Researchers discover new ocean predator in the Atacama Trench

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-ocean-predator-atacama-trench.html

by wglb • 2 years ago

69 25 2 years ago

phys.org

wglb• 2 years ago

Referenced paper https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14772000.2024.2...

Scarblac• 2 years ago

Is its head on the left or the right?

Loughla• 2 years ago

Left

IG_Semmelweiss• 2 years ago

it looks like a shrimp, so its the left

pvaldes2• 2 years ago

Head is at the same side than the antenna and the eyes. Left.

Gys• 2 years ago

At nearly 4 centimeters in length, this crustacean uses specialized raptorial appendages to capture and prey upon smaller amphipod species in the Atacama (Peru-Chile) Trench's food-limited realm.

kelseyfrog• 2 years ago

Very unappetizing

vouaobrasil• 2 years ago

Life is so diverse and beautiful!

maxFlow• 2 years ago

Getting Lovecraftian vibes.

usrusr2• 2 years ago

Predator sounds dramatic, but there really isn't much non-microscopic life in the oceans that isn't predatorial. Large herbivores are land-evolved.

PittleyDunkin2• 2 years ago

Would you consider the blue whale to be a carnivore, then?

SaggyDoomSr• 2 years ago

blue whales eat krill, almost exclusively. so... yeah, definitely carnivores. i don't think there are any herbivore whales.

ternnoburn• 2 years ago

Considering they eat crustaceans, predominantly, wouldn't you?

adrian_b• 2 years ago

While there are no herbivores there, many animals at that depth are suspension feeders or deposit feeders, i.e. they filter the water or the mud for either alive micro-organisms or for organic substances that come from the decomposition of dead animals or algae.

At that depth an important food source is formed by the dead bodies or parts of bodies of various big or small animals, which fall from shallower water after their death.

Because at high depths there is no primary production in most places (with the exception of vents where free dihydrogen or dihydrogen sulfide may feed bacteria), most animals must eat the dead organic matter that falls from above.

Predators that eat alive animals from that depth must be much fewer than the animals which eat dead matter, otherwise they will die of hunger.

usrusr2• 2 years ago

Suspension feeders/deposit feeders, thanks that makes a lot of sense: the local food chain does need some base, that base can't be solar powered as there really isn't enough light down there. Some scraps from the solar-powered layers making it down all the way because of gravity, that's a logical explanation to have any life down there at all.

Tangent: makes me wonder if fossil fuel depots that accumulated under the oceans might have a similar "they don't make them anyone as they used to" as the lignin/fungus imbalance of the carboniferous (I know that there are studies questioning that link, or at least suggesting that this can't be the whole story): before those feeders evolved, there would have been undisputed accumulation, and the first few evolutionary matches might have died out after burning through deposits in waves of overpopulation and extinction, before stochastics hit a stable balance. But, well, I'm just a speculation layman, experts will still have enough uncertainty for a wide range of speculation (see the wide range of uncertainty in the lignin hypothesis, and I'd assume that our knowledge of land biohistory is far more detailed than what we know about the oceans), lots of science to be done!

throwaway48476• 2 years ago

It's unfortunate that there's no in situ pictures included. It looks like the blob fish which is only blob shape when not under ocean deep pressure.

pvaldes2• 2 years ago

Is just an Amphipod. A sea flea. Is showing the typical shape in the group. For people without taxonomic knowledge, we could say that is "a type of shrimp" There are thousands of species in its group.

The title is unnecessarily dramatic.

ungreased0675• 2 years ago

I wonder what they taste like.

preisschild• 2 years ago

Show them who the real apex predator is :)

undebuggable• 2 years ago

I presume on the surface it looks nothing like in the ocean depths where it's under enormous pressure.

dudeinjapan• 2 years ago

They must have reached R’lyeh

trebligdivad• 2 years ago

two nice words in there that are new to me; 'hadal' and raptorial'

AnthonBerg• 2 years ago

Didn’t notice ‘hadal’! Kind of glid by. Thanks!

Looked up the meaning and the roots of the word. Feel compelled to mention that the etymology is pretty wild.

hadal: “of or relating to the deepest ocean; beyond 6000 meters” ← Hades, Greek god of the underworld ← ᾍδης (Hā́idēs)

which is

‘Perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *n̥- (“not”)+‎ *weyd- (“see”) +‎ *-ēs (“adjectival suffix”), literally “that which is unseen”’

← ‘from *sm̥weyd-(from *sm̥- (compounding stem) +‎ *weyd-(“see”) +‎ *-ēs (“adjectival suffix”), literally “see-together” or “uniter”)’

… according to Wiktionary: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/ᾍδης

That’ll be one exploding-head emoji for me please.

Researchers discover new ocean predator in the Atacama Trench

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