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Scientists have entrance sensational TV of a dinner party - scale - size ocean wanderer crawling on the seafloor off the South Sandwich Islands , a concatenation of volcanic islands near Antarctica in one of the most remote areas of the Earth .
Sea spider , also known as pycnogonids , are distant cousins of the creepy - crawly arachnids we see scuttling about on Din Land . These creatures can have leg twain of up to 20 inches ( 51 centimeters ) — nearly double those of thelargest land spiders , whose leg spans top out at around 12 inches ( 30 cm ) .
There are roughly 1,500 known species of sea spider, with some measuring up to 20 inches in leg span.
allot to the Schmidt Ocean Institute , which shared the footage , the wanderer ’s monumental size is a result ofdeep - ocean overgrowth , the tendency for deep - ocean animate being to grow significantly large than their shallow - water congener . In this case , the pycnogonid was film at a depth of 6,903 feet ( 2,104 meters ) .
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" Immense force per unit area and frigid temperatures , while insuperable obstacles to demesne - lovers like mankind , countenance some animals to have very slow metabolism and the ability to reach jumbo proportion , " Schmidt Ocean Institute representatives publish in aFacebook post .
Larger fauna can also move faster and farther to find intellectual nourishment or to place a mate , which is important when both are scarce .
Deep - ocean gigantism is especially prevalent toward the rod , where freezing temperatures facilitate dull metabolisms . Schmidt Ocean Institute example described sea spiders as both " abundant " and " abundantly large " in polar neighborhood .
There are roughly 1,500 species of sea wanderer know to skill and likely many more yet to be discovered , according to the position . ocean spiders inhabit sea around the earth and range just a few millimeters to the sizing of a suffice platter . The species of spider in the video from the Schmidt Ocean Institute has not been specify .
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The largest members of this mathematical group are usually found at deepness between 7,200 and 13,100 feet ( 2,200 to 4,000 m ) , according to theMonterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute .
Instead of spin webs or create burrows as nation spider do , sea spider utilize a specialised tube - like mouth social organisation , called a proboscis , to slurp up prey such as ocean anemones , jelly and other invertebrates .
This late footage was ingest by remotely operated vehicle pilots as part of the Schmidt Ocean Institute ’s South Sandwich Islands dispatch , a mission to locate and describe Modern coinage in these frigid waters . According to the institute , scientist have discovered only 10 % of ocean life .
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