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The find by the Hollingworths, a husband-and-wife team, includes three new species and an entire ecosystem of echinoderms — a group of animals that includes starfish, brittle stars, feather stars, sea lilies, sea cucumbers and echinoids.

Their free-floating cousins, the feather stars, were ambling by, looking to grab the same particles of food.

Mr. Clarkson and the other researchers watched as the pilots directed the vehicle’s robotic arm to grab a modified household spatula from an internal compartment and gently wedge it under the feather star.

Credit: James Thomas James’s team also found new species of feather star from the Oxycomanthus genus and distinctive species of nudibranch.

Among the echinoderms, notable for being covered with spines: starfish, feather stars, sea lilies, free–swimming crinoids, brittle stars, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, etc., represented a complete collection of the individuals in this group.