Overview
- In 2023, NOAA’s ROV Deep Discoverer found and collected the four-inch, gold-tinted object about 3,250 meters down in the Gulf of Alaska and sent it to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History for study.
- Researchers determined the orb is a detached basal cuticle from the giant deep-sea anemone Relicanthus daphneae, using microscopy that revealed spirocysts and full genome and mitochondrial sequencing after standard tests were muddied by microbes.
- A similar specimen recovered in 2021 aboard Schmidt Ocean Institute’s R/V Falkor showed matching cell layers, and the mitochondrial genomes from both samples matched a reference for R. daphneae.
- The cuticle is made mostly of chitin and can remain on the seafloor, where dense microbes break down lingering tissue and likely aid local nitrogen cycling.
- The findings are posted as a bioRxiv preprint, and scientists still do not know why the anemone left the cuticle or exactly where the species fits in the anemone family tree.