Dr Ashley Rowden, scientist: "It's great to be on a ship when something unusual comes up on deck" [embedded video]
By Rebecca Morelle Science reporter, BBC News 2 February 2012 Last updated at 03:54 ET
A huge crustacean has been found lurking 7km down in the waters off the coast of New Zealand.
The creature - called a supergiant - is a type of amphipod, which are normally around 2-3cm long.
But these beasts, discovered in the Kermadec Trench, were more than 10 times bigger: the largest found measured in at 34cm.
Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab, said: "It's a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach."
"I stopped and thought: 'What on Earth was that?' This amphipod was far bigger than I ever thought possible."
The strange animals were found using a large metal trap, which had been equipped with a camera, housed in sapphire glass to keep it safe from the high pressures of the deep sea.
Seven specimens were caught in the trap and nine were captured on film by the team from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), in New Zealand.
The largest specimen brought back up to the ship measured 28cm in length, while the biggest spotted on camera was 34cm-long.
'Conspicuous animal'
Amphipods have been found living in large numbers at the very bottom of ocean trenches, deep, narrow valleys in the sea floor that can plunge down to nearly 11km.
The creatures are small, but extremely active, and seem to thrive in this place where the pressure is one thousand times greater than at sea level.
The name "supergiant" was first coined after large specimens were caught in the 1980s off the coast of Hawaii.
They have been seen since in the Antarctic, where they grew up to 10cm, but these are now dwarfed by this latest find.
Dr Ashley Rowden, from Niwa, said: "It just goes to show that the more you look, the more you find.
"For such a large and conspicuous animal to go unnoticed for so long is just testament to how little we know about life in New Zealand's most deep and unique habitat."
Over the last few years, scientists have been surprised by the life that is found in ocean trenches.
These deep-sea spots were once thought to be barren; too dark, cold and with too much pressure for anything to survive.
But researchers have found a wealth of life in the deepest of the deep.
As well as swarms of amphipods, they have uncovered shrimp-like creatures called isopods and snailfish that live 7,700m down.
Dr Alan Jamieson explains how his team filmed the 'deepest-ever' living fish [embedded video]
'Zombie' Ants And The Fungus That Saves Them A zombie ant with a mature, healthy fruiting body growing from the ant's neck. Some damage due to a chewing insect is visible, as is a spider making a home beneath the ant. A zombie ant with the brain-manipulating fungus (Ophiocordyceps unilateralis s.l.) having been castrated by an hyperparasite fungus (white with yellow material). May 2, 2012 [more at] http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/02/151890185/zombie-ants-and-the-fungus-that-saves-them [with comments]
Meet Trogloraptor, fearsomeness incarnate. The creature more than lives up to its name—it is, in fact, an eight-legged showcase for scientific novelty. The spider somewhat resembles the brown recluse, famed for its flesh-necrotizing venom—but at four centimeters, Trogloraptor is about twice as large. In fact, this spider is an entirely new critter—just look at those legs, each ends in a curved, scythelike claw. Citizen scientists and arachnologists have uncovered these spiders in the caves of southwestern Oregon and old-growth redwood forests. As they report in ZooKeys [ http://www.pensoft.net/journals/zookeys/article/3547/abstract/an-extraordinary-new-family-of-spiders-from-caves-in ( http://dx.doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.215.3547 )], the discovery of Trogloraptor is a taxonomic wonder that establishes a new family, genus and species in the spider family tree.
Troglo's story begins with citizen scientists in the Western Cave Conservancy [ http://www.westerncaves.org/ ] who spotted the strange spider in Oregon's caves. They sent specimens to researchers at the California Academy of Sciences [ http://www.calacademy.org/ ] where entomologist Tracy Audisio, a research fellow at the California Academy of Sciences, puzzled over the new find. After approaching every member of the arachnology lab, she and Charles Griswold [ http://research.calacademy.org/ent/staff/cgriswold ], the academy's curator of arachnology, took the finding to arachnologists around the country. They combed through comparative anatomy, fossil records and genetic analyses in their efforts to place the new spider, only to conclude that the cave dweller has a totally unique lineage.
The closest known relatives to this clawed creepy-crawler come from the Oonipidae, or goblin family [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oonopidae ] of spiders. Trogloraptor's anatomy reveals, however, several ancient features, including a primitive respiratory system that sets these spiders apart. The researchers believe the Trogloraptor family separated into its own evolutionary branch some 130 million years ago.
The spider's name is Latin for "cave robber," a reference to its habitat and rapacious-looking talons. As for the claws, there's another genus of spiders with similar appendages, the Spelungula of New Zealand [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spelungula_cavernicola ]. These cave spiders are otherwise distinct from Trogloraptor, suggesting their claws evolved independently. Troglo's claws are barbed on their underside and may be designed to clamp shut on passing prey. The researchers believe that, like Spelungula, Trogloraptor dangles from cave ceilings with legs akimbo, then snaps its claws like a trap when small flies pass by. The spider's exact prey, however, is unknown. Before arachnophobes get too nervous, though, Griswold notes that the spiders are not likely to be venomous to humans. In fact, they're quite shy. Working with live specimens, he's observed that their behavior is distinctly unaggressive and their main interest is escaping the light as quickly as possible.
Researchers at San Diego State University [ http://www.sdsu.edu/ ] have spotted juveniles in old-growth redwood forests. Although more study is needed, these specimens are likely a different species from those found in the caves. Griswold notes that given the age of this family and the former distribution of redwoods in North America, it's possible that other Trogloraptor species could inhabit caves across the country. "They could be living in caves in Nevada," Griswold says. "They may have been hiding there since the Pliocene or Miocene." Given their fragile habitats and ancient history, these creatures warrant protection as evolutionary marvels.
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