A new, brightly colored jellyfish discovered in the Marianas Trench in the western Pacific Ocean has captured the attention of scientists the world over.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration took a video of the creature on April 24 while exploring the trench in its "Okeanos Explorer" ship, which dispatches its own remotely operated vehicles,
The Christian Science Monitor reported.
Scientists think the newly discovered hydromedusa jellyfish belongs to the genus Crossota. It has two sets of tentacles, short and long, and red radial canals connecting to what could be bright yellow gonads in its bell.
“It almost looks Photoshopped. But it’s real,” Jennifer Frazer
wrote in Scientific American.
The jellyfish was found 2.3 miles beneath the surface and is thought to be an ambush predator.
The Washington Post described the animal as “mesmerizing,” “stunningly beautiful,” and “curious” and compared it to a Pixar character.
Okeanos Explorer is currently exploring the Marianas Trench Marine National Monument and the Commonwelath of the Northern Mariana Islands for a roughly nine-week stretch.
The 1,500-mile-long and 43-mile-wide trench is the world’s deepest, plunging seven miles beneath the surface.
The April 24 dive was the fourth dive of the expedition. Scientists also spotted “high concentrations of small rounded balls” tentatively identified as single-celled amoeba species. Biologists are unsure what they are, but said they could also be sponges.
On Twitter, users from across the world expressed wonder over the discovery.
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