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In a strange underwater video, a black mass drifts towards the camera. It is composed of a dark spherical blob at the front and a long thin tail in the back.
"What is it?" asks for a voice.
"Oh, wow," said another.
"It looks like a Muppet," said a third.
When the camera, mounted on a submarine vehicle, piloted from a distance, approaching the mass, his face resolves. Big frenetic eyes come out of the front of the sphere, appearing like Muppets. A rigid line surrounds the sphere around its equator. More sounds of approval come from the explorer's team aboard the Nautilus research vessel.
The camera gets a little closer and the sphere becomes something else: a sinuous and amorphous shape, like a black rubber ball – or a ball of a stranger material – trying to contain a tornado inside, swelling all the time. [10 More Fascinating Sea Creatures]
"Oooo-OOOH!" several voices are at one and the same time.
"It's in full defense," says another.
While the strange creature turns in the water, wringing itself in a circle so that its back is presented to the camera, another voice agrees saying, "That's it. is his defense. Let me explode so I can show them my size. . "
Shaking violently and turning towards the camera, the spherical mass splits on this rigid line. And the line turns out to be the jaw of the creature, with a gaping, diamond-shaped mouth opening on it. Be horribly grimace for a moment while the sphere deflates. And the normal, thin form of the eel body is revealed to the onlookers.
A moment later, the long edges of the jaw fold back against the body of the eel, disappearing like the wings of a fighter plane. With the exception of the color, tail and violent movements of his head, the now thinned creature is almost unrecognizable as the same animal seen previously. Biologist observers make grateful noises.
According to the Ocean Exploration Trust, a non-profit scientific organization behind the Nautilus mission, the animal captured in this video was an eel (Eurypharynx pelecanoides), also called "eel-wasp" or "eel pelicans". Despite its scary appearance, the creature in this video was probably a minor, the researchers wrote in a statement sent to Live Science. Adult eels of this species can grow up to 3 feet (close to one meter) long.
The video was captured, scientists wrote, as part of an expedition to document invisible regions of the Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Monument, a submarine site that extends northwest to the north. Hawaii in the North Pacific Ocean.
Originally published on Science live.
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