Strange spider-like creatures living at the bottom of the ocean are baffling scientists as they use long siphons to extract fluids from their prey.
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Sea Spider |
These sea spiders, some of which are blind, are challenging scientific classification.
Marine biologist Claudia Arango at the Australian Museum in Sydney agrees that they belong to the arthropod family, but it remains unclear which specific group they belong to.
For over 100 years, scientists have struggled to classify sea spiders. They crawl along the ocean floor, sometimes at depths of 6,000 to 7,000 meters, living in darkness and feeding on sponges and sea cucumbers.
These creatures have segmented bodies and an exoskeleton, placing them within the arthropod family, alongside crustaceans, insects, millipedes, and spiders.
However, they also possess a number of unusual characteristics and a unique feeding mechanism. “They have a straw-like siphon that they insert into their prey to suck out fluids,” Arango explains.
These features make it difficult to categorize them into any known group of arthropods.
Arango has researched the diversity and evolution of sea spiders. She has employed DNA technology and morphology to create a phylogenetic tree based on 60 sea spider species worldwide.
Some scientists believe that sea spiders represent a newly emerged primitive group at the base of the arthropod phylogenetic tree. However, Arango’s findings support another hypothesis: that they are more closely related to a group of arthropods that includes spiders and scorpions.
Arango notes that the strangest sea spiders are found in Antarctica. They are more abundant, larger, and weirder than other sea spider species.
M.T
