Orange sea creature with ‘bubble’-like bumps discovered as new species off Louisiana
Off the coast of Louisiana, scientists aboard a research vessel hauled up a box-like structure and began to take it apart. Inside, they found an orange sea creature with “bubble”-like blobs running along its body.
It turned out to be a new species.
A team of researchers studying marine ecosystems in the Gulf of Mexico decided to install new surveying devices known as Autonomous Reef Monitoring Structures, or ARMS, according to a study published Dec. 31 in the peer-reviewed journal ZooKeys.
ARMS are “stacks of plates that mimic the complex structure of the sea bottom” and function “like mini-hotels” for small, hard-to-survey sea creatures, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, one of the organization’s leading the program, said in an article. These devices “are deployed for a period of time, then recovered by a team and taken apart to see who moved in.”
Researchers installed several ARMS off the Louisiana coast in 2019 and collected them in 2021, the study said. While checking the devices, researchers noticed a pair of “worm-shaped” mollusks and soon realized they’d discovered a new species: Eleutheromenia bullescens, or the bubbling solenogaster.
Solenogasters are an “unique” group of mollusks that look like a cross between a worm and a sea slug. Unlike most mollusks, solenogasters have no shells. These “difficult-to-find” sea animals are rarely seen alive and thus poorly understood, researchers said.
The new species of solenogaster can reach about half an inch in length, the study said. Its “elongate” body is “light orange” with a row of “nearly spherical” bumps.
Researchers said they named the new species after the Latin word “bullesco,” “meaning ‘to bubble’ or ‘to form bubbles,’” because of these bumps. The bumps are “delicate” and “detach easily.”
Photos show the pale orange hue of the bubbling solenogaster. After being preserved, the animal’s body faded to white.
The new species lives about 270 feet underwater and feeds on cnidarians a group of marine invertebrates that includes jellyfish, corals and sea anemones, the study said. Much else about its lifestyle remains unknown.
So far, the new species has only been found at one site in the Gulf of Mexico about 130 miles southwest from New Orleans.
The new species was identified by its DNA, body covering, internal anatomy, bumps and coloring, the study said.
The research team included M. Carmen Cobo, William Farris, Chandler Olson, Emily McLaughlin and Kevin Kocot. The team also discovered a second new species of solenogaster with a “bright pink” body.
This story was originally published December 31, 2024 at 9:07 AM with the headline "Orange sea creature with ‘bubble’-like bumps discovered as new species off Louisiana."
