Imagine the most unfriendly place you have ever heard of–do more. Way deeper. The scientists have recently discovered something unbelievable that is hiding in the depths of the ocean, 8,000 meters, a place where the pressure would kill you in seconds, and the light has never reached. Meet Dulcibella camanchaca, a tiny but fierce predator that calls the Atacama Trench home.
This four-centimeter murderer controls the deepest spots of the ocean
Disequivocal what is so great about this little guy? Well, that is essentially the king of the jungle of one of the most barbaric communities on Earth. Atacama Trench along the coast of Chile is by no means a holiday destination – we are talking of crushing depths, at which most life forms would just give up. But not this amphipod. It has these evil-skilled claws with which it captures the smaller animals in the black water.
It received the name of the ideal name of Dr. Johanna Weston of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. They gave it the name of camanchaca which is the Andean term of darkness. Fitting pretty well when you think how this vermin lives all its life where there has never been light. In their 2023 trip, the research crew was able to snatch four specimens on their expedition and they did so with some extremely high-tech gear that can be used to take advantage of the harsh conditions at the deepest levels.
Why this predator is so lethal:
- Sprinting speed in compressive force.
- Hooked killing feet to seize the victim.
- Exquisite night vision (dark vision).
- Super-efficient food desert energy consumption.
Scientists were not able to imagine what their DNA tests show
Lab results were also returned to Universidad de Concepción, which, in turn, made the researchers have to check everything again. This was not any other new species but the genetic work revealed that something much more serious was hanging around in those samples.
The DNA test was a blow-out-of-proportion that was unexpected. This animal is not only a new species, it is a new genus. Imagine it like this: what would you call getting an instance of an entirely new form of big cat that was not quite a lion, tiger or leopard, but was something completely different. Such is what has occurred in this case. The genetic evidence of the entirely new branch of the evolutionary tree that scientists discovered started to stare upon had been lying deep in the darkest corner of our planet.
Dr. Carolina Gonzalez of Instituto Milenio de Oceanologia was too excited at the implications. When there is a new genus it is like having a lost piece to a puzzle that completes our knowledge of life itself. Atacama Trench continues to astonish scientists by offering the rare evolutionary lab, in which isolation and harsh conditions have given rise to species that can not be found anywhere in the rest of the world.
How is this small predator important to our future as a planet
This is not mere cool science but it is a wake-up call regarding the need to take care of the most extreme environments of the oceans. These sea bottom troughs are not wastelands as we used to believe. They are swarming with rare species of life that millions of years. These are delicate environments that are threatened by the climate change and pollution even before we have a chance to even learn to study them.
The ocean really is a big mystery as we continue to discover entirely new branches of life as late as 2024. Whenever scientists venture down to such crushing depths with their instruments, they find something that, upon coming back, rewrites the text books. You never know who may be down there and awaiting discovery by other of the predators?
