28 March 2020 | New Scientist | 29Deeply shocking
Photo BBDO/Weston/Jamieson
THE beautiful, interlocking,
armoured plates of this amphipod
are meant to keep it safe from
predators and other threats. But
they can’t protect it from plastic
pollution, which is how this
creature got its name.
Eurythenes plasticus is a newly
described shrimp-like species
found between 6 and 7 kilometres
down in the Pacific Ocean’s
Mariana trench, where Earth’s
deepest waters are found.
Johanna Weston at Newcastle
University, UK, and her colleagues
used baited traps to catch several
specimens, which can grow up to
5 centimetres long. Analysing
their hindguts revealed that one of
them, a juvenile, had consumed a
microplastic particle very similar
to polyethylene terephthalate, or
PET, a plastic often used to make
water bottles and fabrics.
The team named the animals
plasticus to send the message that
even sea creatures living so deep
are exposed to this pollution. And
if a juvenile consumed plastic, this
indicates that such scavengers
could be “ingesting microplastics
throughout their life, which could
pose acute and chronic health
effects”, says the team (Zootaxa,
doi.org/dp3m).
While the effects of exposure
to microplastics haven’t been
studied in deep-sea amphipods,
there is evidence that ingesting
one form of these particles –
polypropylene fibres – increases
mortality in Pacific sand crabs. ❚
Chris Simms