SCIENTISTS have finally cracked a mystery involving a giant Antarctic sea spider.
How giant sea spiders in Antarctica reproduce has largely been a mystery for the last 140 years.
Now, experts have observed what the creatures do with their eggs and why this makes them different from other sea spiders.
These findings have just been published in the journal Ecology.
Scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa went on an expedition to observe the behavior.
“In most sea spiders, the male parent takes care of the babies by carrying them around while they develop,” UH Mānoa School of Life Sciences Professor and lead researcher Amy Moran said.
“What’s weird is that despite descriptions and research going back over 140 years, no one had ever seen the giant Antarctic sea spiders brooding their young or knew anything about their development.”
A groundbreaking discovery that helps solve this mystery has now been revealed by the scientists.
It was first observed in 2021 during a field research expedition to Antarctica.
Researchers captured groups of giant sea spiders while diving under the ice.
The spiders, which can grow to around a foot wide, were thought to be mating at the time.
They were then put in tanks and observed during this time.
Scientists discovered that thousands of tiny eggs were produced but they weren’t carried by any of the spiders.
Instead, they were one of the spiders spent two days carefully attaching eggs to the rocky bottom of the tank.
These eggs were left alone and eventually turned into larvae after several months.
“We were so lucky to be able to see this,” PhD student Aaron Toh said.
“The opportunity to work directly with these amazing animals in Antarctica meant we could learn things no one had ever even guessed.”
Toh and fellow PhD student Graham Lobert were the divers who made the groundbreaking discovery.
Lobert explained how microscopic algae helped disguise the small eggs and protect them from predators.
“We could hardly see the eggs even when we knew they were there, which is probably why researchers had never seen this before,” he said.