Scientists found mysterious black eggs 20000 feet beneath the Pacific Ocean, inside they found...
In a remarkable discovery scientists discovered mysterious jet black eggs sitting on the ocean floor at a depth of more than 20000 feet, but what was discovered inside was even more stunning and jaw-dropping because it changed many preconceived notion about invertebrate marine life existing at such depths. Where were the eggs found?
According to media reports, the eggs were discovered in the Pacific Ocean at a depth of 6,200 meters (about 20,341 feet) by a team of researchers from Tokyo University and Hokkaido University in Japan, when they exploring the ocean floor with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV).
The eggs, ominous-looking and pitch black in color, were found in what is known as the 'abyssopelagic zone', the deepest part of the ocean floor. Yasunori Kano, a marine researcher at the University of Tokyo decide to retrieve and study the eggs, but could only recover four of them as the rest were broken or badly damaged. What was inside the black eggs?
Kano sent the eggs to invertebrate biologists at Hokkaido University, who discovered that these were actually tiny tiny cocoons hosting flatworms inside. Keiichi Kakui, a marine biologist at Hokkaido University who co-authored the research on the eggs published in the journal Biology Letters said he had 'never seen flatworm cocoons'.
Kakui told IFLScience that a milky white liquid substance leaked from the eggs when they cut one open. Inside, they found discovered tiny white bodies encased in a shell, and realized that it was a cocoon with platyhelminths, commonly known as flatworms. Why the discovery is significant?
As per researchers, this is the first instance when flatworms have been found at such depths. Earlier, flatworms had been discovered at depths of up to 5,200 meters. The latest discovery has pushed the limits of how deep invertebrates like flatworms could exist beneath the oceans.
According to the study, DNA analysis of the eggs/cocoons revealed that these flatworms were an undiscovered species under the phylum Platyhelminth. However, despite being the 'the deepest known record of free-living platyhelminths,' the flatworms are not much different from the ones that live in shallow waters, according to the researchers.
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Time of India
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- Time of India
Skeleton panda sea squirt discovered in Japan: Meet Clavelina ossipandae
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Time of India
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Time of India
15-07-2025
- Time of India
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