Allow me introduce you to Ophiojura, a bizarre deep-sea animal observed in 2011 by scientists from the French Pure Record Museum, although trawling the summit of a secluded seamount termed Banc Durand, 500 metres under the waves and 200 kilometres east of New Caledonia in the southwest Pacific Ocean.
Ophiojura is a type of brittle star, which are distant cousins of starfish, with snake-like arms radiating from their bodies, that live on sea floors around the globe.
Becoming an pro in deep-sea animals, I understood at a look that this 1 was particular when I very first observed it in 2015. The eight arms, just about every 10 centimetres extended and armed with rows of hooks and spines. And the teeth! A microscopic scan revealed bristling rows of sharp tooth lining each individual jaw, which I reckon are employed to snare and shred its prey.
(J. Black/University of Melbourne, Writer presented)
Above: Bristling teeth poke out from all eight jaws, completely ready to pierce and shred prey. The color in this micro-CT scan reflects the density of the skeleton.
As my colleagues and I now report in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ophiojura does without a doubt represent a fully one of a kind and previously undescribed form of animal. It is one particular of a type – the previous identified species of an historical lineage, like the coelacanth or the tuatara.
We in contrast DNA from a selection of unique marine species, and concluded that Ophiojura is divided from its nearest dwelling brittle star relations by about 180 million yrs of evolution. This indicates their most current frequent ancestor lived for the duration of the Triassic or early Jurassic period, when dinosaurs ended up just getting heading.
Due to the fact then, Ophiojura‘s ancestors continued to evolve, leading ultimately to the predicament today, in which it is the only recognized survivor from an evolutionary lineage stretching again 180 million many years.
Amazingly, we have identified compact fossil bones that search similar to our new species in Jurassic (180 million-yr-aged) rocks from northern France, which is further more evidence of their historical origin.
Scientists utilized to phone animals like Ophiojura “dwelling fossils”, but this is not rather right. Residing organisms never stay frozen in time for hundreds of thousands of several years with out changing at all. The ancestors of Ophiojura would have continued evolving, in admittedly quite subtle ways, over the past 180 million yrs.
Probably a much more precise way to describe these evolutionary loners is with the phrase “paleo-endemics” – associates of a formerly prevalent department of lifestyle that is now restricted to just a couple modest areas and probably just a single solitary species.
For seafloor everyday living, the center of paleo-endemism is on continental margins and seamounts in tropical waters concerning 200 metres and 1,000 metres deep. This is wherever we find the “relicts” of ancient maritime life – species that have persisted in a rather primitive form for tens of millions of several years.
Seamounts, like the a person on which Ophiojura was uncovered, are generally submerged volcanoes that had been born thousands and thousands of several years back. Lava oozes or belches from vents in the seafloor, continuously incorporating levels of basalt rock to the volcano’s summit like levels of icing on a cake. The volcano can inevitably rise above the sea surface, forming an island volcano these as those people in Hawaii, often with coral reefs circling its shoreline.
But inevitably the volcano dies, the rock chills, and the large basalt triggers the seamount to sink into the fairly soft oceanic crust. Given plenty of time, the seamount will subside hundreds or even 1000’s of metres under sea amount and steadily grow to be covered again in deep-sea fauna. Its sunlit previous is remembered in rock as a layer of fossilized reef animals close to the summit.
Voyage of discovery
Whilst our new species is from the southwest Pacific, seamounts take place throughout the world and we are just starting to discover those people in other oceans. In July and August, I will guide a 45-day voyage of exploration on Australia’s oceanic exploration vessel, the RV Investigator, to seamounts about Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) Islands in the eastern Indian Ocean.
These seamounts are ancient – up to 100 million decades old – and pretty much entirely unexplored. We are truly thrilled at what we may come across.
(S. Samadi/MNHN/KANADEEP2, Author presented)
Above: Lifetime on a seamount. Feather stars and brittle stars have evolved many arms to achieve up into passing currents.
Seamounts are distinctive sites in the deep-sea world. Currents swirl all-around them, bringing nutrients from the depths or trapping plankton from over, which feeds the advancement of magnificent enthusiast corals, sea whips, and glass sponges. These in change host many other deep-sea animals. But these fascinating communities are susceptible to human actions such as deep-sea trawling and mining for important minerals.
The Australian government a short while ago introduced a procedure to generate new marine parks in the Christmas and Cocos (Keeling) regions. Our voyage will deliver the details essential to deal with these parks into the upcoming.
The New Caledonian govt has also designed a maritime park in offshore spots all-around these islands, which include the Durand seamount. These marine parks are beacons of development in the world generate for improved environmental stewardship of our oceans. Who is aware what odd and fantastic treasures of the deep are nonetheless to be uncovered. 
Tim O’Hara, Senior Curator of Maritime Invertebrates, Museums Victoria.
This posting is republished from The Dialogue under a Inventive Commons license. Read through the authentic write-up.