National Geographic News, Reporting Your World Daily

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Strange Sea Creatures Found in Antarctica


Email to a Friend	<< Back to Full Story

February 20, 2008—Looking like glass tulips, these tunicates are actually animals—early seafloor colonizers in areas of the Southern Ocean recently disturbed by iceberg scouring.

Scientists say these plankton-eating tunicates that can grow up to a yard (meter) tall. In the Southern Ocean they were found "standing in fields like poppies," said Martin Riddle, the Australian Antarctic Division scientist who led a recent expedition to take a census of Antarctic marine life.

Photograph by Martin Riddle/Australian Antarctic Division