Four Incredible Creature Sightings on Palmyra Atoll
During our exploration of Palmyra Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), our scientists were lucky enough to encounter a plethora of creatures at the bottom of the sea. In this highlight videos you’ll see some incredibly difficult to identify underwater animals of all shapes and sizes. Check out some of the extraordinary invertebrates we spotted out here on the sandy bottom of the Central Pacific, including a mollusk, anemone, acorn worm, and an unidentified gelatinous creature (tentatively IDed as hydromedusa species) that is sure to knock your socks off!
This expedition is funded by NOAA Ocean Exploration via the Ocean Exploration Cooperative Institute.
Kingman Reef & Palmyra Atoll
The deep-water areas around Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll are within one of the largest marine protected areas in the world, the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument (PRIMNM). Despite a growing number of expeditions to explore deep-sea environments of the PRIMNM, including a 2019 Nautilus expedition, many areas remain unexplored.
