Same Species, Polar Opposites: The Mystery of Identical Creatures Found in both Arctic and Antarctic Waters [Slide Show]
How exactly did identical marine species come to inhabit both the north and south polar regions?
Same Species, Polar Opposites: The Mystery of Identical Creatures Found in both Arctic and Antarctic Waters [Slide Show]
- LANCEOLA CLAUSI: Not much is known about Lanceola clausi other that it sometimes scavenges food and often ends up as fish fodder. "We know less than one percent of what lives below the upper 200 meters of ocean compared to everything above it," says Russ Hopcroft, project leader of the Arctic portion of the Census of Marine Life... Russ Hopcroft/UAF/CoML
- GAETANUS BREVISPINUS: Gaetanus brevispinus is another cosmopolitan species, but occurs most commonly in the shallow waters near the poles. Closer to the equator it can be found as deep as 3,000 meters. This species may serve as evidence for another theory of bipolarity: Scientists think that species traffic between the poles along a deep-sea conveyor belt known as thermohaline circulation... Russ Hopcroft/UAF/CoML
- DIPHYES DISPAR: Scientists argue whether Diphyes dispar is a single animal or a colony of specialized single-celled creatures that serve the whole. The creature's hood houses long tentacles adorned with blossomlike hooks to catch other plankton... Russ Hopcroft, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Census of Marine Life
- CLIONE LIMACINA: Clione limacina is one of the centimeter-long creatures that live both in the Arctic and Antarctic. The shell-less snail resembles an angel, but hidden within its mouth are six feeding arms and a tongue that looks like a chain saw... Kevin Raskoff, Monterey Peninsula College, Census of Marine Life
- POLARSTERN: The German vessel RV Polarstern cracks through the ice in the Antarctic on one of hundreds of voyages to map sea creatures for the Census of Marine Life. Data from voyages like this allowed scientists to compile a list of hundreds of identical species that live in Arctic and Antarctic waters, but possibly nowhere in between... J. Ziegler, Census of Antarctic Marine Life