A group of scientists were left amazed after the sighting of an extremely rare jellyfish that was only seen once before.
The team of experts spotted the animal during an expedition by the Ocean Exploration Trust, a nonprofit dedicated to marine exploration and research.
The video below captures the moment and shows the bizarre-looking creature slowly making its way through the depths, as the team of experts is left entranced at the sight of it.
One scientist can be heard exclaiming, “Woah! What is that?”—while the vehicle they’re operating remotely first encounters the jellyfish.
“I’ve never seen anything like that,” another can be heard saying. “I have no idea what it is.”
The animal was sighted on May 31 in the deep and remote Pacific Ocean, 130 miles from the nearest landmark Kingman Reef, which is 4,800 miles away from Australia.
Classified an “undescribed” because it has no name or detailed description by any researchers, the species has only ever been seen once before, on a 2015 expedition by The Ocean Exploration Trust.
It distinguishes itself from other jellyfish by three long “tentacles” sprouting at an odd angle from the top of its head.
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It is also, surprisingly, believed to prey on other jelly-like animals, such as other jellyfish and swimming sea cucumbers using its long tentacles to catch prey.
Dr. Dhugal Lindsay, a research scientist with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science & Technology, commented on the creature’s strange tentacles, saying, “This is extremely rare for a jellyfish as they are normally radially splittable into ‘pizza slices’ with even, rather than odd, numbers.
“They hold the tentacles in front of them as they swim, so that the tentacles come into contact with their large gelatinous prey before the bow wave of the water they “push” before them as they swim reaches it and it senses this water movement and escapes—a kind of stealth predation so-to-speak.”
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This new species is believed to be part of the Bathykorus genus, but does not match any other species of this kind due to its brown color.
At this point, it’s really anyone’s guess.
The Ocean Exploration Trust has more free live streams of their expeditions at www.nautilus.live.com.
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