(Newser)
– Researchers working in Antarctica have made an unexpected discovery: colonies of stationary animals (probably sponges and related creatures) attached to a rock deep under the ice, NBC reports. Geologists who bored the 3,000-foot-thick ice of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf to take sediment samples from the ocean floor ran into the rock and sent a camera. “It was a real surprise to see these animals there,” Huw Griffiths, a marine biologist and lead author of the new study documenting the finding, told CNN. “It’s amazing,” he said, speaking to NBC, “because no one had ever seen them.” In the past, small mobile creatures, such as fish, worms, jellyfish and crustaceans, were found far below the ice. Guardian notes. But stationary filters have not.
Many scientists thought this was due to the hostile environment created by total darkness, scarcity of food sources, and icy temperatures. Sponges and other filters survive by feeding on plant and animal floating material. The boulder that houses the animals is about 150 miles from the open sea. According to currents, the foods they eat can come from more than 900 miles away, according to researchers. “It was a real shock to find them there, a very good shock, but we can’t do DNA tests, we can’t find out what they eat or how old they are. We don’t even know if they are new species, but they definitely live in one place. where we would not expect them to live, “Griffiths told al Guardian. (Read more Antarctic stories.)