Beneath the Antarctic seas

Under the Antarctic ice, in the pitch-black depths of the ocean, Australian scientists have discovered animals are evolving into strange and sometimes monstrous new shapes and forms. Life, these scientists believe, is using the frigid Antarctic waters to experiment, and animals there are evolving at a much faster pace than anywhere else in the world. And the weird creatures are riding deep-sea currents to migrate to other parts of the world.

Brittle stars look like terrifying relatives of starfish. They lack a brain or eyes, but can sense their prey in the water and swim toward it with their long, spiny arms. Some eat detritus; others use their spiked arms to catch any fish foolish enough to stray too close, pulling the fish in towards their mouths.

They found brittle stars appeared to be evolving much faster in the Antarctic than anywhere else in the world. If it is true of brittle stars, it is likely true of other species. Their dramatic finding, published in the Nature journal on Thursday, suggests there has been an explosion of life in the deep waters off Antarctica, with a new species being pumped out into the world's oceans. It upends the old assumption that evolution happens much faster in the warm tropics than the cold Antarctic.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/down-in-the-deep-beneath-the-antarctic-ice-a-new-strange-world-is-rapidly-forming-20190123-p50t2p.html