A “mystery animal” found in New Zealand waters has finally been identified by scientists as a species never seen here before.
NIWA scientists werestumped earlier this year after finding the “unusual” specimen during a three-week voyage to the unexplored Bounty Trough.
The expedition was part of a 10-year planetary census to discover life in the ocean and collected a “brilliant selection” of fish and vertebrates from 3500m deep.
After being unable to identify what the creature was, the scientists simply started referring to it as “the thing”.
“It looked kind of like a sea star, but we thought it could also be a sea anemone or octocoral,” voyage leader Sadie Mills said.
“We had several world-leading experts onboard and none of us could place it, and initial DNA sequencing resulted in no close relationship with any known organism. So, it became known as ‘The Thing’.”
The specimen underwent further DNA sequencing, and finally, researchers got a positive result.
It was a 98.9% match to Oligotrema lyra, an abyssal ascidian or sea squirt. Taxonomic expert Dr Mike Page then morphologically confirmed this.
“It’s amazing that genetics could help us solve the mystery. We actually had two specimens, but it turned out they were both only parts of the whole creature, which is what threw us because we weren’t seeing the full picture,” Mills said.
“Our resident ascidian expert Mike thinks part of the body was buried in the sediment, and what we collected were the siphons that they use to feed and filter water, which protruded above the sand.”
Although the species is already known to science, this was the first time it had been documented in New Zealand.
According to NIWA, ascidians were common in New Zealand’s coastal waters and the deeper waters of the country’s continental shelf.
“They are amongst the more colourful marine invertebrates that inhabit our coasts, harbours, and oceans,” NIWA said.
When disturbed, sea squirts contract their siphons, expelling streams of water.
