First ice-dwelling sea anemone

In December 2010, a camera on a submersible robot revealed a prolific spread of sea anemones living in burrows on the underside of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica. This represents the first evidence of anemones living within ice, and the first discovery of the Edwardsiella genus, or burrowing anemones, in the vicinity of the continent. Scientists working on the the Antarctic Geological Drilling (ANDRILL) Program, which had deployed the robot, have named them Edwardsiella andrillae.

Sea anemones are usually found on the seabed, latched on to sand or coral reefs. The discovery was announced in the journal PLoS ONE on 11 December 2013. It is not yet clear how the sea anemones dig into the ice, or how they reproduce.

The undersea robot that made the discovery is known as a Submersible Capable of under-Ice Navigation and Imaging (SCINI). It was deployed as part of the ANDRILL program, which studies sea currents at the South Pole, and its camera only spotted the sea anemones by chance.