This might look like something straight out of the movie Alien, but it’s actually a newly discovered terrestrial creature from our very own planet. This is what marine researchers are now calling the Antarctic strawberry feather star.
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00:00 [Music]
00:03 This might look like something straight out of the movie Alien,
00:06 but it's actually a newly discovered terrestrial creature from our very own planet.
00:10 This is what marine researchers are now calling the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star.
00:15 It's a 20-armed sea creature, with some long and some short.
00:18 The arms are also textured differently as well,
00:20 with some of the arms featuring feathery structures while the others are bumpy.
00:24 It was named the Strawberry Feather Star because if you remove its tentacles,
00:27 its body is shaped like the red fruit.
00:29 Each of the creature's myriad arms features a tiny claw that helps it stick to the seafloor.
00:34 It's part of the crinoidea family, which includes starfish and sea urchins,
00:38 with these being found at depths as far down as 3,840 feet below the surface.
00:44 Before finding this, experts thought there was only one species of feather star in existence.
00:49 This one also has more than twice the number of extremities as the other feather star species discovered.
00:54 However, researchers say they might have also found at least four new feather star species
00:58 as part of this investigation as well,
01:00 meaning this alien-looking creature might not be as rare as previously thought.
01:05 [music]