OCEANA Giant Foram Ranks the SUNY Top Ten Species

Image Source and Courtesy OCEANA -Expedition to Mediterranean Sea, Spain. Giant Foram Discovery.

The depths of 95 to 110 meters of the sea floor of the Mediterranean Sea of Spain is home for a newly discovered Giant Foraminifer. With only four to five centimeters Spiculosiphon oceana does not only rule the world of single-celled creatures of the Mediterranean but is now breaking international ocean news.

Local press of Spain reported on June 1st that the underwater discovery in Cabo de Palos ranks among the top 10 most important biological discoveries of the World.

The species was named Spiculosiphon "oceana" in honor the non-profit organization for ocean conservation OCEANA, which was responsible for the field collection of the type material. The Giant Forum was ranked in the Top 10 New Species for 2014 by the yearly ranking of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and International Institute for Species Exploration SUNY-ESF IISE. OCEANA discovered it during a 2012 voyage to the Seco de Palos seamount located off the coast of Murcia, Spain after half a decade of perseverant oceanic exploration and research.

“It is wonderful that the Spiculosiphon oceana has attracted international scientific attention,” research director of Oceana in Europe Ricardo Aguilar said adding that “the discovery of this protozoan species confirms the valuable biodiversity of seamounts and shows just how limited knowledge of the seabed is.”

Of the top 10 SUNY-ESF-IISE new species list 3 are dwell in aquatic environment and include a sea anemone and a bizarre skeleton shrimp. Without a doubt the place to be searching for new species in the unexplored ocean.

One of the attractions is that the Giant Foram acts much like a sponge does which is unusually strange because it belongs to the phylum of protists.

Protists and sponges are used in a diverse range of human made products which are marketed world-wide including medical products and medical research. Beyond that the services provided by the group and species to the environment are of ecological interest.

SUNY-ESF -International Institute for Species Exploration ranked the specie in 7th position because they were attracted by the apparently unique ability of the organism to gather pieces of silica spicules (sponge fragments) to use them “like so many Lego blocks to construct a shell”. Marveling Evolutionists the organisms uses mimicry “pretending” to be a sponge feeding by extending its “arms” small pseudopods outside of the shell attaching-prey of invertebrates which are trapped in spiny structures. Much like coral polyps feed at night from plankton and zooplankton.

OCEANA has been exploring the area of Seco de Palos since 2007. Their expeditions include the use and operations of remotely-operated vehicle ROVs. It took five years of oceanic work for the organization to make a ground breaking discovery. The Giant Forum shares its environment with basking sharks, sea turtles, and Risso’s dolphins.

“This species was discovered in underwater caves 30 miles off the southeast coast of Spain. Interestingly, they are the same caves where carnivorous sponges were first discovered,” SUNY says from New York.

Ocean Life News in Brief

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