{"id":289025,"date":"2026-02-17T23:49:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:49:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289025\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T23:49:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T23:49:12","slug":"ultimate-ocean-travellers-diver-in-japan-finds-tiny-animals-with-tentacles-around-their-mouths","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/289025\/","title":{"rendered":"“Ultimate ocean travellers”: diver in Japan finds tiny animals with tentacles around their mouths"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Brazilian researcher Dr Maria ‘Duda’ Santos went scuba diving in Okinawa, Japan, she was surprised. Everywhere she looked, she saw species that were totally different to the marine life back home \u2013 but she also saw something very familiar: the zoantharians looked identical to the ones she knew from Brazil.<\/p>\n

Zoantharians are\u00a0anemone<\/a>-like animals often found in\u00a0coral reefs<\/a>. The tentacles<\/a> that surround their mouth can make them look like tiny underwater flowers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEach polyp will use the tentacles to capture plankton prey in the water column,\u201d says\u00a0Santos<\/a>, who is a researcher at Hawai\u02bbi Institute of Marine Biology<\/a>, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa. \u201cThe meals ingested are then shared between all individuals of the colony.\u201d<\/p>\n

The waters of the Indo-Pacific are typically much more diverse than the Atlantic. “There are over 10 times more species of reef fishes and stony corals in the Indo-Pacific, compared to the Atlantic Ocean,\u201d she says. \u201cYou would expect to see entirely different groups of reef animals in each ocean.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, it was strange to see such striking similarities between the zoantharians of\u00a0Brazil<\/a>\u00a0and Okinawa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Zoantharians\"Zoantharians are anemone-like animals often found in\u00a0coral reefs. Credit: Hawai\u02bbi Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa<\/p>\n

This head-scratching moment led to Santos leading a scientific study \u2013 now published in\u00a0Frontiers of Biogeography<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 that reveals that these coral-like creatures are going against the grain and that populations far apart in different ocean basins can look and behave like close relatives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The study was the result of collaboration between scientists around the world. They looked at DNA records from Mexico to the Philippines to study the global biogeography of zoantharians for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiogeography is the science that studies how species are distributed across the geographical space and geological time,\u201d she says. \u201cFor example, which regions of the world have the highest diversity? Which processes lead to biodiversity hotspots?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Zoantharians\"Santos says zoantharians are “the ultimate ocean travellers”. Credit: Hawai\u02bbi Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa<\/p>\n

Their work uncovered why zoantharians might look and act so similar even in habitats many miles apart. The scientists believe that the animals\u2019 slow evolutionary rate plays a part as well as the fact that they may be “the ultimate oceanic travellers”.<\/p>\n

When zoantharians spawn, the larvae are spread widely across the ocean. The young can survive for more than 100 days, catching a ride on floating debris to hitchhike across immense distances \u2013 even across entire ocean basins.<\/p>\n

Understanding how these animals spread across the ocean is important, says Santos: “By revealing biogeographical patterns, we better support the monitoring and conservation of marine organisms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PalythoaPalythoa tuberculosa \u2013 a species of zoantharian. Credit: Hawai\u02bbi Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa<\/p>\n

Top image: Zoantharians\u00a0. Credit: Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology, University of Hawai\u02bbi at M\u0101noa\u00a0<\/p>\n

More amazing wildlife stories from around the world<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Brazilian researcher Dr Maria ‘Duda’ Santos went scuba diving in Okinawa, Japan, she was surprised. Everywhere she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":289026,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[111,139,69,147,406],"class_list":["post-289025","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289025","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289025"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289025\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}