By REBECCA MORELLE - BBC NEWS SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT
Added: Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:04:01 UTC

Dr Ashley Rowden, scientist: "It's great to be on a ship when something unusual comes up on deck"

A huge crustacean has been found lurking 7km down in the waters off the coast of New Zealand.

The creature - called a supergiant - is a type of amphipod, which are normally around 2-3cm long.

But these beasts, discovered in the Kermadec Trench, were more than 10 times bigger: the largest found measured in at 34cm.

Alan Jamieson, from the University of Aberdeen's Oceanlab, said: "It's a bit like finding a foot-long cockroach."

"I stopped and thought: 'What on Earth was that?' This amphipod was far bigger than I ever thought possible."

The strange animals were found using a large metal trap, which had been equipped with a camera, housed in sapphire glass to keep it safe from the high pressures of the deep sea.

Seven specimens were caught in the trap and nine were captured on film by the team from the University of Aberdeen, in Scotland, and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa), in New Zealand.

The largest specimen brought back up to the ship measured 28cm in length, while the biggest spotted on camera was 34cm-long.

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TAGGED: BIOLOGY, SCIENCE