Look at this thing, it’s huge!
This is the size it’s supposed to be:
Apparently, they pulled this and 6 other ‘Supergiant” crustaceans out of water so deep that, before this, they thought nothing was able to live that far down into the dark depths of our oceans.
They were wrong, which seems to happen every now and then in the world of science but, you know, that’s why we keep studying!
Could you imagine if other things got “super-sized” like this randomly? They compared finding this gigantic crustacean with finding a foot-long cockroach. That’s one bug infestation I do NOT want to ever have.
BBC News writes:
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. It just goes to show that the more you look, the more you find”
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.
Read more at bbc.co.uk