The Exploration Vessel Nautilus was treated to an extraordinary sight while on a mission in Hawaii. The team has found a gulper eel ballooning like an airbag.
The crew was able to capture the moment when the rare underwater creature swimming above a rocky ocean floor, with its inflated jaw.
Mesmerizing Creature
"[It] looks like a muppet," said one of the people onboard the ship as the camera zooms into the creature. "I think he ate too much."
As soon as the creature opened its mouth, however, the crew knew for sure that the bloated swimmer was a gulper eel, a type of deep-sea fish that is rarely seen. The mouth of a gulper eel is similar to that of a pelican. It has a pouch-like mouth that can inflate and scoop water to catch a much larger prey.
On its Twitter account, Nautilus shared that the gulper eel they saw might still be young. These creatures can grow up to 3 feet in length.
"We had been photographing and videotaping the deep-sea coral habitats, and that's when we observed this strange balloon creature with a tail," explained Thomas Hourigan, one of the lead scientists onboard the Nautilus. "It was totally unexpected."
The expedition is currently in Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, Hawaii's largest protected area that spans over half a million square miles of sea and land. The fish was found about 1,425 meters or about (4,675 feet below the surface using the Ocean Exploration Trust, a remote-operated device.
Discovering New Creatures
The Nautilus is in its fourth year of exploring the Eastern Pacific Ocean. The 64-meter research vessel operated by the OET has been surveying and documenting some regions of the Pacific Ocean that have not been mapped or fully explored by humans.
The exploration proves that there are still so much to learn about the Earth's water, particularly the deep sea. In 2016, the explorers onboard made headlines when they captured a video of an adorable "googly-eyed stubby squid."
"Almost any time we dive we're finding something new and exceptional," added Hourigan.
The Nautilus will be at the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument to study "enigmatic" seamounts and to observe creatures that live around them. They will continue to stream the expedition until Oct. 2.
According to the team's calendar, the research vessel will next head to the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone in the area between Hawaii and San Francisco. They will use multibeam echosounder and sub-bottom profiler to map the seafloor.
