Remarkable moment ‘sassy sparkler’ sea worm with rainbow-like bristles is discovered by underwater robot

A SPARKLY deep-sea worm has stunned researchers with its rainbow-like bristles successful a 3,000ft water trench disconnected the seashore of Chile.

The bristle worm, known arsenic a polychaete, was caught connected camera wrong the Chile Margin, a trench that extends the full magnitude of South America.

Researchers, collaborating with non-profit the Schmidt Ocean Institute, spotted the alien-like carnal with an underwater robot.

The robot, a remotely operated conveyance (ROV) known arsenic SuBastian, is 1 of galore being utilized by scientists to research inhuman depths.

Each conception of the worm's assemblage has a brace of fleshy protrusions, according to researchers, which are covered successful hedgehog-like spikes.

"To picture this polychaete, 1 simply indispensable usage jazz hands — it is the lone mode to seizure this deep-sea worm’s dazzle," the squad wrote successful an Instagram post, showing disconnected the creature.

"Some worms are bioluminescent, but this sassy sparkler has macromolecule structures successful the bristles that makes them iridescent."

The "shimmering deep-sea worm" was recovered during the institute's 55-day expedition to the Chile Margin, which began successful October.

An planetary subject squad is exploring on the Margin, which the institute says it is simply a "natural laboratory" owed to its positioning on the tectonic plates.

The squad comprises marine scientists from the US, Portugal and Chile.

"While the beingness of these deep-sea environments connected the Chile Margin is known, they person been minimally explored and sampled owed to constricted entree to precocious water technologies," the non-profit said of the mission.

The institute added that these "unexplored submarine canyons" are "likely big biodiversity hotspots".

Drs. Jeffrey Marlow of Boston University, Patricia Esquete of the University of Aveiro successful Portugal, and Eulogio Soto of the University of Valparaiso successful Chile person teamed up to representation the ecosystems disconnected the seashore of Chile.

The expedition is taking spot nether the Challenger 150 Programme, a decade-long deep-sea probe inaugural backed by UNESCO's oceanographic commission.

The squad intends to research the Limarí Seeps, the El Quisco Seep Area, the Concepcíon Methane Seep Area, the Mocha Island Seep Area, and the Chilean Triple Junction.

During their expedition, which is expected to tally until aboriginal December, the researchers anticipation to find caller methane seeps, hydrothermal vents and observe caller species.