The Last Creature You'd Expect Left Mysterious Trails on the Ocean Floor

Guess Which Creature Made Mysterious Trails on the Ocean Floor
Something with no legs, no feet and no skeleton is crawling around down there, scientists say.
Video
Sponge spicule trails on the Arctic seafloor, captured by the research icebreaker Polarstern in 2016. Video by AWI OFOBS TEAM, PS101
By Marion Renault
April 30, 2021
Deep-sea sponges are not known for their mobility. After all, they lack muscles, nervous systems and organs. And forget about fins or feet for traveling the Arctic seafloor.
But new research suggests these ancient life-forms can and do, indeed, get around — and far more than marine biologists believed. By studying hundreds of photos and videos of Arctic sponges, scientists from Germany’s Max Planck Institute of Marine Microbiology discovered a vast web of trails several feet long left in the creatures’ roaming wake.

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