An age of discovery is upon us.
Earth is an ocean planet, with over 70 percent of its surface covered in seas. With deep-sea robots, scientists regularly reveal new insights into the most mysterious realms of these expansive waters. Many alien ecosystems dwell in previously unknown canyons or cling to submerged mountains.
In 2024, the Schmidt Ocean Institute, an ocean exploration group that uses a robot capable of probing depths down to 14,760 feet (4,500 meters), embarked on a 55-day expedition that exemplifies the wild sightings found at these depths. Their remotely operated vehicle (ROV), SuBastian, spotted a colossal meeting or migration of crabs, a shimmering, psychedelic marine worm, life flourishing around deep methane seeps, and possibly 60 new species.
“Every time we put the ROV down with its 4K cameras onboard, we see some amazing biodiversity,” Jyotika Virmani, an oceanographer and executive director of the Schmidt Ocean Institute, told Mashable.
“It was just one thing after another,” she added.
The view below shows the impressive, uncountable amassing of crabs during Schmidt’s recent Chile Margin expedition. “Yesterday, we came across a crazy conflagration of crabs 400 meters down. Migration route? Mating season?” Jeffrey Marlow, a biologist from Boston University and chief scientist of the trip, posted online.
Submersibles crewed by biologists can certainly perform unique science, but ROVs have exploration benefits. Unlike people, they don’t need oxygen, and can stay down for a long time. “We can operate it for two days if we need to,” Virmani said. It’s relatively easy to try out new technologies aboard these robots, and the ROV can also collect and bring samples back to the surface.
Below, you’ll find the otherworldly scenes captured by the Schmidt Ocean Institute and other deep sea explorers in 2024.
Footage of extremely ancient deep sea creatures
A deep sea mission, undertaken by the Ocean Exploration Trust aboard their 223-foot vessel (E/V) Nautilus, spotted four nautilus individuals. Creatures similar to these modern-day nautiloids — swimming mollusks residing in large shells — have been on Earth for some 500 million years, evolving much earlier than the dinosaurs.
But the creatures aren’t easy to find. The Ocean Trust explorers have endeavored into the deep sea for 15 years and taken over 1,000 dives with their remotely operated vehicle. But these are the first nautiloids they’ve spotted.
“It’s finally happened,” a member of the exploration team said at the beginning of the footage, shown in the video below. The nautiloids were swimming in a south Pacific Ocean channel off Palau.
Squid with a huge brood of eggs
During their 55-day voyage through the Chile Margin, the Schmidt Ocean Institute serendipitously spotted a mother black-eyed squid clutching a large brood of eggs. Gonatus squids can brood up to 3,000 eggs at a time.
“It’s not often you get to see that,” Virmani said.
Mashable Light Speed
Octopuses punching fish
The ocean exploration group OceanX captured footage of octopuses punching fish in the Red Sea. OceanX often explores the deep ocean, but this scene is from shallower depths.
“The octopuses appeared to punch the fish to enforce social order and keep the hunting group moving along,” OceanX explained in their video, below. “Researchers theorize that the octopuses hunt with the fish to find prey more easily, and the fish hunt with the octopuses to root out prey hiding in crevices.”
Discovery of the “mystery mollusc”
Scientists at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute identified an intriguing new deep sea species off California. It’s see-through, can glow, and nabs prey with a large hood. At one point while filming, researchers watched it detach one of its finger-like appendages, likely as a decoy for a predator. The glowing appendage then floated away.
“When we first filmed it glowing with the ROV, everyone in the control room let out a loud ‘Oooooh!’ at the same time. We were all enchanted by the sight,” Steven Haddock, a senior scientist at the institute, said in a statement.
Below, you can view brilliant footage of the animal, which biologists have dubbed the “mystery mollusc.” It now also has a scientific name, Bathydevius caudactylus, and after years of observation and genetic testing, scientists have concluded it’s a species of nudibranch, more popularly known as sea slugs.
Wild deep sea squid sighting
A baited robotic lander lured a magnapinna — a rarely seen bigfin squid — and allowed researchers from Minderoo-UWA Deep-Sea Research Centre and Inkfish to film this cryptic footage. The squid was observed in the Tonga Trench, located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean.
“Exceptional” footage of two deep sea critters
“While diving on an unnamed seamount west of Babeldaob near the Palau National Marine Sanctuary, ROV Hercules happened upon two gorgeous deep sea creatures,” writes the Ocean Exploration Trust.
Seen first is a Chaunacops, an anglerfish with a large lure. Next is a clear view of a dumbo octopus, named for its ear-like fins.
Shimmering creature in the remote ocean
While investigating the little-explored Chilean coast — with seeps and vents emitting nutrients into the water — the Schmidt Ocean Institute spotted a curious, almost alien-looking species: a shimmering species of polychaete crawling on the seafloor. It’s a psychedelic marine worm.
You can see this slow-moving creature’s sparkling bristles, or chaetae, in the video below.
Polychaetes are extremely diverse organisms.
“The visual variety among the more than 10,000 described species means a polychaete enthusiast is never bored,” Karen Osborn, the curator of Marine Invertebrates at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, explains. “They come in every imaginable color and pattern, from completely transparent to iridescent to candy-striped.”
Predator discovery at 26,000 feet down
The newly discovered deep sea predator, Dulcibella camanchaca.
Credit: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Deep Sea biologists found a new animal some 26,000 feet (7,902 meters) underwater in the ocean’s “hadal zone,” named for the Greek god of the underworld, Hades. These researchers lowered baited traps into the Atacama Trench off of Chile, and brought up four individuals of a species now called Dulcibella camanchaca.
“Dulcibella camanchaca is a fast-swimming predator that we named after ‘darkness’ in the languages of the peoples from the Andes region to signify the deep, dark ocean from where it predates,” Johanna Weston, a hadal ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution who coauthored the discovery, said in a statement.
In the hadal zone, the deepest ocean realm, many critters depend on food sinking down from the more productive waters above. But Dulcibella camanchaca isn’t a scavenger. The four-centimeter (1.5-inch) crustacean (an arthropod with a hard shell like a crab) captures smaller hadal crustaceans.
Deep sea exploration does much more than illuminate wonder.
Scientists want to shine a light — literally and figuratively — on what’s down there. The implications of knowing are incalculable, particularly as deep sea mineral prospectors prepare to run tank-like industrial equipment across parts of the seafloor. For example, research expeditions have found that ocean life carries great potential for novel medicines. “Systematic searches for new drugs have shown that marine invertebrates produce more antibiotic, anti-cancer, and anti-inflammatory substances than any group of terrestrial organisms,” notes the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
“There’s life down there that has the potential to provide and has provided us with medicines,” Virmani said.
