According to CNET, a team of scientists from the National Polar Research Institute, the National Museum of Natural Sciences and Kochi University discovered a new marine worm – they named Flalligena Gillet 2001. The discovery was made by scientists while collecting specimens from the 2036 to 2,479-meter-deep seafloor of the South Orkney Islands in the Antarctic Ocean.
When the scientists looked at the specimen under a microscope and photographed it with a high-resolution digital camera, they noticed the new marine worm.
According to the team's study, published in June in the Journal of Biodiversity Data, the Flabelligena Gillet 2001 marine worm has a "tiny" yellow body with small circular protrusions on its body, 1-3 pairs of organs called tracheal gills, and two front tentacles. Its body is about 1.8 cm long and about 1 mm wide. Both ends of this marine worm are round.
The new breed of worms is currently one of 6 varieties of Flalligena and is considered part of what is known as the polychaete worm, which has more than 10,000 varieties. The new seaworm lives in sandy areas, mainly under water 1000 meters and deeper.
"Polychaetes are one of the most diverse taxa of marine benthic fauna and are also well studied in the Southern Ocean," Naoto Jimi, head of the research team, said in an Aug. 12 statement. "Many researchers have surveyed the Southern Ocean, but our knowledge of small deep-sea invertebrates is rather limited."
This new species is the first record of Flalligena to be found in the Southern Ocean. Other known Flalligena marine worms are found mainly in the North Atlantic – three of which are found in the South-West Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Southern Indian Ocean.