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Not What It Seemed

Over its half-century career, the submersible Alvin has allowed scientists to discover many previously unknown deep-sea creatures, including tubeworms, hagfish, and the Yeti crab. An Alvin pilot collected a sample of this animal near hydrothermal vents on the East Pacific Rise in 2002. It was orginally thought to the world’s largest sea anemone with tentacles more than 6 feet long. But a study of the creature’s DNA, published in 2014, revealed that the animal (Relicanthus daphneae) is in an entirely new order of animals, about as different from anemones as a dog is from a horse. (Photo courtesy of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Archives)