Huw Griffiths, a marine bio-geographer with the British Antarctic Survey, was eating pancakes when news broke that the wreck of the Endurance – the famous ship headed by Ernest Shackleton that sank on an expedition in 1915 – had been discovered. .
dr. Griffiths found himself much more interested in the images than in his breakfast. His first thought was that the ship looked almost fake, as it remained eerily pristine 106 years after sinking to the bottom of the Weddell Sea off Antarctica. His second thought: what was on his mind?
Over the years, the nave had grown as lush as a garden. In a Twitter threadzoomed Dr. Griffiths tapped into the wreckage to spotlight creatures he recognized: anemones, sponges, sea pipes, starfish, and a lemon-yellow sea lily. Other tenants were more mysterious – white tendrils, transparent blobs and a mysterious pinnate creature.
Christopher Mah, a starfish researcher with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said he expected a “rich abundance of critters living in and among the wreckage of the Endurance.” In the deep sea, where food is scarce and the landscape is usually a mushy mud, a shipwreck is precious real estate.
The wreckage provides insight into the kind of life in the Weddell Sea that lives on hard structures, according to Louise Allcock, a zoologist at the National University of Ireland Galway. “A lot of work has been done in the Weddell Sea, but especially on soft bottoms,” said Dr. allcock. “There’s a chance there will be new species, if only from a lack of watching,” she added.
When Katrin Linse, a marine biologist with the British Antarctic Survey, scanned the wreckage images in her office, she admired the anemones, worms, sponges and even a bright red amphipod, perhaps a species of the genus Eurythenes, swimming away from the wreck. Then she saw something very surprising, at a porthole. “There’s a crab,” said Dr. Linse. “It shouldn’t be there.”
dr. Linse, who helped discover the first hydrothermal vents in the Southern Ocean, has an eye for white crabs. The ghostly white creatures in the deep-sea mud may indicate the presence of vents nearby.
dr. Linse sent a message to Dr. Griffiths asking why he hadn’t told her about the crab.
He had completely missed the animal, his presence in the video being just a leggy white dot. A crab may be commonplace in many places, but a crab had never been seen in the Weddell Sea. When Dr. Linse watched the video again, she found three more crabs.
The general absence of decapods — including shrimp, crabs and lobsters — in Antarctica has “intrigued polar biologists for so many years,” said Paula Rodríguez Flores, a researcher who studies deep-sea cracker crabs at Harvard University’s Museum of Comparative Zoology. an e-mail.
Scientists had once hypothesized that decapod crabs were driven from Antarctica millions of years ago and only recently returned because of climate change, so “crabs in Antarctica are still very exciting to find,” said Dr. linse.
dr. Griffiths wondered if the crab spotted on the wreck could be a species of the Kiwaidae family, which includes a furry white yeti crab that lives near vents off Antarctica. But a closer look revealed that the crustacean wasn’t a crab, but a deep-sea cracker of the genus Munidopsis, said Dr. Rodriguez Flores.
Only one species of squatter has been recorded in the Antarctic. “This is definitely a different species,” she said, adding that a closer examination would establish her identity.
The presence of the crustaceans raises many new questions. “How did they get there?” asked Dr. Linse. “Is this a new Munidopsis species?” asked Dr. Rodriguez Flores. “Is it eating the ship?” asked Dr. Griffiths.
While the crab is believed to be free to roam around the Endurance, many of the ship’s other inhabitants are passive eaters such as crinoids, glass sponges and anemones. These creatures probably live off the litter called marine snow, which contains a lot of krill droppings here, said Dr. Griffiths. The ship’s height above the seafloor allows these largely immobile creatures to take advantage of water currents to eat, said Dr. mah.
While the video quality prevents closer identification of many of these species, some residents stood out, especially at the wheel of the ship. dr. Mah identified a swinging six-armed starfish as a brisingid starfish, either Freyastera or Belgicella. These stars extend their spiky arms into the water to catch small crustaceans and other food, he added.
Scientists are divided on whether a creature next to the wheel – which resembles an ostrich feather crossed with a Christmas tree – is a hydroid or a black coral. dr. Allcock is team hydroid, and noted that the stem didn’t look straight enough for black coral. Joan J. Soto Àngel, a researcher at the University of Bergen in Norway, said it looked nothing like the hydroids known from such depths, but added that he was “100 percent sure there were several types of hydroids on the wreckage.” have to grow.”
The Endurance wreck is considered a historic monument under the terms of the Antarctic Treaty. “No one should touch it,” said Dr. Griffiths. Still, higher-resolution videos could help scientists determine which species live on the wreck and whether any of them are new.
For Estefanía Rodriguez, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York who studies anemones, clearer videos may not be enough for species identification. The Endurance is dotted with anemone tentacles, from thick white to slimmer orange. But many anemone species look the same on the outside, meaning researchers have to cut them open to identify them.
“After more than 20 years of studying this group, if someone shows me a picture and asks what this is, all I can say is ‘anemone,'” said Dr. Rodriguez. “It’s not because I’m useless in my work.”
With extreme caution, Dr. Rodriguez states that the thick white anemone belongs to the family Actinostolidae and the orange to the family Hormathiidae.
Although Dr. Rodriguez was pleased to see the wreckage found, she was even happier to see that the old ship’s hull was dominated by anemones, which she said are little-studied animals. “The group is about 600 million years old. That’s what fascinates me,” said Dr. Rodriguez. “How they endure: It’s hard stuff.”
For now, it’s hard to say how old the Endurance’s invertebrate crew is — how many came shortly after the sinking, 106 years ago or more recently. But glass sponges can live for thousands of years, and anemones for many decades.
From what is visible in the video, the largest living creature behind the wheel of the Endurance is an anemone (species unidentifiable).
“The old crew made it out alive, and this is who came to live there,” said Dr. Griffiths. “Who knows where that sea anemone is taking it?”
