It seems that everyday people discover bizarre sea creatures that are rarely seen by most people. For example, shocked fishermen were left baffled after reeling in a transparent sea creature with huge claws that looked like it came from another planet.
They shared their unusual catch on social media. The bizarre sea creature had a small, transparent, jelly-like barrel-shaped outer layer. Daily Star reported that it is still unclear where the clip was shot because the habitat of the species could be anywhere around the globe.
Preserved specimen of Phronima sedentaria
Catching Two Bizarre Transparent Sea Creatures
The fishermen showed a transparent animal that looked like it was trapped inside a jelly-like structure. But when one of the fishermen squeezed it, a beastly clawed figure emerged from the jelly-like structure.
It turns out that they were two separate sea creatures in which one acts as a parasite and the other as the host. The parasite is the clawed figure called Phronima, while the host is the jelly-like barrel-shaped outer layer called salp.
Parasite expert Katie O'Dwyer said that Phronima breaks free from the sea floor and takes advantage of the salp to survive the open water. Meanwhile, salps are jelly-like barrel-shaped sea creatures that drift throughout the oceans and sometimes in chains. Phronima would climb inside the barrel of the salp and make it a makeshift home using its claws to dig inside the empty barrel structure.
A similar report from Daily Mirror also says that the species is considered a parasitoid rather than a parasite because it actively kills its host. About two years ago, several Phronima were seen on Streedagh beach, Sligo on the Atlantic coast of Ireland after the Hurrican Epsilon.
Sligo-based freelance ecologist Melinda Swann said that the first time a Phronima sighting was recorded in Irelands was in 1985 by marine biologist Dr. Dan Minchin. These sea creatures are crustaceans that have captured the imagination of many artists, such as HR Geiger. Many believe that Geiger used Phronima as his inspiration in drawing the characters for Ridley Scott's 1979 movie "Alien."
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Phronima: The Barrel-Riding Sea Creature
Phronima is tiny sea creatures found throughout the world's oceans, except in the polar regions. Unlike their crustacean relatives that stay in the safe confined of the seabed, Phronima breaks free of the sea floor and takes advantage of the barrel-shaped, gelatinous zooplankton called salps.
O'Dwyer wrote in The Conversation that Phronima attacks these vulnerable sea creatures and makes them their hosts. They feed off food and water on the go, thanks to salps. However, the Phronima-salp symbiosis poses questions, like whether it has killed a salp in the process of colonizing it and why traveling in a salp is energy-efficient for them.
These parasitoids are unfortunately challenging to study because they should be studied alive, which means the salp should not be affected by air. However, previous studies showed that salps hollowed out by Phronima still contain some live cells, which help them maintain their structure.
In terms of the energy used to carry this barrel through the sea, O'Dwyer wrote that its size and shape enable the Phronima to be more buoyant in the water. That means that Phronima has adapted to the unique niche of traveling in the open water that even its offspring gets access to new food resources without spending too much energy.
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