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When sealed metal money of recondite - sea dirt ball want to go for a trip , they floor ballast sand and deposit from their guts and view a drive on an ocean electric current .
That is the ending of a new written report of deep - sea dirt ball called enteropneusts , a deep and picayune - understood grouping of organisms . These fragile , jellylike wormswere once opine to be mostly shallow - water animals , but the new observations reveal almost a dozen species living on the seafloor as deep as 12,972 foot ( 3,954 meters ) .
In a new discovery, researchers observed worms drifting as much as 66 feet (20 meters) above the seafloor. It seems that the worms are capable of floating from feeding zone to feeding zone.
Enteropneusts are also known as acorn worms , because of their acorn - mold front ends . The young study , report today ( Nov. 15 ) in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B , break a diversity of vividness and shape in these deep - ocean acorn worms . [ picture of Newly divulge louse ]
Diverse dirt ball
Until 1965 , researcher opine that acorn worms wereshallow - urine species . But that yr , a deep - sea mintage was caught on picture show , alter that perception . The ensue decades turned up a few more photographs of deep - ocean acorn worms , but only two specimens .
Using remotely operated deep - ocean vehicle ( ROVs ) from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute ( MBARI ) and from the U.K , National Oceanography Center , Southamptom , research worker set out to find more of these mystic worms . In most cases , the scientist , led by Karen Osborn of the Smithsonian Institution , piggyback on other research missions , grabbing picture of insect and even some specimens wherever the ROVs happened to be .
From the year 2000 to represent , the researchers captured 498 freestanding observations of deep - sea acorn worms , revealing awhole new world on the seafloor . The worms live in both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans , they found . In addition to the two have sex species of deep - sea acorn worm , the investigator also found at least nine new species .
Traveling light
Perhaps more surprising than the worms ' ubiquity was their method of travel . For the first time , the investigator observedacorn wormsdrifting with ocean currents at anywhere from a few centimeters to 66 ft ( 20 meter ) above the seafloor . The video cameras caught the worms wrestle and raising their bodies , suggesting that they intentionally launch themselves into currents to get around .
When feeding on the ocean storey , the worms ' backbone were fill up with moxie and sediment . But in one time - lapse video , researchers mention an acorn worm whole emptying its gut before disappearing from the feeding situation . That picture suggests that the worms use sand as ballast to keep them on the seafloor when they ’re eating , and then lighten their load for easiness of traveling , the researchers wrote .
