It may feel like in today’s day and age, there is little left for humans to discover here on earth. However, new discoveries continue to be made year after year. And thanks to technology, we can now witness some of these discoveries on video, and that’s just what we get to do.
Experienced diver Raniero Borg found a translucent fish so clear it looked like little more than water itself. As he shared with Pen News, in all his 40 years of diving, he’d never discovered something like this fish. And he was able to capture the moment on video!
Borg made the discovery in the waters off the coast of Marsalforn, Malta and he happily shared his findings with the world. The video was eventually posted to Reddit by user PrizmShadow, where you can see Borg touching the translucent salp, or “sea squirt.”
Salps are similar to jellyfish and can survive on their own, though they usually travel in large groups.
The Australian Museum shared about the interesting sea creature, saying, “Salps are semi-transparent barrel-shaped marine animals that move through the water by contracting bands of muscles which ring the body (the body is referred to as a test). When found washed up on shores they are often mistaken as jellyfish. The contracting muscles draw water in the front of the test and out the rear. Salps feed by filtering plankton and algae and move using an incredibly efficient jet propulsion system, one of the most efficient examples of jet propulsion in the animal kingdom.”
People were naturally intrigued by the video and the comments on Reddit were both educational and hilarious.
The clever commenters definitely had fun putting that string together. All jokes aside, salps are so translucent that they’re barely visible underwater. They blend right in!
Life under the sea is a vast world all on its own. Much like life above water, the oceans have delicate ecosystems and environments that are easily harmed by pollution and human impact.
Raniero Borg uses his diving to help clean up the world down under and regularly shares his clean-up efforts on his Facebook page, Raniero’s Adventures.
Check out the incredible discovery he made during a dive:
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