Diver Raniero Borg had a spooky encounter with a mysterious sea creature while diving off the coast of Malta. Borg captured footage of the transparent creature, which he had never seen before, and showed it to friends at a marine institute. They confirmed that the creature was a type of salp, a marine organism that feeds on tiny sea algae.
Borg described the creature as resembling a miniature jelly whale or dolphin. Its body was transparent, allowing Borg to see its gut and rib-like features. He had never encountered anything like it in his 40 years of diving.
In the footage, Borg can be seen touching the creature, and his hand is visible through its body. The creature is fish-shaped, with a visible mouth and a tube-like organ inside.
Salps are often mistaken for jellyfish, but they are actually closer taxonomically to humans. They grow rapidly, reaching maturity in just 48 hours and increasing their body length by up to 10% per hour. They move through the water by contracting muscles that ring their bodies, drawing in water at one end and pushing it out the other.
Salps are filter feeders, consuming anything they catch in their feeding net, but their main food source is phytoplankton. They normally live for two weeks to three months, until they are eaten by a mackerel or a tuna.
Borg believes his encounter with the salp is the only one of its kind along Malta’s coastline. However, evidence suggests that various salp sightings have occurred around the islands.
Encounters with rare and unusual sea creatures are not uncommon for divers, but Borg’s discovery sheds light on the mysterious world beneath the waves.
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