The team reached the newly exposed seafloor on 25 January 2025, and with the aid of their remotely operated vehicle (ROV SuBastian) they began to investigate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe didn\u2019t expect to find such a beautiful, thriving ecosystem,” said expedition co-chief scientist Dr. Patricia Esquete. \u201cBased on the size of the animals, the communities we observed have been there for decades, maybe even hundreds of years.\u201d<\/p>\n
The researchers made numerous astonishing discoveries beneath the iceberg<\/a>, including icefish, octopuses<\/a> and giant sea spiders<\/a>. They also recorded the first-ever footage of a glacial glass squid<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n But one of the most striking animals filmed on the eight-day expedition was a giant phantom jelly (Stygiomedusa gigantea). This mauve-coloured jellyfish<\/a> can grow to a colossal size: the bell can be more than 1m (3.3 feet) across, and the animal’s four ribbon-like ‘oral arms’ can reach lengths of more than 10m (33 feet).<\/p>\n The giant phantom jelly was one of many species filmed during Schmidt Ocean Institute\u2019s eight-day expedition in early 2025. Credit: Schmidt Ocean Institute<\/p>\n The giant phantom jelly is a rare and mysterious deep-sea jellyfish known for its ghostly, translucent<\/a> appearance. Unlike most jellyfish, it lacks tentacles<\/a> and uses its arms to capture prey.<\/p>\n First collected in 1899, it wasn’t recognised as a species until 60 years later. It has been seen fewer than 150 times by researchers, mostly via deep-sea submersibles such as Schmidt Ocean Institute’s ROV SuBastian.<\/p>\n More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In early 2025, an enormous iceberg spanning around 510 square kilometres (209 square miles) calved from the George…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[61,60,82,263],"class_list":["post-587425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Giant](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Giant-phantom-jelly-scaled.jpeg\")
The giant phantom jelly was documented in the Bellingshausen Sea off Antarctica, at an area where the shelf break and slope are cut by several underwater gullies. Credit: ROV SuBastian \/ Schmidt Ocean Institute<\/p>\n