Scientists have found a new type of sea saucers in the Bellingshausen Sea. It has always been believed that these mollusks live exclusively in the tropics
Giant crab in Antarctic waters
Increasingly, inhabitants of warmer latitudes are entering Antarctic waters. For example, scientists recently found a population of giant crabs off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. The water temperature in this place increased so much that these arthropods were able to settle there.
Another example. Spanish scientists led by Dr. Cristian Aldea from the University of Vigo discovered and described a new species of mollusc, a representative of the genus Zeidora antarctica, off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula in the Bellingshausen Sea at a depth of about 600 meters. The expedition took place on the Spanish oceanographic vessel "Hespérides".
Photo: INC / José Antonio Peñas
According to scientists, this species has always been considered tropical. It is known that eight species of sea saucers live in the Caribbean and Red Seas, off the coast of the Panama and Japanese islands, and six more are found off the coast of the Galapagos Islands, Australia and New Zealand. According to scientists, the new species has a longer shell: it reaches 14 mm, while the average shell length of other representatives of sea saucers does not exceed five millimeters.
“We assigned the found samples to a new species based on the description of their shells. All the parameters indicate that these are indeed living specimens, not fossils,”says Aldea. The found clam is now on display at the Madrid Museum of Natural History.
How tropical sea saucers ended up in the cold waters of Antarctica remains a mystery to scientists. It is quite possible that they, like giant crabs, got there with warm currents from tropical latitudes.
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