The Lost City of Eels
Forget the Lost City of Atlantis, this is the Lost City of
Eels.
The Facts:
This is Eel City in Vailulu'u. Vailulu'u is a
massive volcanic seamount, not discovered until 1975, which
rises 4200 m from the sea floor to a depth of 590 m about
one-third of the way between Ta'u and Rose islands at the
eastern end of the American Samoas.
The Crevices at 708 meters (2,323 feet) of a hydrothermal
vent site are occupied by thriving aggregations of cutthroat (synaphobranchid)
eels. These eels, which have now been identified as Dysommina
rugosa, are known from trawl samples in both the Atlantic and
Pacific oceans, but have never before been studied in their
natural habitat. The only common metazoan (multicellular)
animals occupying these low-temperature hydrothermal vents,
preliminary work indicates that they use the vent only as a
place to live. They seem to feed not on chemosynthetic bacteria,
but on crustaceans that pass by Nafanua's summit in the
currents.
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