"Two miles below the ocean's surface, off the coast of Argentina, an underwater gorge plunges nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. The trench and the nearby ocean floor are crawling with creatures that seem like they belong in an alien carnival, including a see-through squid with a hornlike appendage, pale pink lobsters, a lumbering king crab carrying 100 hitchhiking barnacles and a ghostly squid that hovers somewhere between goofy and grotesque."
"The deep sea is a place full of life, not only in terms of abundance but also in the variety of species, says the expedition's chief scientist Daniel Lauretta of the Argentine Museum of Natural Sciences. One of his favorite areas was a large stretch of seafloor he nicknamed the Beet Field because it was covered in spidery red octocorals. A fan favorite for the millions who livestreamed the dives was a cheeky seastar that looked like the SpongeBob SquarePants character Patrick Star."
Two miles below the ocean's surface off Argentina, the Mar del Plata Canyon plunges nearly twice as deep as the Grand Canyon. Researchers aboard the Schmidt Ocean Institute's vessel Falkor (too) used an underwater robot to observe the trench and adjacent seafloor, recording dozens of unusual animals. Observed creatures included a translucent telescope octopus with a hornlike appendage, pale pink lobsters, a king crab carrying about 100 barnacles, and ghostly squids. A seafloor area nicknamed the Beet Field was carpeted with spidery red octocorals. More than 40 species encountered during three weeks of dives may be new to science.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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