Underwater explorers and scientists have found new species of ‘eyeless’ shrimp and snails, as well as lobsters and fish living on or near the world’s hottest thermal vents in the deepest reaches of the Cayman Trough.
Earlier, they disclosed that three miles underwater they had located ‘black smokers’ – thermal vents that emit murky mineral-rich water hot enough to melt lead more than half a mile into the sea above. Around two of the vents, the researchers found two types of shrimp and collected samples of one type, which they determined had never been seen before.
One of the leaders of the expedition, Jon Copley of the UK’s University of Southampton’s National Oceanography Centre, said: “We only collected a few specimens during the expedition in 2010, but the shrimp that throngs around both vents is a new species.” These kinds of shrimp by deep thermal vents do not have eyes in the traditional sense, but instead have a pair of light-sensing organs on their back that may help them navigate in the faint glow of the deep-sea vents. The shrimp are just over an inch long.
The team found hordes of the shrimp, up to 2,000 per 3 square feet, around the 20 feet-tall mineral spires of the vents. They named them Rimicaris hybisae, after the unmanned deep diving vehicle HyBIS that they used to collect, photograph and film them.
“There are also new species of snail and a small type of crustacean called an amphipod – and will there undoubtedly be more new species to find in further exploration,” Mr. Copley said.
They also saw hundreds of white-tentacled anemones lining cracks where warm water seeps from the sea bed. “Studying the creatures at these vents, and comparing them with species at other vents around the world; will help us to understand how animals disperse and evolve in the deep ocean,” said Mr. Copley.
The researchers, on board the British research vessel TSS James Cook, made the discovery nearly two years ago, but announced their findings this week in Nature Communications journal.
Another team of 23 researchers, travelling on board the US research vessel Atlantis, along with some members of the original team from the UK, are currently using a remotely-operated vehicle called Jason-2, to further explore the vents in the Cayman Trough, located about 60 miles south from Grand Cayman.
“We can’t wait to hear what they find,” Mr. Copley told the Caymanian Compass. “They will be collecting more samples, and we hope they will also be able to measure the temperature of the vents directly, which we could not do with our underwater vehicle.
“Our calculations from the data that we collected in 2010 estimate that the deepest vents could be very hot – possibly more than 450 degrees Celsius – so we’re waiting to see if that turns out to be the case.”
Although they exist on what scientists believe are the hottest thermal vents ever found, the newly discovered creatures living around those vents are not in the very hottest water, Mr. Copley said, and that is why they’re not already ‘cooked’.
“They are living at no more than 20 to 40 degrees Celsius, which is not much warmer than shallow tropical seas,” he said.
During his team’s exploration of the site, they also came across empty mussel shells and empty tubes resembling those of siboglinid polychaetes, more commonly known as beard worms.
One of the vents explored by the team’s remote controlled robot submarine was named the Beebe Vent Field and is more than half a mile deeper than any vent previously found. They also found a shallower vent field on the side of an underwater mountain called Mount Dent.
The team used a robot submarine called Autosub6000, developed by engineers at the National Oceanography Centre in Southampton, to survey the seafloor of the Cayman Trough in unprecedented detail, and then launched the HyBIS, developed by team member Bramley Murton and Berkshire-based engineering company Hydro-Lek Ltd, to film the world’s deepest vents for the first time.
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