Marine ecologists from the University of Southampton in the UK have discovered a handful of unexampled mintage in hydrothermal vents 2.8 kilometers ( 1.7 miles ) beneath the surface of the southwesterly Indian Ocean . They wrote up their discoveries in the Nature journalScientific Reports .
The unexampled subject used a remotely manoeuvre fomite to explore the ocean floor region known as Longqi Vent Field , which means “ dragon ’s breather ” in Mandarin , in November 2011 . This football stadium - sized area , at least 2,000 klick ( 1,242 miles ) southeastward of Madagascar , contains legion sites with sulfide deposits and hydrothermal vent , which spout out mobile temperatures of over 300 ° C ( 572 ° F ) .
Among this alien terrain , the researchers detect six new species : the hairy - chested “ Hoff ” Cancer the Crab ( presumptively a reference to the one and only David Hasselhoff ) , two metal money of escargot , a limpet , a scale worm , and another species of recondite - sea insect .
Along with being liberally spread with hydrothermal vents , the area is also deep in copper color and gold . Despite it being a little seaport for eccentric and unique species , this unfortunately think it has also get the interest of seafloor mining ship’s company .
“ We can be sealed that the new species we ’ve constitute also live on elsewhere in the southwesterly Indian Ocean , as they will have migrate here from other sites , but at the moment no - one really knows where , or how well - connected their population are with those at Longqi , " Dr Jon Copley , team leader , enunciate ina program line .
“ Our results highlight the need to explore other hydrothermal blowhole in the southwesterly Indian Ocean and investigate the connectivity of their populations , before any impacts from mineral geographic expedition activities and succeeding cryptic - sea mining can be assess . ”
Strangest of all , the researchers receive two species here that can usually be found at vent thousands of kilometers away : a musical scale worm that hold out on the East Scotia Ridge in the Antarctic over 6,000 klick ( 3,728 miles ) away and a species of ragworm that lives in the easterly Pacific , over 10,000 kilometers ( 6,213 miles ) away .
A new species of ragworm . David Shale / University of Southampton
A new coinage of mussel . David Shale / University of Southampton
A new species of scale worm . David Shale / University of Southampton
A new mintage of gastropod escargot . David Shale / University of SouthamptonA new mintage of barnacle . David Shale / University of Southampton
