Four new members have been added to the Polynoidae family , also recognize as scaleworms , or " Elvis worms " . The new uncovering bet like they would be more at home plate in a burlesque show than at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean , where they in reality live .
Scale worms form an enormous house with more than 900 describe specie . Some hold up in quite accessible locations such as intertidal piddle , but most prefer to populate more forbidding locations , such as around hydrothermal vents , hold out tremendous imperativeness , fearsome temperature , and acidic waters .
University of California , San Diego studentAvery Hatchand team conducted a study of the genusPeinaleopolynoe(which means " hungry scaleworm " ) , a cryptic - sea offshoot of the family that does n’t allow living in a creation without sun stop them putting on a show .
hachure search the kinship of two previously describe Peinaleopolynoe with other members of the across-the-board Polynidae fellowship . InZookeys , Hatch and atomic number 27 - authors describe four new mintage identify in the process , discovered at depths of over 915 meters ( 3,000 feet ) in the easterly Pacific Ocean , including the Monterey Canyon , the Gulf of California , and Costa Rica , amass on missions between 2004 and 2019 .
Peinaleopolynoe have long been dub " Elvis worms " because their glittery outfits reckon like the diamante on the King ’s famed jumpsuit . hachure and cobalt - writer made this functionary by naming onePeinaleopolynoe elvisi . P. mineoi , P. orphaniandP. goffredipay tribute to Dr Ronald Mineo who helped fund these geographic expedition , and thick - ocean biologists Dr Victoria Orphan and Dr Shana Goffredi .
Food is hard to come - by down there , so in addition to surviving at vent and methane seeps where nutrients and sources of vitality literally bubble up from the ocean floor , P. goffrediandP. elvisiwere found in awhale fall , which is just what it sounds like . Dead whales provide immense amounts of food for thought for hungry invertebrates , although finding a fresh one must pose a challenge for those who have finished off the last one .
specialiser in invertebrates no doubt find many expression of these new species , fascinating but as University of North Carolina marine biologistDr Rebecca Helmnoted on Twitter there ’s one question that draw in much broad interestingness .
One account is that this is a arrant accident – the coruscation serve no evolutionary purpose but is a side - core of something else . On the other hand , the cryptical ocean is not entirely dark . Bio - luminescent brute provide a little illuminance – including as Helm musical note , Pisces thatshine visible light out of their butts .
The authors noticed pass on theP. orphanaesample that were not there on the other worms , but were not certain what they were until they obtained moving-picture show of the worms in their natural habitat , 2.2 miles ( around 11,600 infantry ) down in the Gulf of California , see here zip up four times .
" It was n’t until we saw that picture of them struggle that it suddenly clicked . Like , ' waitress – these thing in the scales , these mountain pass , are bite marks , ' " senior author Dr Greg Rouse said in astatement . However , Rouse and the other scientist ca n’t explain the strange move made by the worms the team call " jitterbugging " .
