Posts Tagged new critter

New Critter: Eyeless, Venomous, and Fanged. Found in the ‘Tunnel to Atlantis’

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Found in the Tunnel de la Atlantida(tunnel to Atlantis) aka the world’s largest submarine lava tube. Whilst looking for a previous critter found in the cave 25 years earlier, scientists found an entirely different thing.

“Some animals were much more active in swimming around than others in the small sample bottles,” said marine biologist Tom Iliffe of Texas A&M University at Galveston, who was part of the team that discovered the new species. “On closer examination, and subsequently with DNA testing, we confirmed that they were actually two different species.”

Their findings appear this month in a special edition of Marine Biodiversity. The new crustacean has been named Speleonectes atlantida, which means “cave swimmer of Atlantis.” It’s a very apt name, Iliffe said, because the creature is a very active swimmer, gliding through the water an undulating fashion.

(via Wired, slantsmcgee)

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