New Jellyfish Species Found In Mariana Trench Look Like Lava Lamps

During an expedition into the deep ocean by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, scientists discovered a new species of jellyfish that looked like it came straight out of a Pixar movie.

Researchers exploring depths of the Mariana Trench came across this glowing jellyfish. https://t.co/6b4Wruvk22 pic.twitter.com/RZcTGI2tQq

— Smithsonian Magazine (@SmithsonianMag) May 3, 2016

The expedition captured the footage of the hydromedusa - a beautiful, tiny jellyfish that lived 3,700 meters in the deep sea. According to the researchers, it is one of only five species from the genus Crossota. Maine News Online noted that it was found during the fourth dive in deep seas by the nearly four-month expedition in and around the Mariana Trench, in the Pacific east of the Philippines.

The hydromedusa has long and short sets of tentacles, which led scientists to believe that it is an ambush predator. The jellyfish is even more interesting to scientists because it looks almost as if it was fake - it looks like a translucent ball that glows red and yellow, with thin tentacles coming out of it.

Filmed with the help of high-definition cameras on the remote-operated underwater vehicle Deep Discoverer, the jellyfish, unlike most of its kind, does not have an immobile polyp stage. Instead, it seems to have spent most of its life drifting in the ocean.

There is yet a lot to be explored in the Mariana Trench. According to CNet, the area reaches a maximum depth of about 11 kilometers that scientists know of, and the bioluminescent jellies (which looked like live lava lamps) were found less than mid-way, at 3.7 kilometers - there is more left to be discovered.

In a statement about the exploration, NOAA said that their primary goal is to acquire baseline information about deepwater areas, and to understand how deepwater habitat species are diversified and distributed.