'Mud Monsters' Galore! Mariana Trench Dive Yields Bizarre Deep-Sea Life

A recent underwater expedition to the Mariana Trench, the deepest known ocean spot in the world, filmed many forms of bizarre marine life close to the seafloor, and captured the first-ever footage of a shrimp feeding at record-breaking depths. Sponges on stalks, ghost-pale lizard fish and a hermit crab carrying an anemone hitchhiker were among the so-called "mud monsters" that paraded in front of the cameras of the remotely operated vehicle (ROV), offering a rare glimpse of deep-sea animals' habits and lifestyles that are normally extremely challenging to observe and study. This is the deepest ocean observation of this group of shrimp to date, the scientists wrote in a new study.