovery, researchers could add eight species to the category of Antarctic feather stars, Rose said.

“So we went from one species with 20 arms to eight species — six with 20 arms and two with 10 arms called Promachocrinus,” Rose said.

According to the article, the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star was found somewhere between 65m and 1km below the surface of the water.

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The researchers acknowledged in their paper "the unusual style of swimming movements of feather stars."

But the discovery of new species is generally not uncommon, Rose said. He added that his lab at the Scripps Oceanographic Institution names 10 to 15 species a year.

“We find many kinds. The problem is how much work goes into giving them names,” he said.

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