Remarkable images of life from one of the most inhospitable spots in the ocean have been captured by scientists. Researchers have been surveying volcanic underwater vents - sometimes called black smokers - in the South West Indian Ridge in the Indian Ocean.
The UK team found an array of creatures living in the super-heated waters, including yeti crabs, scaly-foot snails and sea cucumbers. They believe some of the species may be new to science.
The team, from the University of Southampton, was particularly interested in the vents on the South West Indian Ridge because this range is linked to the Mid Atlantic Ridge and the Central Indian Ridge, where vent life has been well documented.
This area is also unusual because it is an “ultra-slow spreading” ridge, which means it is less volcanically active than other ridges, with fewer vents that are further apart.
Using a remote-operated, underwater robot called Kiel 6000, from the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences (IFM Geomar), in Germany, the team was able to train their cameras on the vents.
In the hottest habitat around the black smokers, they found snails and shrimp, as well as mussels, sea cucumbers and crabs. They then compared these with the animals found at vents on the neighbouring ridges. The team was also surprised at the diversity of life they found during this expedition, which was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (Nerc). Dr Copley said: “In a lot of other vent fields I’ve been to, in this hot zone where you get the animals there is often just one type of animal living there: in the deep Mid Atlantic Ridge, it’s the shrimp. But here, we have seen three to four all in the same zone.”
The findings should help researchers to learn more about how life moves from vent to vent: vents are short lived, and without the ability to hop from one system to the next, life there would go extinct. –BBC