Hey, I'm Flora Lickman, and you're listening to Science Friday.

Today in the podcast, a new to us, deep sea alien.

And within that proboscis, there are these, like, chitinous lips almost.

And within that mouth is three cute little teeth.

Researchers found a new sea spider with a giant nose, leg cannons,

and most remarkably a novel way of surviving in the lightless, freezing environment,

miles below the sea surface. These oceanic arthropods are

powered by methane that seeps out of the ocean floor. Here to tell us more and how we're

connected to these little beasts is Dr. Shauna Goughreddy, Professor of Biology at Occidental

College in Los Angeles, California. Shauna, welcome to Science Friday. Thanks, Flora.

I was just grinning from ear to ear with that description.

That was an amazing description of the research.

I'm so glad.

I'm so glad we didn't botch it.

Thank you.

I have heard of methane-powered microbes, but now sea spiders.

Please introduce me to them.

Yes. So we have for quite some time actually wanted to understand whether certain animals

can take advantage of methane on the seafloor. And just as you said, we only know that microbes can do it.

And we are aware of some animals that can partner with some of those

methane-eating microbes. But we've been interested in discovering others because we know that

methane is coming from the seafloor and it is a very high-energy molecule. And so we were on the

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