This might look like something straight out of the movie Alien, but it’s actually a newly discovered terrestrial creature from our very own planet. This is what marine researchers are now calling the Antarctic strawberry feather star.
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00:00This might look like something straight out of the movie Alien, but it's actually a newly
00:07discovered terrestrial creature from our very own planet.
00:10This is what marine researchers are now calling the Antarctic Strawberry Feather Star.
00:15It's a 20 armed sea creature, with some long and some short.
00:18The arms are also textured differently as well, with some of the arms featuring feathery
00:22structures while the others are bumpy.
00:24It was named the Strawberry Feather Star because if you remove its tentacles, its body is shaped
00:28like the red fruit.
00:29Each of the creature's myriad arms features a tiny claw that helps it stick to the seafloor.
00:34It's part of the crinoidia family, which includes starfish and sea urchins, with these being
00:39found at depths as far down as 3,840 feet below the surface.
00:44Before finding this, experts thought there was only one species of feather star in existence.
00:49This one also has more than twice the number of extremities as the other feather star species
00:54discovered.
00:55However, researchers say they might have also found at least four new feather star species
00:58as part of this investigation as well, meaning this alien-looking creature might not be as
01:03rare as previously thought.