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Giant 'Sea Spiders' In Arctic And Southern Oceans Intrigue Scientists

By R. Siva Kumar | Update Date: Jan 01, 2016 07:52 PM EST

You can see them if you dive right into the coldest depths of the Arctic and Southern oceans.

They are gigantic "sea spiders" with eight massive long legs and a proboscis, according to the Daily Mail.

Considered to be pycnogonids or a type of primitive marine arthropod, these creatures expanded more in the polar oceans than elsewhere, and became so huge that they are labelled under "polar gigantism". This phenomenon is not totally clear to scientists, though. "Polar gigantism" affects other creatures such "copepods, echinoderms and certain types of mollusks".

You can find these sea spiders in other seas too, but nowhere else do they grow leg-spans of almost 25 cms, according to Hakai Magazine.

It is interesting that the increased size might be due to the denser concentration dissolved oxygen in the cold water. While the Antarctica oceans have more dissolved oxygen in seawater, if combined with slower metabolisms due to cold temperatures, it might have led to polar gigantism.

In order to prove their hypothesis, the scientists collected the sea spiders and tested them in a range of temperatures. They found that the larger ones do not fare well in weak oxygen environments.

Still, more research is needed to establish the reason for the giant sea-spiders.

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