Even in the 21st century, wildlife mysteries abound, especially in the deep oceans. One exciting recent example was the discovery of what became known as the 'golden orb'. Found on a deep-sea exploration in 2023, the strange object baffled scientists for three painstaking years until they unlocked its secrets.
The story begins with a routine operation carried out by the US Government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The NOAA studies and conserves coastal and marine ecosystems and had sent its ship Okeanos Explorer on a deep-water mapping expedition to the Gulf of Alaska in the Pacific Ocean in the autumn of 2023.
The expedition was called Seascape Alaska 5 and the team launched a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) called Deep Discoverer on 19 dives in waters ranging from 252m to 4262m deep, mapping over 28,000 sq km of seafloor.
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On one of the dives, Deep Discoverer investigated a submarine volcano known as the Walker Seamount, 3200m below the surface. At such depths, the cold and pressure are extreme and, because light does not penetrate, discovering anything with any colour is highly unusual. So the team viewing the video streamed back to the ship were astonished when the ROV came across a blob with a reflective golden surface stuck to a rock. They even joked that this is how horror movies begin.
Using the ROV's robotic arm and sucker, they carefully collected the blob and brought it to the ship for inspection. It was still golden and shiny when they examined it and it had a skin-like fibrous texture. It was about 10cm across and there was a large hole in one part of it. But they were baffled. It had no obvious animal features – no mouth, no gut, no muscles. Was it an egg case, a dead sponge or an entirely new organism?
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The 'golden orb' was sent to NOAA Fisheries’ National Systematics Laboratory at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC. Experts there used an 'integrative taxonomic approach' to examine the orb – essentially combining a study of its physical appearance with genetic analysis to identify the mystery object.
An electron microscope revealed that the orb's tissue was made of chitin (a substance that also makes up the hard parts of other invertebrates – such as beetle wing cases). It was also covered in spirocyst stinging cells, linking it to the phylum Cnidaria, which comprises more than 11,000 species of aquatic invertebrates including jellyfish, corals and sea anemones.
DNA analysis proved more challenging. The orb was covered in exotic micro-organisms, which made initial examinations rather confusing. But deeper whole genome sequencing produced a more definitive result: it confirmed animal DNA and that there was a large amount of genetic material from a giant deep-sea anemone called Relicanthus daphneae.
R daphneae had been seen on other deep-sea expeditions around hydrothermal vents in the Pacific, Indian and Southern Oceans and is known to have tentacles 2m long. This new finding suggests the bizarre creature is more widespread than previously thought. The scientists eventually concluded that the blob or orb was the cuticle (a sort of slimy excretion) that the anemone uses to attach itself to a rock.
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They even surmised that as the blob looked like it had been deliberately abandoned, it suggests the anemone is mobile to some extent. Furthermore, as is the case in some other species of anemone, a new anemone may be able to grow from the abandoned anchoring cuticle – part of a strange reproductive cycle.
The experts could still not work out whether the hole in the blob was due to decay or an integral part of the object's structure. They also remain unsure why it is golden in colour. However, they were fascinated by the communities of organisms that they had found living on it. These tiny microbes are a key parts of the ocean's nitrogen cycle and so the anemone's blobby cuticles might be providing a hitherto unknown but crucial home for them. There is clearly much more to discover.
top image: Sunset cup coral (Leptopsammia pruvoti), Spain. This image is not of the 'golden orb.' Credit: imageBROKER/Rolf von Riedmatten/ Getty Images
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