It looks like Patrick Star has a real-life counterpart, as marine scientists have released images of a starfish closely resembling the beloved Bikini Bottom-dwelling character from the children’s cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants.
According to the researchers – a combined team of marine scientists from various Argentine institutions led by Dr. Daniel Lauretta – the image was also live-streamed at the time of creation, August 2025, to an audience of nearly 4 million viewers, “propelling the starfish to global fame.”
The photo of “Patrick Star,” which, in reality, was a bright orange sea star in the genus Hippasteria, was snapped during a 20-day expedition of the Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon, a chasm in the ocean floor off the coast of Argentina reaching depths exceeding 3,500 meters.
While “Patrick Star” may have become a global sensation, he wasn’t the only superstar sighted. Throughout the expedition, the scientists, working from aboard the research vessel Falkor, used a remotely operated vehicle, named SuBastian, to discover 57 new species previously unkown to science, unlike "Patrick Star".
These included 20 copepods – tiny crustaceans found in the deep-sea sediments – and 22 echinoderms – the group that includes sea cucumbers and crinoids.
Among the echinoderms was “Loki” (Peniagone sp.), a striking horned sea cucumber photographed and filmed alive at 2,577 meters, which resembled the Norse god thanks to its pair of horned appendages.
The 2025 expedition marked the first in-situ observations of the Mar del Plata Canyon’s deep seafloor, enabling scientists to determine the diversity and distribution of its biological communities.
According to the Schmidt Institute, which provided the research vessels, a host of the newly discovered species were further studied using taxonomic analysis during a workshop in Buenos Aires this summer.
The team led by Lauretta is now planning a follow-up expedition to begin in February 2027, this time targeting a different submarine canyon expected to have “high levels of endemism.”
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