Alien-looking feathered star discovered in Antarctica

Four new species of feather stars have been discovered in Antarctica. They look like aliens, they belong to the echinoderm family, the same as starfish, but unlike them, these animals can have up to 20 legs.

These new species belong to the group Promaccrine, a genus of free-swimming stemless crinoids. Until then, they were considered a single circum-Antarctic species, however, new research recently published in the journal Systematics of invertebrates, revealed that these animals are much more diverse.

DNA analysis of samples collected between 2008 and 2017 revealed that instead of one, there were actually eight different species, four of which have never been identified. One of them is the Promachocrinus fragariuswhich became known as the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star.

Fragaria is a small genus of plants on which strawberries bear fruit. While the strawberry feather star didn’t have a reddish tinge, the researchers found that its body was quite similar to the fruit it was named after.

many legs

The species lives between 100 and 1000 meters of depth, even if the crinoids, being generally sedentary animals, can eventually move in the water rhythmically waving their arms in search of food. It was long thought that these animals did this using their 20 legs, but some of the discoveries have only 10 legs.

These morphological differences immediately revealed that they were different species of Antarctic feather star. However, molecular analysis was required to differentiate some of them.

Monitoring biodiversity requires robust identification of taxa and this can be very challenging when taxa are truly cryptic. This study suggests that some species in Promachocrinus can be determined based on morphology, however, ambiguity among some species suggests that sequencing (minimum COI) should remain the primary tool if species-level resolution is required.

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Source: Olhar Digital