WATCH: ‘UFO’ jellyfish unearthed in Marianas Trench
For scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) , it was like seeing an ‘alien’ descend into the ocean’s ‘Bikini Bottom’.
While on an exploration aboard the agency’s sea vessel “Okeanos Explorer”, they detected a colorful jellyfish species gliding around the Challenger Deep, the lowest point at the Marianas Trench.
The hydromedusa jellyfish was found at a depth of nearly 12,000 feet (3.7 kilometers) below the ocean’s surface and is located between the Philippines and Japan.
The jellyfish, which was named “Microsoft Paint” due to its cartoon-like structure and resemblance to a drawing on the computer software Microsoft Paint, was breathtakingly captured by NOAA’s remotely operating vehicle under the deep blue sea.
According to news site Techtimes, the alluring sea creature is a member of the genus Crossota and is an ambush predator. It has long and slender tentacles that act like a spider web by entrapping tiny creatures. The flashing neon yellow colors of the creature’s translucent jelly pinpoint the location of its gonads.
For years, scientists pioneered enhanced research beneath the 1,500-mile-long(2,400 km) Marianas Trench, and this marvelous discovery verifies that a colossal region of the earth’s oceanic crust is uninhabited and unexplored. Gianna Francesca Catolico
