Official documents call it Dulcibella camanchacais a fairly pale amphipod, measuring four centimeters and is a predator. And this is the most peculiar characteristic of this species that comes from afar, almost eight thousand meters deep in the Atacama Trench; the formation that extends off the coasts of Chile and Peru. Previously, a group of researchers extracted amphipods, a genus of malacostracean crustaceans, but none of them were predators. Until now.
Photography: Johanna Weston; Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
A journey among the exceptional life forms captured during a historic National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration mission to the Mariana Trench.
We only know 5% of the deep ocean
The research was divided into two teams between the US and Chile, from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the Millennium Institute of Oceanography (IMO) of the University of Concepción. In the pages of Systematics and Biodiversity, they say that the Atacama Trench, like the Mariana Trench, is an extreme place to say the least. As in all places on our planet, life forms with special adaptations can be found, but due to the distance it is more difficult for us to observe them.
This newcomer to the family Eusiridae It is a different species from all other amphipods, which showed scavenging behavior, unlike D. camanchaca. “Its predatory lifestyle is evidenced by its predatory gnathopods: the first pairs of legs of the crustacean, its slender and agile body morphology, and its mouthparts predisposed to crushing,” the study reads. The authors add that its role in the food chain is not clear, nor is the depth range in which it lives. To understand it, new studies will be necessary, which will also analyze in detail the contents of its digestive system.
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Saturn’s moon Titan is covered by a thick atmosphere and is believed to have numerous oceans and lakes of liquid methane on its surface, as well as a vast internal ocean of water underground. Its conditions point to the existence of “life.”
It is worth continuing to investigate
The new species confirms that the search in the depths is worth it: “Dulcibella camanchaca “expands our understanding of the members of the adopelagic zone food web and provides further evidence that the Atacama Trench, as an island, is a hot spot of endemic diversity.”
Finally, a curiosity about the name. As it was a new species of a new genus, two given names were needed. Dulcibella was chosen with some variations, in honor of the character Dulcinea del Toboso from the novel Don Quixote de la Mancha, as well as two genera from the same animal family named in honor of other characters from the same novel: Cleonardo and Dorotea. For its part, Camanchaca is a name that honors the area of discovery; it is also the way in which the Andean peoples of the area refer to darkness.
Article originally published in WIRED Italy. Adapted by Alondra Flores.
#predator #joins #fauna #Atacama #Trench
