There are about 1,500 known species of sea spiders in the world, and some can have a leg span of up to 20 inches. (Image credit: Science History Images/Alamy)
Scientists have captured incredible video of a dinner plate-sized sea spider crawling along the ocean floor off the South Sandwich Islands, a chain of volcanic islands near Antarctica that sits in one of the most remote corners of the planet.
Sea spiders, also called pycnogonids, are distant relatives of the fearsome land arachnids we see on land. These creatures can have a leg span of up to 20 inches (51 cm), nearly twice as large as the largest land spiders, which have a leg span of about 12 inches (30 cm).
According to the Schmidt Ocean Institute, which shared the footage, the spider's impressive size is due to the phenomenon of deep-sea gigantism — the tendency of deep-sea animals to grow significantly larger than their shallow-sea counterparts. In this case, the pycnogonid was captured at a depth of 6,903 feet (2,104 meters).
Published by SchmidtOcean on
“The extreme pressures and low temperatures that would be impossible for creatures like humans to survive allow some animals to have very slow metabolisms and grow to gigantic sizes,” the Schmidt Ocean Institute wrote in a Facebook post.
Larger organisms are also able to move faster and over longer distances in search of food or a mate, which is important when both resources are limited.
Deep-sea gigantization is especially common in polar regions, where cold temperatures encourage slower metabolism. The Schmidt Ocean Institute described sea spiders as “abundant” and “extremely large” in these cold zones.
According to the report, there are approximately 1,500 known species of sea spiders, with many more likely to be discovered. The creatures live in oceans around the world and range in size from a few millimeters to the size of a serving plate. The specific species of spider in the Schmidt Ocean Institute video is not specified.
According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the largest members of this group are typically found at depths ranging from 7,200 to 13,100 feet (2,200 to 4,000 m).
Instead of spinning webs or digging burrows like land spiders, sea spiders use a specialized tube-shaped mouth structure called a proboscis to ingest their prey, such as sea anemones, jellyfish, and other invertebrates.
The latest footage was captured by remotely operated vehicles during the Schmidt Ocean Institute's South Sandwich Islands expedition, a mission to discover and describe new species in these frigid waters. The institute says scientists have discovered only 10 percent of ocean life.
Pandora DewanSocial Link NavigationTrending News Editor
Pandora is the news editor at Live Science. She also serves as a science anchor and previously worked as a senior science and health reporter at Newsweek. Pandora holds a degree in biological sciences from the University of Oxford, where she specialized in biochemistry and molecular biology.
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