Watch rare footage of a shapeshifting eel with 'remarkably full tummy' swimming in the deep sea

  • 📰 LiveScience
  • ⏱ Reading Time:
  • 43 sec. here
  • 2 min. at publisher
  • 📊 Quality Score:
  • News: 20%
  • Publisher: 51%

Energy Energy Headlines News

Energy Energy Latest News,Energy Energy Headlines

Harry is a U.K.-based staff writer at Live Science. He studied Marine Biology at the University of Exeter (Penryn campus) and after graduating started his own blog site 'Marine Madness,' which he continues to run with other ocean enthusiasts. He is also interested in evolution, climate change, robots, space exploration, environmental conservation and anything that's been fossilized. When not at work he can be found watching sci-fi films, playing old Pokemon games or running (probably slower than he'd like).

Ocean explorers recently stumbled upon an extremely unusual sight in the Pacific's deep sea — a rare, shapeshifting"gulper eel" with its most recent meal still clearly visible in its stomach.

A short video of the encounter, which was shared on Twitter by representatives from Schmidt Ocean Institute who organized the mission, showed the eel contorting its misshapen body as it swam up to the camera before disappearing into the darkness of the deep. Experts aren't sure what was inside the belly of the gulper eel, but SOI representatives guessed that it could have been a"squid or swarm of shrimp," and based on the size and shape of the lump, a squid seems like the most likely of the two. But gulper eels are also suspected to eat large lumps of seaweed, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts.

related stories—Mysterious 'nightmare' shark with unnerving human-like smile dragged up from the deep sea—Deep-sea squid mom carries dazzling pearl-like string of eggs

 

Thank you for your comment. Your comment will be published after being reviewed.
Please try again later.
We have summarized this news so that you can read it quickly. If you are interested in the news, you can read the full text here. Read more:

 /  🏆 538. in ENERGY

Energy Energy Latest News, Energy Energy Headlines