New Four-Eyed Creatures Discovered in Hole at the Beach

Two new species, each colored bright red and equipped with four eyes, were recently found thriving off a ghost shrimp burrow in Japan.

Researchers discovered the new species with bizarre features hiding in the sandy burrows made by ghost shrimp on a beach on Japan's Ryukyu Islands. On November 1, researchers published a study in the scientific journal PeerJ regarding the two new species—identified as members of Parahesione, a genus of segmented worms. The ghost shrimp, also known as glass shrimp for their transparent bodies, created an environment that was symbiotic to both new species of worms.

The worms both had four eyes and a bristly red appearance. Their names, Parahesione pulvinata and Parahesione apiculata, referenced the appearance of organs on their backs, which are pillow-shaped on the former and short and pointed on the latter.

P. pulvinata's four tiny eyes are dark red and flanked by two sets of four cirri, or appendages that resemble tentacles. P. apiculata's eyes are discreet and flanked by three cirri on each side.

While studying both species, researchers learned how the worms used their biological qualities to thrive in the symbiotic relationship with the shrimp in the shrimp's sand burrow.

"Another interesting adaptation is the extreme flatness of body...We suggest these features may facilitate the worm movement between the host body and the walls of the narrow burrowsand to increase the body surface either to be in contact with the host or with the burrow walls," the authors wrote in the study.

The study went on to add that both species have always been found in the shrimp's burrows, suggesting that they require a symbiotic relationship with the shrimp to survive. P. apiculata has only ever been seen on the Ryukyu Islands in Japan. P. pulvinata has also been found in Vietnam and Papua New Guinea.

Researchers also determined that the worms' red bodies are an adaptation for the species can thrive in the hypoxic environment created by the ghost shrimp, which is too low on oxygen to sustain most life. Ghost shrimp can survive up to six days without oxygen, according to the National Park Service. The shrimp's burrows can extend 4 feet deep.

Humans regularly identify new species—both those that exist today and newly discovered species that existed millions of years ago. Humans have only discovered a small extent of the species thriving on Earth, with 86 percent of species remaining undiscovered on land and 91 percent of species undiscovered in the ocean, according to a 2011 study by Boris Worm.

A report from World Atlas hypothesizes that many of the undiscovered species live in the ocean and the Amazon rainforest, both vast areas that boast many different species. In 2017, researchers in the Amazon rainforest were discovering a new species every other day, according to National Geographic.