'Longest animal ever' discovered in deep-sea canyon off Australian coast

Underwater explorers found a 150-foot-long (45 meters) siphonophore — a translucent, stringy creature that, like coral, is made up of smaller critters — living in a submarine canyon off the coast of Australia. It's "seemingly the largest animal ever discovered," they said.

Every individual siphonophore is made up of many little "zooids," which each live lives that are more similar to animals we're used to talking about, albeit always connected to the larger colony.

Zooids are born axsexually, and each one performs a function for the siphonophore's larger body, according to a research article published in the journal Developmental Dynamics in 2005. Linked together in long chains, the colonies were already known to reach lengths of up to 130 feet (40 m) according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium — though each siphonophore is only about as thick as a broomstick.

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(Image: Schmidt Ocean Institute)

An image shows the coils of the long siphonophore.

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The scientists observed up to 30 new species and also spotted a bioluminescent octopus squid, a long-tailed sea cucumber, and several species of mollusks, barnacles, and squat lobsters