“There is a chance there are new species, if only because of a lack of looking,” she added. “There’s been lots of work in the Weddell Sea but mostly on soft bottoms,” Dr. The wreck provides insights into the kinds of life in the Weddell Sea that live on hard structures, according to Louise Allcock, a zoologist at the National University of Ireland Galway. Other tenants were more mysterious - white tendrils, transparent blobs and a mysterious feather-shaped creature.Ĭhristopher Mah, a sea star researcher at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, said he expected a “rich bonanza of critters living in and among the wreck of the Endurance.” In the deep sea, where food is scarce and the landscape is mostly a mushy sludge, a shipwreck is precious real estate. Griffiths zoomed in on the wreck footage to spotlight creatures that he recognized: anemones, sponges, sea squirts, sea stars and a lemon-yellow sea lily. Over the years, the ship had become as lush as a garden. His second thought: What was living on it? His first thought was that the ship looked almost fake, considering how eerily pristine it remained 106 years after sinking to the bottom of the Weddell Sea near Antarctica. Griffiths found himself far more interested in the footage than his breakfast. ![]() Huw Griffiths, a marine bio-geographer at the British Antarctic Survey, was eating pancakes when news broke that the wreck of the Endurance - the famed ship helmed by Ernest Shackleton that sank in an expedition in 1915 - had been discovered.ĭr.
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